And Then It Rained--Day 3

So, during the night, there was massive rainfall. Though there were droplets coming down when we went to sleep, it was nothing compared to the tropical deluge that happened at both 1:00am and then again at 3:00am. Luckily Haley and I have a tin roof and were able to be awake to hear both of them. Now, if you know Haley and I, then you know that neither of us have any problem sleeping (unless the problem is that we go to sleep to easily and don't wake up until we have been asleep for a very long time) but when you put a tin roof on the hotel we are staying at, each drop sounds like a cymbal going off.

So, we ended up staying around town in the morning, waiting for our "canyoneering adventure." We picked up some bread at the local bakery and watched the Germany/Argentina game. It was pretty cool to watch world cup down here, because unlike America, the people live for soccer. I can only imagine how the Brazil game is gonna go today.

Now, about the canyoneering. Because it was raining like crazy, we went to see if we needed to cancel. Actually, we thought we would have to cancel, because we would quite literally be washed away and drown if we tried. When we talked to the lady behind the counter, she informed us that they only give a refund if the cancellation is due to mother nature. They had cancelled every other trip except the canyoneering one, saying that the rain wouldn't effect the waterfalls that we would be rappelling down. When we questioned her (naturally, we were like "WHAT? It is pouring, and this isn't gonna affect the waterfalls?") she told us that the rain didn't effect the water in the canyon (my faith in this company was waning). Anyway, we figured we didn't have a choice, we had already paid $75 each and were gonna have to just make the most of it. We then went to the hotel and wrote up our wills. So we go for a little lunch to wait until they pick us up for canyoneering. (Though it may sound like we wanted to get out of it, we really DID want to rappel down waterfalls, as long as it was safe).

About a half hour later, some people in our group come find us to let us know that the trip had been cancelled and we need to go back to get our refund. They sent some people out to scout out the canyon, and sure enough, the river was massively swollen. So we go to get our money (a group of 4 of us). Then we learned that they cannot put money back on a card like they can in the US. Down here there is a process that involves signing some papers and mailing them in. And then the owner, that would need to sign the papers, was gone until Monday and she would mail them off then. This is where my faith completely was lost and I started asking lots of questions. She repeatedly assured me that there was nothing to worry about, which sent off all kinds of signals that I needed to be worried. When she acted offended because I was concerned, I made it very clear that I don't know her from Eve, I arrived yesterday and am leaving tomorrow, and I have no reason in the world to trust her. Even after spelling it out for her, she still acted offended that I didn't trust her. Oh well, I think she was forgetting that it was MY money, not hers.

Okay, enough of that story. Next time I pay in cash…much easier to refund. So, now that nobody in the entire town is able to go off and do a single thing, we all gathered together at the "Bar Rafino" and talked for the next six and a half hours. It was great to talk to people from around the world about everything from politics, to movies, to pranks we had played on people when we were younger (last week for some). Then after a long afternoon at the bar, we went back up to see if we could see the lava spewing from the volcano (we couldn’t) and headed to a local bar that was doing karaoke. I say local, because it was 10 minutes from our town, and we were the only white people there. I have to wrap this up because our bus in coming shortly, but the karaoke was awesome. It was almost like those people who go to the African tribes and see their tribal dances. I felt like we were having a total immersion, cultural experience. Amy and Erin in our group got to sing "Hotel California" and "I Wanna Dance With Somebody," respectively. Erin was singing as the taxi pulled up to take us home, and as you can see from the pictures, it was very much the highlight of the night. All the men were dancing and the entire place was totally partying it out. Everyone was sad to see us go.