Adios To New Friends

By: Ashley Demers

November 7, 2017

An early morning it was for us but that was not much of an issue because Ramón came to the rescue with his super strong coffee. After I grew some chest hairs I was ready to tackle this long hike out of the canyon. I really didn’t want to do the hike, not because of how extraneous it would be, but how I did not want to leave. I fell in love with the way of life down here, by learning about the culture in the canyons through the cave paintings and the stories told by Ramon, Ricardo and Gertrudis. We hiked our way up, with the heat on our side and our sweat pouring down our backs, it was no match for us.

We kept our brains pumping with ideas to solve the riddles given to us from Jeff. Some of us were also worried about Boz, she started just a few minutes before us but we did not find her along the way. Until the end, guess we are slow hikers. We made it back to Guadalupe, and we packed our belongings up. We picked out any food we could not bring and gave it too our guides, it made me feel good seeing their eyes light up when we said that the food was theirs to keep. We took a picture with them all and said our goodbyes; of course Ramón had to be a jokester and pretend to sob while giving me a hug as well as everyone else. I’ll truly miss that goofy man!

I hopped in Francisco’s awesome and gorgeous old school suburban which reminds me of my brothers but way cooler. We hit the bumpy road and we were slowly off. Along the way, Emily and I had some good conservations and interesting at that too. I found out she has two joints in her pinky toe… odd right. After the long drive we finally made it too Casa Azul our home away from home.

As I sit here and write this all I can think about is how grateful I am to be on ECOEE, to enjoy it with everyone here and to experience everything that I have. Through learning skills, going places, meeting new people, just seeing what the world can offer us is a great opportunity. Writing this is reminding me to be happy and to not sweat about the small stuff, like me losing my ECOEE USB. Always remember to not dwell on the past or worry about the future. Just live in the moment and that moment is ECOEE. (Laying on a cot in shorts and a tank, on the patio of Casa Azul, in Bahía de los Angeles and its 70 degrees at 10:30 at night in November.)