Post-Colombia: It's Wedding Season!

My typical adventure train veered onto a different track last spring. Within two weeks of each other, my childhood best friend (and freshman college roommate) and my cousin (who was and is like a sister to me) both got married! Since I've known both of them since birth and maintained close relationships with both of them, especially in the past few years, I was of course IN both weddings, as a bridesmaid. Weddings themselves are definitely adventures, and luckily for me, I didn't have any monster brides and both weddings were a blast.

Emma was the first down the aisle, on a rainy Saturday afternoon in Tallahassee, Florida. Rain was not part of the plan but it's actually considered good luck if it rains on your wedding day. There were a ton of bridesmaids, we had so much fun running around and getting ready in our cowboy boots. Typically, I'm more of a hiking boots kind of girl, but those would have clashed with my dress. After an emergency change in venue from outside to inside for the ceremony because of the rain, we sprinted outside for the reception, dancing around in the mud and rain. I was grateful for my cowboy boots as I stomped in puddles and stayed (mostly) dry, dancing into the night in the pouring Florida rain.

Fast forward two weeks to a sunny (yet still chilly) Saturday afternoon in Locust Grove, Georgia. Courtney's vintage-themed wedding was a crazy combination of Greeks (my side of the family), Dutch, and Filipino-Cajuns from Louisiana. She made everything herself and let us pick our own dresses. My long antique dress was perfect for twirling around and it was great to see all of my family dancing around, especially my brothers. With tons of open space, I ran around from family member to family member, talking to everyone and getting to spend quality time with my younger cousins as well as my aunts, uncles, and grandparents. My mother and I also performed the Time Warp for everyone, followed by my brothers and I belting the words to I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) and Don't Stop Believin'. 

Events occurred: March 23, 2013 and April 6, 2013

Apology And A New (School) Year's Resolution

Unfortunately, between school, work, and general activities, keeping up with this blog has been put on the back burner for several months. Apologies to anyone who enjoys reading about my adventures (sorry, Mom!). However, as September has just started and a new semester of adventure awaits me, I have decided to embark upon a new resolution:

Write about at least one exciting thing that has happened to me every day.

Now, of course the exception to this rule is when I am on weekend trips and lack an access to internet. Nonetheless, I am going to actually maintain this blog and today I am starting with backlogging adventures from this summer. Alas, there were only a few (for reasons which will be apparent soon). So, here I go!

Spring Break in Colombia, 2013

When I decided to buy plane tickets to Colombia, I had my reservations. Virtually everything I had heard about this country was negative: intense drug trade that stimulated guerrilla activity and kidnappings of American citizens. Not particularly comforting, but I was willing to take a chance. My group consisted of Mike, who will henceforth be known as Michael in this post because there was also another Mike, his brother, Donny, their friend from home, Alex, Marcelle, and her sister, Simona. There were seven of us total, four guys and three girls.

The first day was like any other in a new place: confusion intermingled with wonder. We landed in Bogota with a decent amount of time left in the day. I had never been to such a high altitude and I was worried about adjusting but everything seemed alright. Luckily for the rest of us, Michael speaks fluent Spanish and was able to communicate with the taxi drivers from the airport. We went to our hostel and then headed out for empanadas. Some of the guys wanted to go to a bar and relax with a beer while Marcelle and Simona wanted to go get juice from the street vendors. I ended up doing neither and instead returned to the hostel for a nice long nap. Apparently this was a common sentiment and we all woke up again around 11 PM, hungry and well-rested. So, we all decided to venture out of the hostel. This was perhaps not our best decision since it was late on a Friday night. We wandered aimlessly for a few hours and finally found an open restaurant. Mike, unfortunately, got his iPhone stolen from a man on the streets that had approached him for money. We made it back by about 2 AM and I personally fell asleep immediately, exhausted from traveling. 

