A Swim in the River

This was written orginally on Nov 13.

Today was another beautiful…. Seven days of great weather, not too hot, nice and cool in the evening, no rain, and good friends to spend them with. I decided earlier in the week to spend this afternoon in the mountains. Sully had mentioned a few times before that she would like to join me on one of my walks, so I invited her to join me. For the past couple days she kept telling me that she can’t wait for Thursday in the mountains.

I had my friend pick her up in his taxi and bring her to La Masica at the top of town. Unfortunately, well at least it seemed like an unfortunate at first, one of her sister’s had her shoes so she came in flip-flops. So, I knew we wouldn’t go too far on our walk. She saw a small hill that she wanted to go, but I told her it was across the river but I can you really close to it. So when we made it down the road to the entrance to a little private park along the river, I asked if she wanted to go down there and see the hill and sit along the river. She had mentioned few times that she was tired from work and wanted some place to sit. So we went into the park and she loved it there. We found a place to sit at the edge of the river. After eating some snacks, we decided that we would take a swim in our clothes. We got into the water and Sully saw some little fish, like sardines. She decided to grab round snack out of the chex mix and put it around her finger. She put her finger into the water to let fish eat and about 20 or more fish came up to nibble on the snack. So after a few minutes I got the same type of snack and sat in the water with Sully and feed the fish also. It was so cool and so much fun. I could feel the fish nibbling on my fingertip and it didn’t too long until the fish ate the snacks off our fingers. After that, we swam and Sully asked me to grab my goggles for her. I put them as tight on her head ass I could but the actually goggles were too big for her. Every time she submerged her head, the water would go into her eyes. She really needed child goggles to fit her small head. We stayed into water for a good 30-45 mins, until some kids came and were saying some nasty things in Spanish.

Even though we were really soaked, Sully still wanted to walk further into the mountains, since we had little bit of time before sunset. We walked for about 30 mins, more until turned around to head to the project. We didn’t far until the pain of the walk hit Sully. The pain kept getting worse and when we made to the highway I asked it she wanted me to call David to pick us up. But she insisted that she can make it, but not after the long she was reaching into my bag to grab my phone so I can call David. David came to get us, but he drove right past us. After about ten mins he came driving back and almost flew past us again, I had to throw my wet towel at the truck and hit it to get his attention. Sully was so drained and after I dropped her off at her home, I realized how drained I was. Fighting the current in the river was really hard.

But even though Sully was in a lot of pain after the walk and swim, she said it was all worth it, b/c of the river and everything we did there and for everything we saw while walking in the mountains. Hopefully the weather will be just as nice next week and we’ll be able to go back to the river.