Friday, September 10, 2010

A Summer to Remember

These summer vacations have given me quite a lot to talk and think about. My story of these summer holidays begins on June 6th. I left school prematurely, and after packing the few clothes and survival items we were allowed to take, Alejandra and I headed south to Madrid to begin our adventure of the Ruta Quetzal. We arrived at the first campsite in Madrid, and after a few goodbyes and a couple of hugs we left our "normal" lives and comodities for the next month and a half. We began to meet people and more people, and no matter how hard you tried to remember all their names, it was useless because the next instant you didn't remember who they were. After meeting swarms of people we finally met our groups for the next 6 weeks, which, apart from being colleagues, would serve as family and friends. Already this first day had been greatly intense, but what was lying ahead for us was the never imaginable.

Next morning, after an early waking up, the 300 of us, with 300 identical backpacks, 300 identical t-shirts and 300 pairs of identical boots, boarded the huge
caravan of 9 buses and 3 cars and headed for Madrid International airport to fly to 40ºC and 95% humidity, or what is the same, VERACRUZ, Mexico.

The next 40 days of my life would remain in my memory forever, crossing dense, tropical jungles, with soaking clothes, walking for 12 hours, visiting places I would never have inagined and feeling dirty, wet and tired the whole time. The Ruta Quetzal, apart from showing me incredible
places and making me live awesome experiences, served as a window to other people and cultures, a window to lives that are much
more complicated than ours and that I had never thought about before.

Summer didn't end there, however. After returning, I left for 7 more days to Tunis and enjoy a more relaxed and cofortable stay in
another country.