Our second day in Bogota was much more productive. We bought overnight bus tickets to Manizelas, so we had the entire day to explore. We spent most of our morning walking around in search of a cambio in order to exchange money. Lunch for the day consisted of copious amounts of delicious meat at a random restaurant near our hostel. Afterward, we decided to take the cable car up to the top of Monserrate, a giant mountain overlooking Bogota. At the top, there is a church and a few restaurants. I mostly walked around, enjoying the flowers that were in bloom and the amazing views of the city. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to hike down, but the cable car ride was still fun. The views were incredible, just absolutely stunning. When we reached the bottom, the sun had already started to go down. We saw a crazy man screaming various things in Spanish about himself and religion run up t the giant cross at the bottom of Monserrate. The police tried to catch him but he escaped into the bushes as far as we could tell. We were also distracted by some llamas but we had to rush back to the hostel to get our stuff. 

The overnight bus ride was actually quite comfortable in my opinion but apparently Michael and I were the only ones able to sleep soundly all night. We paid extra for a nicer bus and we each had two seats to ourselves but the rapid changes in elevation and the skill set of our driver (or lack thereof) negatively impacted everyone else's ability to sleep. We arrived in Manizelas and took a smaller version of the Monserrate cable car up to the top of the town. We went to a travel agency to inquire about Los Nevados, a Colombian national park that we wanted to backpack through. We met several very nice and helpful people and determined that we needed to go through Valle de Cocora in order to get to Los Nevados. This required a few more bus rides, the first to Pereira and the second to Salento. 

When we arrived in Salento, we searched for information about the park but found virtually nothing. Rather, we found a ride to El Cocora via jeep. The jeep was awesome. We loaded all of our stuff on top of it and then piled in the back. The ride was only about nine kilometers and when we arrived, we started our hike. El Cocora is known for having some of the world's tallest palm trees, many over 90 feet. The beginning of the park was coated in palm trees and they looked spectacular as they dotted the mountainsides. We soon reached a thick jungle , hot and with rapid increases in elevation. The coolest feature of this jungle area was the rickety wooden bridges that we had to cross. I was terrified each time, worried the I would misstep and break through the bridge. After the bridges, the elevation increases became more strenuous and I had my first experience with altitude sickness. I was mostly just having trouble breathing and had to drink a lot of water. Marcelle, Simona, and I struggled with this more than the guys and we were far behind. Michael decided to hike behind us, in order to motivate us to keep going. We ended up hiking through the dark and stopping at a hikers' hostel for some slightly less than primitive camping. I managed to secure a spot in the middle of our four person tent, which I shared with Marcelle, Simona, and Michael.

The next morning, I started off somewhat slow. Soon into the hike, however, I had a surge of energy and sprinted ahead of the other girls. Once I caught up to the guys, I decided to go ahead of them while they waited for Marcelle and Simona. I held them off for a pretty decent distance and hiked with them until we reached the start of Los Nevados. Michael and I were slightly ahead of Mike, Donny, and Alex but he stayed behind to make sure everyone continued in the right direction. So, I started off on my own and found a comfortable pace. I ended up holding everyone off for several kilometers. The solitude was simultaneously wonderful and terrifying. The only truly scary moment I had was after I had been hiking alone for a few hours in the rain. I heard voice nearby and assumed that the group had caught up to me. Then, I realized the voices were in Spanish. My instincts told me that this was not a good sign. FARC, a group of Colombian guerrillas known for kidnapping people for ransom, were rumored to populate the area and when all I saw was a giant white tent ahead of me, I panicked. I walked as quickly and quietly past the tent as possible and noticed a stack of shovels. This was a relief, because I realized that they were a trail maintenance team.

Shortly thereafter, I caught up with Donny, Alex, and Mike and we hiked together the rest of the day. We stumbled through two farms and lost the trail. Convinced we were headed in the wrong direction, we turned around a found Marcelle, Michael, and Simona within 20 or 30 minutes. Simona was having an especially hard time with the altitude and she had difficulty moving more than a few steps at a time without stopping for a break. Michael had been hiking behind her to motivate her and I soon took over as he tried to find the trail again. We hiked on for another hour or so and decided to set up camp before it got dark. Again, I managed to get a spot in the middle. It was extremely windy and cold that night, raining off and on. We all smashed our sleeping bags together for warmth and I, luckily, was able to sleep. 

