Ecology Field Trip

16 Mayo 2009

Last Saturday I had an ecology field trip. None of us really knew what we were doing or where we were going or anything, so we were all a little unsure about how the day would be. After getting a little ecology explanation about rivers on the bus, we stopped at a little town for breakfast. The only option for breakfast was bread or coffee…so I got ice cream and a banana. Then we headed to a place called Cerro de Hierro for a hike in the countryside. The wild flowers were beautiful and it was an old iron mine, so there were some amazing rock formations. I took a lot of pictures (as usual) and it was actually a lot of fun. Our teacher is really cool, a little bit crazy but a lot of fun. We wandered around the rocks for awhile, had some tough climbs up slippery rocks (I cut my hand) and through caves/tunnels (I smashed my head on one and broke my sunglasses!). Then we stopped for lunch and all shared out food – I really like my class, we get along really well. I was glad we waited until the end of the semester for the trip. At first it seemed like a waste of one of my last days here, but it ended up being really fun. I like these kinds of field trips because I never would have gone to this random place to hike on my own but it was really beautiful. Then we got on the bus to head to a different place. One of the kids brought his guitar and my teacher plays harmonica so they were playing blues songs on the bus and then the kid started playing/singing songs that we all knew, like Jack Johnson, Jason Mraz, the Beatles – even some Britney Spears! It was really cool, especially when everyone sang along!

Our last stop was at this beautiful little waterfall called El Martinete, in the town of San Nicolas. We were so mad our teacher hadn’t told us to bring our bathing suits because some Spanish kids were swimming and jumping off a huge rock into the water because it was very deep. We were hot and it looked like fun…so another girl and I decided to swim anyways! We jumped off the big rock into the water, and swam around. Our teacher had said if anyone went in, he would, too, so he did! Eventually about ¾ of the class ended up in the water in various stages of clothing, haha. It was very fun and the Spaniards were all looking at us like we were crazy! There was one scary moment though – one of the kids was going to jump off but he hesitated and slipped near the edge – right towards the only rock in the water! Luckily he managed to grab onto a vine or tree branch and hang above the water for a minute until he was able to swing himself back onto the rock. He ended up being fine, other than a bunch of big scrapes, but it was really scary! It was such a fun day though, very crazy and definitely an interesting memory of Spain!

pictures!