So this past Saturday a few of us went hiking in the national park here. Except for the ridiculous effects of the altitude, it was a phenomenal experience. Just to give you an idea, Cochabamba (the city where I live) is at an elevation of about 8,500 feet. That makes it about 3,000 feet higher than Denver (i.e. really high). Now imagine we are climbing up the side of a fairly large mountain. Yah....crazy. Needless to say, I didn´t make it all the way to the top, but nevertheless the scenery was amazing. To the left you can see a picture that I took on the way back down of the sun setting behind the mountains.
I would also like to use this post to announce the winner of the first annual Gringo Award. This award is given to the American who does the stupidest thing in Bolivia while studying Spanish here for six weeks. And the winner is......my classmate Patrick! Patrick came on our climbing expedition, and like all the rest of us, he brought drinking
water with him. However, when we were deciding what to leave at the entrance of the park so as to lighten our backpacks, he decided to leave all his water there, without making that fact explicitly clear to the rest of us. Here´s the kicker, though. While he left the giant thermos of water at the bottom of the hill, he continued to carry an entire bottle of Bailey´s Irish Creme all the way to the top of the mountain. To the left you can see Patrick in all his glory. Here´s to Patrick, the winner of the first (and probably only) Gringo Award.
3 comments:
With all this exercise, does this mean you will be running in the Shamrock Shuffle with us next spring?
Tom, I love the picture of the sunset. It looks like awesome scenery. I have a good story about hiking mountains in central america and getting robbed at gunpoint.
That picture is simply beautiful. Reminds me of how last weekend, while hiking in the Shawnee Nat'l Forest we saw the sunset atop the blue ridge mountains. Nature is breathtaking, and God is unbeleivable with greatness.
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