Here there be dragons...

"I'm telling you stories. Trust me." - Winterson

So today I swam through a cloud

Right so Fitbit says I broke 20000 steps today and 220 flights of stairs. And that was entirely done in the rain. I’m now frozen and exhausted but was still an amazing trip :)
Before the trip though was morning lessons. My teacher, Santiago, is a really amazing teacher so that’s making for a v positive experience. While the grammar we’re doing is all review, the other things are all new and useful - tons of vocabulary, but more importantly nuances that either aren’t in my textbook or that I missed entirely. Like words that change their meaning entirely when they become reflexive (eg - in one case it means ‘you’re fired’ and in another ‘goodbye’).
I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I actually really enjoyed tonight’s homework. First half of the exercise was conjugating verbs to make the story make sense (meh) but the second half was to write the end of the story. And I was pleased that unlike the last time I played this game, I didn’t have to entirely dumb it down. I only needed to google two words for translation (and confirm spelling on a ton ;) - but we’ll see tomorrow how much red is required to make it grammatically correct ;). It did take me almost 2h to complete (and it’s less than a page long) but sobeit. I was also chatting throughout so fair to say it wasn’t a dedicated effort.
Trip today was hiking in a private reserve in the cloud forest. The drive there was brutal, after re reached the end of the main road the next hour was reminiscent of the African massage. It was truly horrid, and a few of us were feeling pretty notion sick by the end (that was with drugs and armbands!).
The first half of the hike was the rest of the way up the road. Misty/spitting weather and all kinds of deep, sucking, mud. Did bring back memories of childhood, but was quite the challenge of balance and coordination to avoid ending flat out in the mud. Or to lose a shoe!
Once we made it to the trail things actually got slightly easier. And it was pretty amazing, deep woods, hugely green, with occasional gaps that you could see through to the clouds. Very cool. Hike was about 3h and always either down or up, no flat spots. In a few places there were ropes tied to the ground - without those, I think we still would’ve been there! Steep and very very slick (think wet leaf-covered mud). Felt like I was in a great obstacle course doing that.
Suffice to say by the end I was soaked and pretty well covered in mud.  My shoes will never be the same again (I actually took them in the shower with me in an attempt to save them!).  And I’m now down to one usable pair of pants for the remainder of the trip lol.
But overall the whole adventure was amazing. I was not at all fit enough for it, and *really* wish I hadn’t brought my camera. It never came out of its bag and by the end my shoulders and neck were killing me! But oh well. Drive home seemed to last forever, although there were a ton of lightning bugs (which the girl from the UK had never seen before and was fascinated by!) which made it moderately amusing. I’ve never been so grateful to reach a paved road!
Anyways - very long day and definitely time for bed.  

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