Finally playing Indy again...

Well, it's been a great last few days. A few scrapes and scratches, but a cleared head. Finally decided to actually do the meditating that is tacked on to the end of my yoga sessions for the last few weeks, and you know what? It's been pretty nice. I felt... like my head was going to explode. About a week ago I started to get something like a stress headache (despite pleasant moments of yoga and meditation) coming and going, making me have crazy dreams, affecting my mood. I say stress headache, when I wasn't really stressed. My head was just FULL. I mean, as in planning too many things on too many levels and planes and time frames and personal and work-related and spanish and community-conflict over things not concerning me and you probably don't want to hear about it all. Let me just get to the ADVENTURE that helped me recuperate...

So I arrive in a secret Cocle village, at 1800 hours and find the house of a fellow volunteer. We converse over a few glasses of wine, planning the "strategery" to be used the following day in finding the treasure. Or at least the order in which we were going to go about trying to find some rock drawings from the indios, as the locals say.

Previously informed of the general location of 3 large rocks that may or may not contain petroglyphs, my fellow explorer showed me the first rock, conveniently located in the town cemetary, so that I would have an idea of what we were dealing with. After viewing the rock, it was decided that crayons and large newsprint would be our best hopes of capturing the strange symbols. We set out for the the second boulder on the high side of town.

All advice led to the house of a mother and son that were happily preparing some meat for lunch. Whereas everyone had said he would be able to lead us to the rock, this was not to be. He was unaware of the existence of said rock, only perhaps of a cave that was used for hiding during the invasion that contained no drawings. Sigh. We turned back and decided to pursue another lead.

Casually asking some young folks walking from the church led to not only reaffirmation about the location of a large rocks with drawings, but also several strapping young guides. Success! We walked by the house of a lady informant who was easily convinced (despite the glaring midday sun) to join the expedition. After we had gathered a proper exploration party, we began our ascent.

Avoiding delicate rice seedlings and braving grass that cuts like a knife, we arrived at a large rock on the top of the hill, visible for miles in several directions. And the petroglyphs are located... oh, of course... up the tiny little hand-foot hole ladder at the top of the boulder. Those crazy indios! Just like the ancestrial puebloans of the southwest these guys liked to climb. Okay. Had to channel my hero (not Stephen Colbert, but Dr. Jones) and push down the vertigo and butterflies in my stomach to step on the arms and grab hold of the feet of our well-wishing guides and arrive at the prize: a view of the surrounding countryside and hundreds of years old petroglyphs that very few people have even seen, let alone paid any attention to. Waaaaay!

Luckily to get down all we had to do was bear hug a tree and slide. Sweaty and victorious, we had a fish feeding river bath before returning to the house to enjoy a double dinner and detail the next day's itinerary over, you guessed it, a few glasses of wine. Ah, victory.

"Early" Sunday we set out to find the last rock, on the other side of town. The directions had been deceptively easy, but again we were met with resistance at the first house we visited. The man we asked knew of said rock, but insisted the area was too far and too overgrown for us to manage. Grrr. We were not convinced. Following another lead we chatted with some nice ladies until it became clear we were serious. The woman of the house then provided us with rubber boots for the ugly path and a machete-wielding guide. Score!

Sooner than expected we arrived at the elusive third rock and were not disappointed. Both photos taken are of that rock. One side had a beautiful cross and the other side, traveling upward, contained the most drawings of them all. We quickly ran out of crayon (having deserted the newsprint rubbing technique for straight coloring in the grooves and taking photos) and joyously took pictures while discussing the similarities and differences between the drawings. Lacking more advanced documenting tools (GPS, compass, field notebook... how can I call myself a scientist?) we headed back to home base for a couscous and tuna carimañola dinner with a victory glass of, you guessed it, red wine.

This has been a tale of success, to inspire you. I'm still floating a little from it. It was just plain fun. This morning I had to snap out of explorer mode and snap into get-up-at-four-in-the-morning-to-go-to-the-office-in-the-city-to-be-stood-up-by-your-supervisor mode. Blah. But it didn't even get me down, as of yet, anyway. I decided to have a new mantra for this hectic time in my life...

Full heart, empty mind

P.S. Reading Rainbow flash mob. Who could say no?