Saturday at San Simian

Saturday Jan 8^th 4:30PM

  24 hours later, we find ourselves sitting in the same spot as yesterday, watching the same waves ripple across the lake and waiting for the sun to roll over the hill behind us.

 Aside from the odd vocal performance of geckos hiding in the rafters of the cabana, last night passed relatively peacefully. A dinner of somewhat overcooked chicken breast with rice and vegetables proved to be more than enough to feed both myself and the family dogs.

  This morning a hike to the Catarina Mirador, some 500 meters above, burned off an untold number of calories. The trail, which seemed, in part, to follow sections of a very rocky river bed was somewhat demanding. Local residents, obviously more attuned to the trip, ascended and descended with far more energy and speed than I could muster. On arriving at the summit, I spotted a sign in Spanish described the descent as “ Extreme”

 Unsure of where to go once at the top we walked till we came to a fork in the road.

 (Naturally!) I managed to pick the wrong road and we found ourselves on the highway to the west of San Juan de Oriente (the ceramic town we had visited last week) A 50 cent taxi ride into Catarina was all it took to correct my error, permitting a stop for soft drinks. Continuing downhill, the road turned out to be the other exit from the fork- a route that was both shorter and more direct than the one I had chosen.

  The descent took well over an hour due to both the difficulty of the terrain and the fact that the trail broke into a variety of different branches once we got closer to the lake. With almost no signage and few identifying landmarks, a compass helped maintain some sense of direction and I was pleased when we arrived at an exit point, which was only 100 yards off our actual starting point this morning.

 A burger, beer and a bath (well a shower) gave some relief from the effort of this mornings exercise. A quick swim in the lake provided a relaxing start to a lazy afternoon of napping, reading and hanging out in a hammock.