Our Hiking Adventure

      Today is Saturday, which means it's project day. For this week's activity, we went hiking. We walked for 10 hours with a couple of stops along the way, all under 10 minutes except for our lunch break which was about 30 minutes or more. We hiked, for the most part uphill and there were also a couple optional mountains we could climb as well. I did both of them, running on the way up as well as the way down, and the view was amazing. Now that I think about it I did a lot of unnecessary running. I had made a promise with one of the local boys, that every time he started running, I would have to run as well and we would race. No exceptions. Not even steep, rocky mountains. I am actually very pleasantly surprised that I was able to do it all. I don't know where I was getting it from, but I had this sort of unlimited energy that stopped me from being sore or tired or anything else. This entire hiking experience made me realise a couple of things: a) Haiti and the Dominican Republic are a lot more mountainous than I thought b) wow, it's really cold c) it really is beautiful d) you can do a lot more than you think you can e) I have a lot of respect for the people who were walking even a small portion of what we walked with at least a few kilos on their heads. 
      On our way back, we walked to a market and from there we took a tap tap for the remaining part of the trip, just for the experience. I'm not going to lie, it's extremely uncomfortable, but, it's very typical Haitian and the experience is definitely worth it. All in all, it was a good day and the view from the top of the optional mountains was truly breathtaking. My lack of fatigue makes me feel like I never did any of it, but regardless, it will still be one of the things I remember most from this trip. 

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LM