The next morning, we hiked up to the big lake we had been headed toward, El Encanto. At this point, we had options: 1) head to the hot springs and leave the park in that direction 2) turn around and head back 3) find one of the big volcanoes and hike that, returning either the way we came or another way 3) exploring in random directions (all tracking on a GPS). We decided against the hot springs for some reason and chose to explore around. The guys unintentionally discovered a volcano and decided to summit it. Marcelle wanted to join but Simona and I had reservations because she had had severe AMS (acute mountain sickness) and I had been having some altitude trouble that day as well. We stayed back and relaxed, setting up the tents and getting water. We also got to nap in the sun, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Michael expressed some concerns to me about the hike because they didn't know what the conditions would be like nor how long it would take them to get up and back. I set up lanterns to guide them back to the tents but, fortunately, they all returned before dark. 

That night, the weather was the worst. It was severely windy and there was also a strong rain. The rain fly of our tent kept sticking to the vents, making it nearly impossible to breathe. At one point in the middle of the night, Michael sat straight up and gasped for breath. He immediately opened the door to the tent and we realized how difficult it had been for all of us to breathe. The next morning was freezing and raining. Michael and I were the first ones ready and after at least half an hour of standing around in the cold, waiting, we decided to start the hike all the way back to El Corcora. We were ahead of the group for a good portion of the Los Nevados hike, up until we reached the farms. After that, the guys took the lead. I caught up to them but Marcelle and Simona were still struggling. I sprinted ahead while the guys waited and reached the sign for Los Nevados about an hour before everyone else, enough time for lunch and a nap. Through the jungle part, I stayed primarily with Michael and Alex until we reached the campsite from the first night. Mike's backpack was falling apart, so he and Donny fell behind. We all waited for each other at the campsite and then the guys got ahead. I stayed back with Marcelle and Simona for most of it until we reached Mike, Donny, and Alex. They informed us that Michael had literally run ahead to try to secure us a ride back into Salento. I realized that this meant we would be hiking back in the dark and I had no desire to cross the streams via headlight. I immediately started running ahead and made it to the edge of the jungle before the others by a significant margin of time. I was sure where we were meeting Michael and when the guys told me that we would be meeting him in town, I started off again in the rain.

I reached Michael about 20 minutes before everyone else and he informed me that he had watched the last jeep go but that a nice man he had met told him he would call a jeep for us when everyone arrived. We all crammed into a jeep intended to fit 6 and I ended up with Marcelle on my lap, unintentionally twisting my knee when we hit potholes in the road. We arrived at the only hostel listed by our guidebook in all of Salento only to realize that five out of the seven of us would have to hike down to the coffee plantation house because the rest of the hostel was booked. The hike wouldn't have been so bad had I not just twisted my knee and had it been daylight but both of those combined with general tiredness destroyed me. I pitifully limped back from the coffee plantation after dropping off my stuff with everyone else as we headed into town for dinner. The odd Colombian pizza I had for dinner, plus the pina jugo con leche, made me feel instantly better. The pizza there was sauceless, which I appreciated because I generally don't like a ton of tomato sauce anyway. The rest of the group seemed less impressed.

The next morning, after a glorious shower (albeit, sans hot water), I headed up to the main part of the hostel to check out and figure out our plans for the rest of our trip. The hike was much nicer in the daylight and the coffee plantation was spectacular. The guys were all awake, drinking coffee, when I arrived and we decided to spend another night in Salento. Michael and I went into town with our DSLR cameras, exploring and taking hundreds of pictures. While we were on our photo safari, Michael befriended a group of schoolchildren and promised them a two liter bottle of coke, which he delivered over the barbed wire to an excited group of boys learning about agriculture. That night, we decided to play tejo, a Colombian game involving beer and gunpowder. Sound like a terrible combination? That was my reaction too. Essentially, the game is free but to play, you have to buy a case of beer. The game consists of throwing lead stones at a metal ring with packets of gunpowder on it. I was pretty terrible at it but Mike, Donny, and Alex got really into it. Marcelle also really enjoyed it and got pretty good at it over time. 

