Day 5

Today was a great day :0) we started it off horseback riding and that was an experience for us all...I think we all enjoyed it..some people's horses went faster than others. At first, some of us were nervous with our horsie's initial movements but I think we all overcame it..even Nurul! Justin rode Popo, I rode Mariachi, Jared thought he was riding a unicorn, Victor rode Canelo...and I outrode them all! well, except for Katia who went with the experienced group.

After the horses we went straight for the zip lining. Our success rate here wasn't as good and I think we had 6 of us complete the course. The breaking technique was a little tricky for some of us. The lines were way up in the forest and even above the trees. It was very awesome and we all loved it. At one point it started to rain and all you could see in front of you was white cloudy mist. You had to hike in between some of the sets of lines (there were 11 lines total) and these hikes made me feel like I smoked a pack a day! The last part of the hike was something called the Tarzan. Out of the 6, we only had 4 go through with this one. You walk down a suspension bridge (that almost made me want to back out) and then get to a platform. Two guys who don't really give you much instruction, other than step off, hook you up to a cable. Then you literally step off of the platform and decend straight down for what feels like a total free fall. Then you start to swing back and forth like a pendulum. Worse than any roller coaster I've even been on, but pure exhilaration .. Ian, Griffin, And Victor were the ones who survived it :-) Ian and Victor were quiet jumpers, while me and Griffin were big screamers :-)

After all that excitement, we went to visit the school. It was a small elementary school with two classes: one kindergarten and the other was mixed. Maybe 15 kids total I think. Some of the kids performed traditional dances for us and afterwards we had a chance to play with them. Our group, by far, was the most generous. As a group we brought the most and the best things for them. At this point though, most of us were pretty tired and were ready to go back to the hotel.

So far, day 5 and 3 have been group favorites.