Its going down/ living the good life

So it turns out i have been here for over two weeks. Its kind of a crazy feeling, like the honeymoon is over or something like that. It finally hit me that I will be here for a very long time, and that this trip is a little more than a vacation to hang out with friends. It has been hard to get acquainted here due to the fact that the whole school thing has not been happening as it should. Some background: Here in venezuela, they are in a heavy dry season. This lack of water makes for rolling blackouts throughout the country. For the past couple weeks, power goes out for around 3-4 hours a day. This doesnt exactly make people happy here and many blame it on the government and that these blackouts are punishment in this city because it is a huge student city, which means most here are liberal and against the government. So, with these blackouts, many people protest the outages and the government by blocking off big intersections and burning trash and garbage in the street. One night it hit a high and two students from merida died. This caused an uproar in the city and made things just worse. Because of all these events, we didnt have class for three straight days this week, which is nice but makes it hard to get used to how things are going to work here. Also, all of the classes that were missed have to be made up on friday's, which we usually have off every week.

But hey, it was kind of cool not to have school. I spent lots of time at pools here. These pools are usually in really nice hotels and you pay around 5 u.s. dollars to enter and stay as long as you want. Needless to say though, i am quite sunburnt as the sun is much stronger here because of the altitude. Other things i have found myself doing is working out, which i am so happy to have found a place here. The gym i go to is oddly enough in a garage of someone and i only pay around 8 dollars for. Its not the nicest thing in the world, but i have always found working out to be a giant stress reliever. Its critical to find stuff to do here because the school nights can be really boring. Because the home is more of a private place here, you cant exactly have people over or go to someones house and hang out, so i have fond myself on the internet(thank god for wireless) and reading a ton.

So for the weekend, Friday was nothing spectacular. Went to a bar but was really crazy because it was the final game of the venezuelan world series. It was neat though to see, they adore baseball and was cool to see the whole city alive and watching the game. As for Saturday, we ended up going to a place in the mountains called Aguas Termales, which is a hot spring in the mountains. A group was organized through our school through a tour company, but being alternative some friends and I decided that we were going to do this on our own without a tour company to save money. So we packed up some bread, chips, and some rum and headed for the springs. It worked out well because we actually got a ride from the tour company for a small price and went with the rest of the group. The hike was strenuous to get there and took about an hour straight uphill. We arrived at camp and set up our tents and such and then headed for the springs. We spent all day in the springs and when it got colder, started a fire and hung out there. Add some food and some rum and you have yourself a pretty good night. Except for one thing, it was freezing! And yes i did mention about being alternative, we figured we would only need two sleeping bags for 6 people in the mountains. Yah, that didnt work out so well. Lets just say i got really close with the people in my tent. But what a fun trip, and i was overjoyed that i got to use all of the camping gear i had purchased for this trip! Good times good friends, and gorgeous country. Its never a bad thing to go to bed, as cold as it might be, surrounded by moonlit mountains and the sounds of wild horses.
Well thats all for now, until next time.