La Culata

Yesterday being Saturday (our free-ish day of the week) we were invited by my beautiful friend Lucia to take a trek into the Andes for the day. So after a little coercing on my end (nature and me, we normally don't mix) and a bucket full of excitement from everyone else we met at 7:30 (ON SATURDAY MIND YOU) A.M. to head off towards these so called Andes. The ride up there was quite entertaining. We were precariously situated on the seats of an old 12 passenger van careening around turns in the road - it would have been an opportune time for the game Jello, had I not been consistently being poked by my van-mates. That is something that has come about as of late - people have discovered my ticklishness and the fact that I tend to let out some sort of squeal-ish noise when poked. This is quickly becoming a pasttime of my team and even some of the Venezuelans! Taylor, you'd be proud. Anyway, so we careened up into the hills for about an hour, keeping ourselves entertained with poking, telling stories from the past week, doing imitations, and flailing about the van at every hairpin turn in the road (there are no seatbelts in Venezuela). We finally arrived up the mountain, only to find, to our dismay that the restaurant at the top (where we would get some breakfast) wasn't open yet! Boo. Poor Angela practically died of hunger. We waited a half an hour for them to open, playing some football (American style, not soccer!), giving massages, and generally keeping up a witty banter until they finally opened. We dined on Pepsi and Pastelitos - little friend pastry type deals with meats and or cheese concoction in them. I don't remember the last time I had meat mixture for breakfast - but it was good! We also paid to use the bathroom - I know!! We PAID money to use the bathroom....silly huh? Well in Venezuela there is no toilet paper in public restrooms, neither is there soap. At this bathroom, it cost us 400 Bs (roughly 15 cents) to use the bathroom, however we were provided with toilet paper as well as soap - sweet! After all of the pastelitos and bathroom fun, we finally headed up into the mountains. It was a nice walk, the views were incredible and it was very quiet up there (with the exception of a few cows, cow pies, and random horses in the road). We found our way to a big boulder which half the group decided to climb. (I opted out, remember - I'm not nature girl, neither did I have any desire to re-injure my knee....) After that we decided to head back down to a little river we passed by. The team was of the mindset to cross it. I personally was not. (Again, bad knees and slippery rocks are not a good plan). However, they weren't havin' it. Eben, the Rock, made it his personal job to make sure I got across the river. Boo. That was scary. We walked up to an observatory point and could see a great view from the top. We headed down again and lunched by the river, all sitting on the one mat brought by Lucia. This took a significant amount of coordination, and eventually, once all of the lunch products had been consumed decomposed into a big pile of us. We spent a while resting there, laughing our heads off, and staring into the sky before it was time to head back and catch the bus back to Merida. On the bus on the way home, we were rather sleepy and SUNBURNT! I nodded off a few times myself I know. All in all, despite my own insecurity in being around nature, it was a great day with great friends and it was cool to be able to just stand there in the midst of God's beautiful creation and enjoy it. Who knows if I'll do it again....we shall see, my friends, we shall see......:)