Our last day in Salento, I went to breakfast with the guys and then we did some souvenir shopping. I wasn't terribly interested in buying anything, so Michael and I decided to explore some more with our cameras. We discovered a cemetery and the long road near it opened up a few good views of the small town. We also hiked to the top of the city for the second time, taking even more pictures. In the afternoon, I noticed that I had the chills and didn't feel well. My nose had been runny and Michael had brought me tissues but when he realized I had a fever, he left me at the hostel and went into town to get me Gatorade. Alex brought me some medication and the guys all sat with me. When we got on the bus to Bogota, I was in horrible shape. My head was on fire and I felt freezing even in my ski coat. When we arrived in Bogota, I was barely conscious. We went around searching for food. After breakfast, we headed toward the military museum but it was closed until later. So, I walked around with Michael for photo trip day three. When the museum opened, we wandered around it and hopped on a college tour in Spanish of the museum. I could understand some of it and Michael explained the rest. We ran into the rest of our group and soon thereafter, we headed to the airport. 

Events occurred: February 28-March 9, 2013

Logels in Florida

Due to the persuading of Mike (and me, a little bit... at least, I like to think), Logel decided to actually come to Florida to visit for once, bringing his brother and two friends, Windham and Joseph. They were expected to arrive around 2 AM Friday night/Saturday morning, so we decided to stay up and play foosball in anticipation. However, when Logel informed us that they would be arriving around 5 AM, Kelsey and I decided to go home and sleep. 

The next day, we met Logel and crowd for breakfast in Gainesville and then headed to UF's Lake Wauberg for some sailing. I hadn't been sailing on a Hobie Cat before and I was in for quite the adventure. My first round was with Mike, Logel, and Kelsey. The water was chilly and the sun was playing coy with us, so getting soaked was not as fun as I anticipated. We almost flipped the Hobie several times and I seemed to get the brunt of the waves smashing into us. Suffice to say, I looked as if I had been swimming by the time we circled back to shore. Bevin's Hobie Cat was having rudder issues, so I volunteered to go in her boat and give the others a chance. I was with Bevin, Vlad, Kelsey, and Logel, Mike had the other three. We raced each other around the Lake and Mike's boat kept trying to jump onto ours. We ended up at one point with six people on our boat, swapping Logel for his brother and Windham. Bevin kept trying to get Kelsey and I to swim and she eventually elbowed me out of the boat. I flew over the edge and fully submerged as they sped away. Mike and Logel came to get me and pulled me out of the freezing water. We played around with the boats for a while longer before going to get ice cream nearby and then hiking to Paynes Prairie. 

That night, we invited over tons of OAR people to Mike's apartment and challenged each other to rounds of foosball. I'm absolutely terrible but it was a lot of fun and I practiced with Bevin until we both were pretty decent. We moved the foosball table into the hallway and tried to drag random passersby into our games. Few complied but the ones that did seemed to have fun. Then we headed to Shotgun Hole for a night of caving and swimming in the springs. The next day, Logel and his fellow North Carolinians joined Mike and I in Jacksonville for further adventures. We went to Mike's house and paddled his Hobie Cat (rather than sailing it, the mast was difficult to deal with) to Exchange Club Island. We walked around and explored the island some before paddling back. I steered the boat in for a perfect landing and then we piled into cars and went to my house. There, my mother prepared a chocolate fountain party for the six of us and I was impressed with the guys' ability to eat through a majority of the food. We then went to Mike's parents' for dinner, at which point I thought my stomach would explode. Then the Logel group headed back home, a nice weekend on the water in the middle of February. 

