I Kissed Claro

Hey Y'all,
The day started out with a nice long hike in the mountains. A nice, long, grueling hike straight up a mountain. Just how I like to start my day at 6am. Thankfully, we got to stop and swim in seven waterfalls.

   

The views were amazing and it was an adventure to swim through the waterfalls. We were also able to jump off the top of one waterfall into it. It was fantastic! After hours of trekking in the jungle and swimming, we loaded back up into the van to drive to a snake sanctuary. Yuck! Canada and I decided to sit in the back and slink down low but our plan was foiled by the counselors who made everyone sit up front. The man that owned the sanctuary is a former exchange student who fell in love with snakes when he was in Australia.It was exciting to hear how one moment in his exchange changed his whole life. He kept insisting that snakes were awesome and of course due to a life time of prejudice my thoughts sound like, "Liar, liar, pants on fire!" As you can see this trip has clearly matured me. But this man is insisting that snakes are neither good or bad and that these snakes are trained and won't hurt us. He told us that no one who had come here had left without holding a snake, ever. Challenge accepted. I was not going to be the first person too scared to hold a snake. 

Our wonderful host, Claro, and the man holding him.

The snake is kissing me.

Australia and me

I,of course, found the one cat
wandering around the sanctuary. 

So not only did I let this boa constrictor wrap itself around my neck, I decided to be one of the few brave people to let him kiss me. Claro was dangled in front of my face and started "kissing" me. Crazy! It was a blast getting to swim in all the waterfalls and being kissed by a snake was definetly an experience. Tchau for now!