Tuesday, January 15, 2008

I haven't written for the last few days because things have been very calm, peaceful, warm and sunny, and probably pretty boring to hear about (though not to experience) - but today I had a bit of an adventure.

There's a beautiful canyon outside town. It is called Nacapule. A stream flows through it, and palm trees grow along the stream. Today, Roger and Blitzen and I went for a hike to the pool at the top of the trail. Neither Robin nor Chantal wanted to go. We left the park at about 9:30 in the morning. Roger drove his Dodge truck up a road that I wouldn't even attempt to drive on because of its twists and turns, cactus right up against the road, and rocks the size of bricks, but pointed, poking up out of the surface. It must have been close to 10:00 when we parked at the foot of the trail and started hiking. There were level places and bumpy places and places where we had to grab hand-holds in the rock face and pull ourselves through tunnels. I got a couple of soakers while crossing over little pieces of the stream. Eventually, we found ourselves at the top of the trail. There we were beside the pool, surrounded by cliffs about thirty feet high. We counted three frogs in the pool.

After a few minutes' rest, Roger decided to explore a bit. He had heard that if we climbed up over those cliffs, we would come to a flat area and then be able to get back to the parking lot by another route. He left Blitzen with me. I sat on a beautifully positioned rock and gazed across the pool at the wall behind it. The sun was shining in on the pool and reflecting onto the rock face, making concentric circles with wavy edges that shimmered and formed and re-formed. It looked as if the vertical wall were under maybe six inches of water. It was simply beautiful. I tried to photograph the phenomenon, but I don't think it worked. You had to be there.

When Roger came back, he said that he had found the trail, but it was pretty rough - so we went back the way we had come. Our only casualty occurred when I caught my pants on a sharp bit of rock and tore them a bit. Why did I wear my expensive pants for a hike? Oh, yes. They're lightweight, and I figured that jeans would be too hot. Silly me.

So we came back home. We got to the park a bit after noon. I heated tortillas and beans for my lunch, then sat down and finished reading Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. What a fine book! Isabel Allende said about it, "It is so powerful that for a long time everything I read seemed bland." She's absolutely right. I've got The Devil Wears Prada to read next, and I can't bring myself to start it yet.

Not that I have time to read right now. It's Tuesday, and Tuesday is 2 for 1 pizza night at Froggy's - so it's gonna be a party. We're expecting the crowd to head out any minute now, to be sure to get a big table.

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