Educational death hikes

A couple of days into the program, everyone was getting more accustomed to the climate and began getting to know each other on a personal level. Tom, also known as Tiburón (Spanish for “shark”), was one of our instructors on the program who coordinated many outdoor activities with outlandish enthusiasm. The students were also under the supervision of Brenda, a professor who focused on the academic and logistic aspects of the program. During our first couple of days at Mastatal, we all went through an introductory orientation of the community to cover safety and environmental awareness concerns. The rural area was home to venomous snakes, torrential downpours, etc. But even those perils won’t deter the fervent curiosity of us honor students! 🦈 

It was common to go on morning nature hikes, even in the scorching sunlight—I had to go through bottles of sunscreen for protection! On these forest hikes, Tom would point out facts about the exotic flora and fauna we’d encounter. The class as a whole discussed the current conditions of the rainforest and the staggering yield of biodiversity. It was so interesting to learn how approximately half of the plants in the area could be used as medicinal herbs for healing purposes. After a couple hours of outdoor exploration, Tom would follow a trail to a river/waterfall for everyone to swim and have a great time. However, each new hike would become exponentially more difficult and dangerous. It soon became common for people to fall down a very muddy slope or slip on a wet rock to cross a strong current in the river. It came to the point where we had to scale sheer waterfalls with no equipment except for our bare hands and feet! Honestly, I was amazed that no one become seriously injured with bone fractures or third-degree skin abrasions… ⛰