Hierve de Agua

This weekend has been bomb, as Allie would say (=. Yesterday our group of continually acculturizing (is that a word in English or just Spanish?) gringos met early in the morning to go on another excursion "to a site of natural beauty." End quote from our director.

After about a 2 hour drive that began on the freeway, proceeded on windy narrow mountain roads and then bumpy dirt ones through pueblos with kids riding on burros, and ended with me stumbled out of the van and exclaiming, "Gracias a Dios que yo no vomite!", we were there!

Hierve de agua is a natural phenomenon that is incredible. I don't completely understand it but I'll try to explain a little. They are kind of like hot springs, with carbonated water that bubbles up and contains minerals that form a kind of petrified waterfall with their deposits. The only other place like it in the world is in Turkey (according to Wikipedia).

We hiked (it was HOT!) for about 2 hours around the waterfalls first....down the slope so we got to the bottom....then back up. Gotta love the sweat rings under the armpits! (and down the back and...well...you get the picture). BUT THEN WE GOT TO SWIM! In the springs. It was awesome! We made a video of all of us doing synchronized swimming dive attempts off the edge into the water, one after another. It felt beauteous. Sorry I made that word up too. The

re was also a dark beauty there topless. I didn't get pictures but I'm sure the boys did lol. That was kind of weird. But the views from the springs were amazing. It was a great day.

And this morning I did a 5K run! It was 50 pesos to support "cancer mamario" (breast cancer). I'm really glad I did it....will my gringa friends of course. And I got a free t-shirt! The pre-race aerobics were the best part (=.

I hope that everyone else had wonderous weekends as well! Much love!

PS...I will now attempt to upload fotos....prepare yourselves. I apologize ahead of time...

This is a close up of one of the bubbling springs....a new one....we didn't swim here lol.

This is a far away of the "petrified" waterfall....see how cool the deposits look. At the top is one of the pools we swam in. Picture the view sitting up at the edge there!

One of the springs that we swam in...there were two. You can see the edge of the second on the far lefthand side of the photo.

My new friend I saw. An iguana? I named him Pedro.

Me attempting to look hot at the end of out hike....not as in attractive hot...as in really sweaty, let me jump in the pool NOW! kind of hot.

This is a different day. But this is my room. And the point of the picture is to show off my awesome new capris that I bought and bartered for...they cost me approximate 6 US dollars and are perfect and BRIGHT! and light as aire! They'll probably turn all my clothes blue, but my clothes are all changing strange colors anyway...so why not go for the complete TiDye affect!