Friday, October 5, 2007 Camping in Las Campanas Day 1

Friday, October 5, 2007 Camping in Las Campanas Day 1

I woke up early to get all my crap for camping and I took the metro to the CIEE office overloaded with bags, most of which was food that Olga made for me to bring. I had my Poverty class from 10:30 to 12:30 then afterwards we got ready to leave. Courtney and I went to the grocery store and bought goodies to make Banana Boats (i.e. Chocolate and marshmallows in a banana wrapped in foil for the camp fire). We loaded on the bus and headed out around 2 pm (only one hour later than we’d planned!).

The bus ride was supposed to be about 2 hours but we got a flat tire about half way there and were stuck on the side of the highway for about 45 minutes. The driver couldn’t fix it so we drove to the closest town and by the time we were fixed and finally made it to the park it was almost 6 pm. The park rangers almost didn’t let us in because technically you have to be there before 5:30 pm, but since Mauricio, the other program director was inside waiting for us they let us in.

I shared a tent with Courtney Wilson, Hanna and Julia and we had it set up and perfect in about 15 minutes (I couldn’t help thinking of the 2 hour tent setting up marathons from the camping trips when we were kids!). Once everyone was settled we began the 3 hour dinner BBQ. We stuffed ourselves on the delicious salads everyone had brought and the incredible meat Mauricio had been cooking all afternoon long. The steak was practically still mooing, but no one complained!

After dinner the boys made an impressive fire and out of no where appeared more alcohol than I thought possible. Apparently others had planned ahead and they spent all night enjoying the camp fire and pisco. I had absolutely no desire to drink but I had a great time laughing at everyone else with the other sober kids. Around 1:30 the non-drunkies snuck off to stargaze. The sky was incredibly clear and we all laid on the ground huddled together to keep warm and counting the shooting stars. I feel asleep and since I was a little sniffley started snoring, which made everyone laugh. We headed back to the tents and went to bed while the rest slowly trickled back in various states of soberness.