Events occurred: February 22-24, 2013

The Shortest OAR Trip Ever

The weather was not in my favor in February. The climbing trip to Sand Rock was cancelled because it was going to be too cold, so Jeff decided we would hike along the Suwannee River in Florida instead. We met around 9 AM on Saturday morning and shuffled into cars, heading about an hour away for our hike. While I was shuttling people from one end of the trail to the other, I ran over something in the middle of the road. When I stopped to pay for the park entrance fee, someone noticed gasoline leaking from my car. I had split my gas tank all the way down. We tried to patch it with gum but we were unsuccessful. The park rangers were very helpful but they informed me that I needed to move the car asap because gasoline is bad for the environment. I called AAA and they were useless. I was very disappointed with their lack of help and I called my mom in a panic. Luckily, her friends had a hitch and a dolly, so they drove from Jacksonville to get me. 

The OAR kids waited patiently even though I urged them to go ahead and hike without me. It started to rain and it was cold outside, so we all huddled under a park pavilion for warmth and dryness. They waited until my mom was less than 10 minutes away. I ended up home and carless for the weekend, my OAR adventure only lasting a few hours.

Events occurred: February 16, 2013 

Trip Leader Alden, At Your Service

When Mike texted me and asked me if I wanted to co-lead a vertical caving trip, I was ecstatic. The original plan was to have two cars and I would lead one, he would lead the other, but we ended up with only one car. Still, we planned everything together and he let me set anchors and make decisions. The ultimate goal of this trip was Signal Light. Last time we had gone, Mike had spotted some breakdown leading up but our group didn't want to keep going so we left it alone. Though neither of us had been able to get our hands on a map, we had a theory that the cave kept going for a while. 

We drove up Friday night and camped near Chattanooga. Lindsay and I stayed in the car while Mike, Chelsea, and Nina camped in tents. Considering that the latter all woke up with frost on their sleeping bags, I have no regrets. We started the day in Howard's Cave but ended up spending barely any time there because there was also a church group of about 20 and a group from Georgia Tech of at least 20. The cave was much too crowded for our liking, so we headed to Rusty's Cave. Ironically, Rusty's was named in honor of a guy who discovered it but died saving a group of boy scouts from Howard's. Rusty's is a pretty cool cave and this time I was able to sprint through it because I was familiar with the terrain. We emerged from Rusty's fairly quickly and grabbed dinner at a somewhat nearby restaurant, Randy's, that had fantastic calzones.

The next day, we started exploring my baby, Signal Light. Again, I set up one rope and Mike set up another. We only ended up with one photo from the whole trip, a group photo in Signal Light. We headed back to the muddy passage, which was sadly less muddy than before. The water that had been waist deep was now just puddles interlaced with the mud. We engaged in an intense mud fight, throwing thick peanut butter mud at one another and rolling around in the mud. I loved it. I have always loved to play in mud and this mud was perfect. After a fair amount of time here, we headed up the breakdown. We hunched over, crawled, and rolled for about 20 minutes until we emerged in a huge room with a lake. Mike and I looked for ways around the water but we saw nothing good. So, with Nina taking the first plunge, we decided to swim across. When I submerged my body in the water from the neck down, I thought I was drowning. The water was so cold that I felt as if my lungs were collapsing. I struggled to keep my head above water and all I could see was Mike's headlamp a few feet in front of me. He pulled me out of the water and I shivered continuously through the rest of the cave. We continued to crawl through some more and after a few hours, the group decided to turn around. We headed back for the surface only to discover that it was raining. Mike and I decided to ascend up last and on the same rope, allowing the other three to get to the top as quickly as possible on both ropes and then take one of the ropes down and head for the car. We headed up and I threw the rope in a jumbled mess over my shoulder after he was at the top. We sprinted down to a nearby gas station, where the others were waiting. I stripped down to my shirt and spandex shorts with no shoes and sprinted to my car, trying to avoid getting it all muddy from my jacket, jeans and shoes. Everyone loaded their caving clothing into plastic bags and changed in the bathrooms at the gas station. We then headed into Chattanooga and met Lindsay's dad for dinner before heading back to Gainesville, since he was in Chattanooga too. 

Though it didn't feel like I fully led my own trip, it was nice to see that Mike had confidence in me to make decisions and set anchors for caving, one of the most difficult types of OAR trips to lead. 

