Saturday, March 17, 2012 - First Day at Galan

Not a great night sleep, I’m afraid. The wind kicked up around midnight, slamming doors all through the house and generally disturbing the peace. The smell of the thinner remained fairly overpowering, and the hard bed and pillows made it a rocky night. The banty rooster started crowing at about 4:45, then the howler monkeys started howling around 5:00 (though I only heard them once before going back to sleep. Bill said they kept going about an hour). Finally, the house was waking up by the time the sun came up at 6:00. Anna the cook had already been hard at work over the campstove just outside our open door, clattering pans and washing dishes and grilling food, etc. Breakfast was served at 7:30, and we chatted comfortably, getting to know each other better, having some good laughs and generally spending the rest of the morning relaxing and trying to reserve our energy. Bill went on a short walk to a waterfall with the rest of the gang, Hubby and I were just too darned tired, so we lay down and read, and fell asleep a bit, before everyone came back. Anna, who had gone on the hike as well, quickly went about the business of getting lunch ready, and before we knew it, we had another big meal in front of us. Afterwards, Stanley and Bolivar got the horses ready for our afternoon ride, after apparently giving them a B-12 shot this morning to help in their recovery from their exhausting day yesterday. (Could have used some of that myself!) Rode back down the road away from the ranch, getting a good view of what we didn’t see in the dark last night, some beautiful views (the lodge is pretty high above a valley), lots of cows (Bill was going crazy, he’s a bovine-loving boy!), though we stayed mostly on the roads, eventually arriving back in the village at the cantina (must be somebody’s cousin), where we had drinks (whiskey and ginger ale for us, cervezas for most everyone else) before heading back up the hill to the lodge. Arrived back at about 6:00, just as the sun was setting, took some more cold showers and had another nice meal courtesy of Anna. By now the tension of the previous day had waned, and we were all looking forward to a good night sleep, though we did hang around at the dinner table having some good conversation for some time after dinner. Very much enjoying Bill, he’s quite the fun guy!