Saturday, 09/22/2012 - Aba Wavine

I have no idea what Aba Wavine means or even what language it's in but it was a pretty cool place!  One great thing about this school is there are a million clubs and all the clubs are constantly planning outings and activities.  I probably should've studied instead of going on this trip but I felt like I wanted a break and after doing pretty OK on the mini I felt justified.

We were told to meet outside the library at 8 AM - pretty early for a Saturday, haha!  I didn't think I'd know anyone who was going, but ran into Jen Noorlander, a spouse from the branch, as soon as I walked up.  Always nice to know someone!  The church is SO great for that reason!  Once everyone was there we piled into the vans and took off.  BLESS this countries windy and pot-hole-filled roads!

:-/  

I hardly ever got car sick before coming here.  I get car sick almost every time I go somewhere on this island.  Haha!  SUPER fun.  I did get to sit next to 2 faculty members on the trip over though - Dr. Costello and Dr. Bianchi.  Both women.  Both in their late 50's.  Both went through the same residency program way back when.  And both of them got the travel bug so they decided to come work at Ross for a few years.  They help run the Intro to Clinical Medicine curriculum, a big part of which is the HUGE simulation lab the school has set up.  They tell us it looks just like a hospital.  Can't wait until I get to experience it!  Anyway, they were both very friendly.

So we got to our destination about an hour and a half after we left.  I'm pretty sure it's maybe 15-20 miles away from campus as the crow flies but the roads wind up and over the central mountains to get to the Atlantic side of the island so it takes forever to get anywhere.  At least it's a pretty drive - no matter where you're headed!

Here's a pic from near the top of the trail:

OK, so this hike is pretty much AWESOME!  I should've taken more pictures, but I didn't want to hold up the group.  No one likes the annoying guy w/ the camera who makes everyone wait.  :-)   Guess I'll have to go back again.  The first little bit is pretty much jungle-style stairs.  Someone has gone through and staked in palm tree logs to make the trail more like stairs than a steep trail.  I think we would've been slipping and sliding all over the place if it was just a normal trail.  Humidity makes everything SUPER slippery.  So, there w were, going along and suddenly we come to a cliff drop-off covered in vines and roots.....  And over the side the guide went!  We knew what was coming but wow!  It was something else.  Someone has tied ropes in to the trees but I feel like the roots/vines were more stable b/c they didn't move as much.

This picture is pointing straight down!

As if my camera was lying flat on a glass/see-through table.

That's Jen looking up at the camera

Crazy huh?

Then at one point someone put in a rope ladder.

This is Dr. Bianchi that I wrote about earlier

All in all there were 2, 20-30 foot stretches where it was really straight up and down, and the rest of it was on a trail hugging the hill/cliffside which was very-nearly straight up and down. We must have dropped over 200 feet down to the beach below.  I'm not gonna lie, my legs were shaking on the way down.  Heights don't really get to me, but not being tied in was kinda freaky!  Now that I think about it there were so many vines and tree trunks everywhere that you wouldn't really fall very far even if you tried to :-)

The beach was really beautiful - and clean!  Not many people go down there so there's not much trash - Perfect!  The waves and currents on the Atlantic side are definitely way more powerful than on the Caribbean side where the school is.  They'd knock you over if you weren't careful, and the force of the water going back out to sea was equally as powerful.  We tried to do some body surfing but they were just coming in too fast and too irregularly.  But it still felt great to get in after the hike

First view of the beach coming off the trail. Looking North

Looking south:

That's the hill/cliff we came down on the right there:

Coolest feature of the beach was this waterfall that comes right off the cliff face. It's gotta be about 50-60 feet tall.  It is SUPER pretty and feels great too.

I'm glad I wasn't the only crazy photographer there :-)

Jen wasn't quite sure if she wanted to get all the under

This is another faculty member, didn't really talk to her:

But she's married to this guy, who was one of our van drivers:

He was super nice!  

Climbed a tree and got everyone some fresh coconut and everything.

I'm glad I went.  This trip was put on by the Wellness Club so everyone that came is super active - a fun kind of group to get to know.  Two of the girls who came are spouses of students.  There's a national trail that zig-zags all accross and up and down the island. I think it's about 120 miles total split into 15 or so segments.  They've done almost the whole thing, one segment at a time.  I would LOVE to do that during one of my breaks between semesters.  Anyone want to join me?!

We got back to campus around 3:00-3:30.  After showering I went and hit the books till late.  Maybe I should've stayed home and studied but I feel like it was totally worth it!  Several of the other 1st Semester students that came shared the same sentiment.