Events occurred: February 8-10, 2013

Random Adventures Near Chattanooga

My second OAR trip of the semester, MLK weekend, was also unusual. Over 40 people, including a contingent from St. Louis, signed up for a trip near Chattanooga, which Jeff described as hiking, climbing, hang gliding or whatever anyone wanted to do. I decided this was my chance to lead a vertical caving trip. I attempted to set up a second trip that weekend, also staying near Chattanooga, but, at the time, my qualifications were unknown. Mike decided to go on this trip to officially lead any vertical caving but my input was acknowledged. Kelsey, Marcelle, Simona, and I all left early Friday and arrived at the campsite before 10. To my knowledge, we were the caving contingent, minus Mike. 

The next morning when I woke up, Jeff informed me that everyone was going vertical caving and that I was to teach everyone how to use the gear. I was worried because vertical gear is complicated to use and I did not feel comfortable expecting 40 people who had never used the gear before to suddenly know what to do, especially because vertical caving is very dangerous and we only have 4 sets of gear. Marcelle and Simona also knew as well as I did that it would take all day just to get that many people down and back up again, sending gear every fourth person. Kelsey still wanted to go, so we dropped her off with the big group and decided that it would be easier for everyone if we did something else.

Marcelle, Simona, and I ventured into Chattanooga and found ourselves catching up on some homework and searching for something nearby to do. I called my mom and explained the situation. Immediately, she recommended Rock City, a tourist trap in Chattanooga. I typically avoid tourist traps whenever possible, but we decided that this one could be a lot of fun. We took tons of cheesy pictures and climbed all over the limestone. We spent several hours exploring Rock City, eating lunch over a cliff that boasts you can see seven states at once. We finally returned to downtown Chattanooga for some coffee and then headed back to camp. When we stopped at a gas station to pick up drinks, we ran into Mike, Kelsey, and a group of about 5 that had apparently been the caving group after everyone else realized it would take forever to set up. We all went to a Mexican restaurant nearby and got dinner. My table consisted of Mike, Marcelle, and Simona and resulted in two things: 1) caving at Signal Light the next day and 2) Spring Break in Colombia. 

The next morning, our group headed to Signal Light, my favorite cave. We set up two ropes, Mike anchored one of the them and I took care of the other. He checked over my work and gave me some advice for the future. He trusted my rope enough to go down on it and we started exploring the cave. Normally, we don't spend a lot of time in Signal Light because Mike has been over 20 times and knows it really well. Or so we thought. We stumbled upon a muddy passage way that led to several small lagoons. Suffice to say we were soaked and coated and mud within minutes. We created mud figures, painted our names on the walls in mud, and threw hunks of mud at each other. At first, I tried walking across the muddy water with delicacy, trying not to get to wet. Eventually, however, we were all up to our waists in water. We reached a crawling section that we went through for a while before turning around and heading back out. While traversing across one part of the cave, I slipped and dislocated my left knee. I screamed and Kelsey grabbed my hand so I wouldn't slip. Everyone helped pull me up and I sat on a rock trying to fix it. I set the injury and popped everything back in to place, pressing on to the end. I was the last to ascend out and I caver coiled my rope as quickly as possible. We found a short cut down to the parking lot and after that, we went to dinner at some pizza place. We ended up with a lot of pizza because there was a special for larges, so we ordered three and they messed up one of our orders, so we had four pizzas for five people. Suffice to say we had leftovers.

When we arrived back at camp, half the group was gone or packing to leave. It was already around 8 PM, so I didn't understand why they didn't just wait to leave the next day rather than driving all night. It turned out that a lot of people had gotten sick and just wanted to go home, so our group shrank to about three cars. The next morning, my knee was still bothering me. The plan had been to go vertical caving again but Mike didn't think it was worth it and I didn't feel up to it either. We ended up going to Cloudland Canyon. I stayed back and rested while everyone else hiked and then we headed back to Gainesville.

Events occurred January 18-21, 2013