11 April (Day 26)

So the main event for today was a tractor ride. If you have the same mindset I do, that sounds so stupid. I had pictures of the stuff we do in Michigan with bales of hay and driving through fields. I was so wrong.

The tractor ride took us up the side of a mountain, through some forests, up to a sweet little cabin, along some ponds, and it was beautiful. No bales of hay involved. The tractor ride dropped us off in the woods where a group of women had prepared amazing fried bread and potijies. Potijies are pretty much just stews; in this case they had a chicken, a lamb, and a vegetable. I asked for a bit of each on rice, and ended up with a TON of everything. I was uncomfortably full, and then they had chocolate pudding-cake-type thing with vanilla ice cream. Of course I ate that. It was soooo gooooood.

It was incredibly hot at this point, and the man who ran the tractor rides offered to let us go swimming in one of the ponds! So we walked over to a pond that looked like it could have been out of a movie. The water reflected the trees perfectly, and there were picnic tables all around. There were also docks to dive off of, including one about six feet off the ground, suspended between trees. The water was cold, but that was nice since the day was so hot. We stayed there awhile, swimming and laying out.

The next stop for the day was the hot springs. In my mind, I was picturing something very calm and natural. Not the case. It looks like a resort pool, complete with a waterslide. The only thing that makes it stand out is the fact that it was naturally heated water from the hot springs. But after all of the exhausting stuff we’ve been doing these past several days, to hang out in a heated pool was pretty great.