Monday, July 17, 2006

Back from Chitra, semi-intact

Well, the word chitra means this awful little biting insect. It goes after exposed ankles and arms between dusk and dawn, and you don't generally know you are getting bit until hours later, when a terrible patch of itchy red dots surface and take up to a week to go away.
Chitra also is the name of the district that we will live in for the next two years. I would love to attach some pics, but truth be told, I am too tired to go to the trouble. Woken up at 2am by a big storm, realizing it would make the truck (aka chiva) ride out much harder, didn't really get back to sleep much before 3:30am arrived and we had to get going. We were told that it was so muddy that the chiva might just start out waaaay down the hill, so 4:05 found us stumbling down said muddy road in the rain, slipping and sliding. Soon, the chiva actually came barrelling past us, Karinne and I jumping off into the ditch as it careened down the hill to a spot it could stop, then jumping into the back with about 5 lbs. of mud on each foot. A highlight was when the road got so bad that we all had to get out of the back and walk while the driver gunned it up a super dodgy hill. Sara was with us, she rode in the cab of the truck and taught the driver and another woman good curses in english.
The scenery is beautiful, but hard to appreciate from the cramped cover over the bed of the truck. Someday I hope I get to ride up front, mostly just to see the terrain, but also so I can have fear in advance rather than in retrospect, since you never know what is coming when you are in the back.
Otherwise, we are very jazzed by our site. Good coffee, enthusiastic friendly people, cool climate, mud mud mud, and lots of work to do. Nice swimming holes, lots of hiking potential, and mostly a lack of previously mentioned chitras make it primo. But good lord, that ride. And it isn't even the really rainy season yet. That comes in october, and we may just stay put till december or so.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home