Saturday

Saturday morning I woke up and headed to a river with my boyfriend, his brother, their cousin, and the cousin´s girlfriend. We packed 2 bottles of water, 2 towels, 1 radio, 3 bags of chips, 1 bag of ice, 1 machete, and two loops of nylon string. We walk past the health center and continued on after the road had turned to dirt. We head down the hill and squeezed past a barbed wire fence into a cow pasture. From there it´s a short jaunt to the river (where I´m sure the water is dirty but everyone showers afterwards anyways).

We plop all our things on the grassy shoreline. The brother whips out the machete and starts cutting into the ground as the boyfriend and the cousin unwind the nylon and attach hooks to the end. Apparently it´s fishing time before swimming time. The brother unearths a couple of worms and passes them to the others. They fished for about thirty minutes, catching one fish about 3 inches long. It was thrown back.

The brother illadvisidly (is that a word?) dives into the water, assuming it was deep. It was not. Luckily it was his chest that hit the bottom and not his head so he came out scratched instead of paralyzed. The rest of us soon followed (not diving). There were a few parts where we couldn´t touch but for the most part it was chest deep. The water was cold...and refreshing as long as the sun wasn´t behind a cloud. The girlfriend was afraid to cross the deep part by herself so the cousin went to retrieve her...and the chips. The radio was playing ranchero music (Nica version of country) and it was a beautiful day.

Until it started to rain. We saw the giant black cloud coming our way and swam to out exit point. As soon as we were out it started pouring. It was quite chilly after that. Since there was no lightening and only rain, we ran for cover under a tree. The brother and I objected since we were already wet but we had the radio to think of.

So we stayed under the tree. The brother then asked me, "Have you ever seen a buffalo?"

"No," I replied. He gestured towards a HUGE cow with HUGE horns. I do NOT like cows or bulls. They are huge animals with horns that make me nervous. This thing was massive. I immediately wanted to leave. After a couple more minutes (and the siting of two MORE buffalos), we decided to continue on.

Of course, the cousin had to bother the cows as we walked by, making me even more nervous. And I swear, one of the buffalos was watching us the entire time. No lie. He started out laying down. The cousin started waving his shirt and hat around and then the buffalo stood up and just watched us. I was out of that pasture lickety-split.

The pasture was huge of course and we weren´t close to them really, but apparently they can run up to 40mph so I think it was understandable that I was nervous and wanted to leave.