Balgüe

It was a long, hot week out in the forest. This is the height of the dry season, and there’s not a cloud in sight. I thought it was hot before, but this, this is hot. By about 2pm I swear I can boil tea with the water in my bottle.

After making it through such a long, hard week, I decided that what I wanted to do yesterday was go see Finca Magdalena in Balgüe. Balgüe is a town on the other side of Volcan Maderas from us, about 9km away. I’ve run there before, but a sightseeing trip would necessitate traveling there by bike or bus. And since we’re the Ragfields, you know that means bike. And there’s probably nothing that terrifies me more than riding a bike on these hilly roads comprised in some places entirely of jagged rocks. I managed the ride only falling off the bike twice and sustaining no serious injuries.

We stopped first at a place called Zopilote, where a sign advertises that they sell local handi-crafts. There were no handi-crafts, just a few loaves of bread, a cucumber, and some tahini (how can that be local?). A English tourist staying there, who was nice enough, tried to sell me some bracelets he was making, but I kept thinking that if I wanted English-made handi-crafts, I would go to England. There was a nice lookout point at Zopilote, so we climbed up to that (see pictures below). It’s a cool view; Balgüe is roughly opposite of Merida, so you’re seeing the other side of the volcano in these photos. Zopilote advertised that they had hummus, but we never found anyone to buy it from, so eventually we got frustrated and headed on to Finca Magdalena.

Concepción, not erupting today:


The other side of Maderas:



Panorama from the viewpoint:


Melissa and Rob at the viewpoint

For some time I had wanted to visit Magdalena. The guide books make it sound amazing, plus, it is the farm where they produce the shade-grown, fair trade, organic, bird friendly coffee that I order online when in the US. If any of you have received coffee from me for birthdays, Christmas, etc, this is where it comes from.

The Finca was about 1.5 or 2km straight up the volcano; I’d imagined that we would be walking our bikes up this dirt path to the Finca, but no—we’re the Ragfields—we rode. Well, Rob rode and I rode most of the way except for the end when it got really steep and rocky. To be quite honest, the Finca was a big let-down. There were a bunch of dred-locked, loud, chain-smoking tourists running about, which was a far cry from the peace and tranquility that the guide books indicated. Plus, none of the cool things such as viewing petroglyphs and seeing the organic farm could be done without having had reserved a guide in advance. Plus, it was hot, hot, hot, hot. Did I mention it was hot?

We ordered lunch, which turned out to be the worst food I’ve eaten in my entire life (and I eat things that I find on the forest floor). We got what seemed to be the only vegetarian item on the menu: spaghetti. It was mushy noodles covered in, not sauce, but a medley of boiled vegetables including carrots, celery and potatoes. You know, the tasteless kind you get in a can and that they serve in cafeterias. The kind that has had any redeeming nutritional value leeched right out of them. But what made the meal so bad was that they had poured at least 2 cups of corn oil over the entire thing. And the salad was not much better. Cabbage with a little bit of onion and cucumber, also doused in oil. They had good lemonade though.

We wandered around a bit after lunch, but really I was just stalling due to my fear of riding the bike back home. Especially of the long 2km down the volcano back to the main road. We didn’t really see anything interesting, so finally we headed out. Because I’d had a couple of close calls on the way over, I would jump off the bike and walk it at any sign of treachery. My doing this caused the trip to take twice as long as it should have. The heat, the exertion, my thirst, and all that corn oil sloshing around in my stomach made me enter the Ugly Zone. I get this way sometimes on long runs or bike rides. Its when everything sucks and you hate it all. When we finally pulled in home, I was still mad and thinking about what a waste of time and energy this trip had been. But Rob looked at me, with that little smile on his face, and said, “That was fun!”

Must sign off for now; we have so many dirty clothes to wash that this is going to be Melissa and Rob’s Day of Laundry. Thanks for reading. Comments and support are always welcome; I am thinking of you all at home who are still snowed in from the Great Blizzard of 2007.