Jungle Hike

We met up with our indigenous guide, Lucas, and started off on our 2-hour hike through the jungle. We learned about the religious meaning of the Ceiba tree, whose roots hold the earth together; we found piles of snail shells that had been gutted for food by indigenous people; we had to walk around the long trails of leaf-cutter ants. The trails were dirt and leaves, and a few rickety, wooden bridges. One of the football players on our trip actually snapped a board in one of the bridges. Thankfully, he landed face-first in the dirt on the other side instead of in the water below!

As a reward for our hard work (as if a hike through the rainforest isn’t reward enough!), we spent a couple of hours climbing and swimming in the Golondrinas waterfalls. There were six falls that were pretty close together, and a few small pools, but the current wasn’t very strong. I was pretty nervous about climbing around them at first, but by the end of our time, I had done “the hard one”, which involved scaling a short rock wall inside the fall, then holding my breath as I pulled myself through a 2’ x 3’ cavernous opening to cross back through the water at the top of the fall.

It was neat to film a lot of the rainforest flora and fauna, but I was very relieved to put the camera down for a few hours and just unwind!

Today, I also got a nickname from the guys. One of them started saying that I will working for National Geographic after I’m done with this trip and Wabash. The rest of them agreed and started calling me “National Geographic” or “NG” because of the running, jumping, and all the extra energy I have to put into everything we do; everytime Alonso stops to talk, I have to have the camera rolling (and hopefully focused!) to get his stuff, whatever he's talking about, and the guys in the shot. I don’t really think that I’ll be working for a such a major company after this is all over, but it was a pretty neat compliment and it made me feel good about all the hard work I’m doing trying to get everything on tape and camera.