It is Monday, and I should be studying for my test, but I am taking a tiny break. I wanted to go back and reflect on the weekend because it was awesome! We went to Adalaide which is about 3 hours outside of PE. We were hosted by two great families, both of which are farmers and had hundreds of acres of land. One family, which we stayed with first was into dairy farming. Right when we got there, the husband showed us around and we got a chance to milk a cow. It was a weird feeling and I felt like I was hurting the cow, but that wasn’t the case. He also squirted warm milk straight from the utter into our mouths and it was delicious! Probably because I drink milk like it is my job, but not everyone liked it. It was kind of cold and rainy all weekend, but we made the most of our time there and I think everyone really enjoyed themselves. For dinner that night we had a chicken stew with a bunch of veggies and some rice. It was an actual home cooked meal and we all sat and ate around their dinner tables. After dinner we just hung out and then the girls were shuttled to the neighbors house to spend the night since that house didn’t have enough room for all of us. The house we were at for dinner was huge and decorated so nicely with plenty of family portraits and pictures. But the house that the girls stayed at both nights was spectacular! It was huge and each room was decorated with a different theme. There was even a zebra room! I passed out that night because I was so tired. In the morning, and yes we got to sleep it which was so nice, we waited for the boys to come to the house (which was about a 20 minute drive even though they were neighbors) so that we could have breakfast together. It was raining outside so we hung out for awhile. It was really nice that they didn’t rush us places because it made it such a relaxing weekend unlike bush camp. After breakfast we went on the back of two trucks to see how this family makes their money which is from the wool industry. They sheer all 4,000 of their sheep by hand and their wool is in demand all over the world. Patrick figured it out to be that they make about 200,000 dollars each year after they sell their wool. Which explains why their house is so nice. We also got a chance to hold some baby goats. Once we were done watching some of the workers sheer two of their sheep, we went to shoot some targets with the husband’s 22 rifle. All the guys went first and everyone hit the paper, but none hit the bullseye. Then it was the girls turn. I have never held a gun before so I wasn’t really sure what to do, but I ended up hitting the paper just outside the bullseye. It seemed by the looks for the paper that the girls had a much better shot than the guys and Chelsea ended up winning the bottle of wine with a bullseye! We went in for some sandwiches after shooting the gun and by then I was so tired. We were outside most of the day walking, or driving in the trucks in the cold and rain. It started to clear up a little after lunch, but all I wanted to do was sleep. They had a hike planned for us after lunch so we drove the trucks up as far as we could to the foot of the mountain. They let us walk up the mountain to see the amazing view from the top. Kelly and I wanted to run, but only made it 6 minutes before it became too steep for us to run any more. Kelly, Scott, Muhammad and I made it to the top before anyone else was even close, so we decided to head the the next mountain over because it was just alittle higher and looked like it had even a better view. I am so glad we went the extra bit because it was all worth it. We sat on some rocks at the very top and gazed out into the beautiful valley below us. I was shaking alittle because of the altitude I think and from using a bunch of different muscles to climb and jump over rocks and boulders on the way up. On the way down it was much more difficult because my shoes were already muddy and it was very slippery because of all the rain. We made it back to the other mountain just in time for some pictures and then headed all the way back down just before some rain clouds moved in. We got back to the house for some dinner, which was actually going to be ready for some time. They set out some beer and wine for us to drink before dinner and I have to say that I have had my fair share of wine and I have hated all of them. But the wine I tasted that night was actually not that bad and I couldn’t tell that I was getting drunk and it hit me all at once. It took me almost an hour and a half to eat my steak dinner because it was so delicious! I savored every bite of it. Just before dinner, most of us were sitting in the husbands trophy room which was filled with heads of various animals from Africa including zebra, wildebeest, kudu, and even a giraffe. He went around the room and named off every animal and told a short story about where he shot it. When he stopped on the story about the zebra I couldn’t listen anymore because he said that it was his favorite hunt and that he had really had to work for it because he had chased it all day long. To me it would only be impressive if he caught the zebra with his bare hands on foot, because I know for a fact he was probably in a jeep with a state of the art gun that requires no “skill” at all. Not saying that I could shoot an animal, but shooting a gun is a lot easier than how people use to have to hunt. I don’t admire anyone who shoots an animal just to hang it on their wall and tell a story. There is a difference between that and shooting an animal for the meat, which I have no problem with. Anyways, he also told us about the giraffe and how when he shot it, it cried (because giraffe’s have tear ducts that allow them to shed tears) He said that hunt had hurt him most, but why hunt the giraffe at all if you knew that was going to happen... Back to the wonderful weekend we had; We talked the rest of the night and went to bed around midnight. We were up a little late the next morning and headed back to the first farmer’s house for breakfast. Directly after breakfast we packed up everything and headed out for another hike, but this time it as to a waterfall. Both husbands drove us as far as they could to the waterfall, but with all the rain that they had in the past few days, we had to get out early and hike the rest of the way. Along the path there were many spiders, which were surprisingly larger than the spiders I saw in the Amazon! The hike was muddy and wet, but it was all worth it when we got the the waterfall. We ended around a pool of water and we could hear the waterfall, but we couldn’t see it. We then had to swim about 30 or 40 yards through a narrow passage of water to see the waterfall. The water was freezing and I had a hard time swimming because I really don’t know the right technique so I got tired rather fast. Once we were close enough you could feel the current push you away from the falling water. Most of the boys were already on top of the waterfall before I even got to the rocks in front of it. The sight of it was beautiful and it is too bad that no one got pictures because of how pretty it was. It would have been way to hard to swim that far and not drop your camera or something bad happen to it on the way. I wasn’t about to take that risk seeing as how I just got a camera! After awhile we all got cold and had to head back so that we could get home at a responsible hour. I was so unbelievably cold afterwards and didn’t want to put my warm, dry clothes on my wet spandex so I basically froze my ass off on the way back to the vans. Once we got all gathered up and dried off we were on our way back to PE. All in all I would say it was one of the better weekends here so far. It was relaxing, yet we did and saw a lot! I really enjoyed myself and now I must force myself to study for my exam on Thursday for Botany. This is going to be tough. Cheers!
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