Happy times in Jalcomulco

Sunday we went to church with my family which was interesting. They go to an all Spanish ward and very few of the members speak English. Being in those types of situations makes me REALLY want to learn Spanish so I can communicate better with people. There are a few differences between their ward in Puebla, Mexico and the wards we have in the states: there is no carpet in the whole building just tile, they don't hand out a meeting schedule with who is speaking etc, my mom is adorable while teaching choir practice in Spanish, the chairs aren't pews in the chapel just regular padded chairs where some are connected to others, one of the brothers in the bishopric wore a sweater instead of a suit coat, they are all very friendly and you can tell that they genuinely care about each other. It was a great experience and also fun to watch my dad teach the single adults in their class.

After church we rushed over to my dad's plant for a tour. I'd never seen how fiberglass was made. My favorite parts were standing next to the HUGE oven/furnace that melts the materials and then sends the glass through a comb-like machine that separates it into thousands of miniscule glass strands and then having it wound up into a spool. Tyson got a kick out of it too because I don't think he'd ever been to a manufacturing plant. I even got to take home a green glob of glass that was made there...pretty cool! It reminds me of my days working for my dad making drawer slides for another company he worked for.

That night we drove out to a town near Veracruz called Jalcomulco. It was getting dark at the end of the drive and everything around us was jungley which was really neat! When we got there they checked us into the hotel and Miguel our tour guide walked us through the activities we were doing on Mon through Tues and had us sign out life away in case anything happened. Here is the hotel we stayed in. They served us meals 3 times a day and the rooms were very quaint.


Monday morning we slept in and ate breakfast with fresh fruit, ham & eggs, little tortilla/salsa things, and freshly squeezed juice. We then got all our gear on and headed out to go white water rafting. The river was amazing and we were surrounded by jungle the whole way. It was neat seeing a few exotic birds along the sides. Because it isn't the high tide season the rapids weren't too intense so Miguel played a bunch of games with us while we were in the lighter rapids which resulted in many of us falling out multiple times.
Here you can see a fisherman who is picking up his traps he set in the water to see what he caught. They will wade into the river and set the hand-made traps out with bait to attract shrimp and lobster to cook/sell them in the town. A kayaker in our group said he would take some good pictures with my waterproof camera we brought and he did a great job. I loved this fisherman one and the pictures above that he took! So props to Jose (I think that's what his name was).

Miguel said that a lot of fisherman will live in these overhangs or caves in the mountain.

We went back to the hotel, had lunch and then headed on our way to go repel an 80 foot cliff. The whole ride and hike over there my mom kept saying that she wasn't sure she was going to do it, but she's the one in the top right of this picture repelling up a storm! It was probably the scariest thing I've ever done in my life, and by the look of Tyson's face on our video camera I'm sure he felt the same way. My dad was a pro and had done it before but it still freaked him out a little.

It was scary because imagine yourself starting backwards down this cliff and you have 100lb Miguel on the top holding you up trying to communicate to you in Spanish what you're supposed to do. Not only do you have the language barrier but you're waiting for my dad's translation as you're hanging backwards off this 80 foot cliff thinking you're doing something wrong...then you find out that Miguel just wanted you to jump like 3 feet out from the cliff and let more of the rope through just for fun. What goes through your head?! "Hell no I'm not doing that!" Then Miguel just laughs, and the whole while you're thinking in your head that you're going to die any second and see Miguel flying through the air towards you holding the support rope in his hands, and then you will never be able to make little Laura and Tyson babies...... basically that is what I was thinking while I was repelling, which is why my smile was forced and I felt like I was going to pee myself (which I am proud to say I didn't). Here is mis padres and the gorgeous view. My dad wasn't feeling too hot, I think he ate something that didn't agree with his stomach but he was still a trooper and said he would have repelled again (all of us just went once it freaked us out so much!)... at least he says that he would have gone again. I beg to differ. After we repelled Miguel took us to this cave that had stalagmites and an old cave painting which was pretty neat to see.
That night we headed back to the hotel, had dinner and just relaxed with each other and talked about that terrifying experience. Miguel told us the next day we were going to go four wheeling and zip lining through the mango trees. The great thing is we were able to sleep in the next morning also and we headed to pick up the four wheelers. Here is Tyson posing next to a real live banana tree! We'd never seen them in the wild!

We four wheeled all over the Mexico jungle until we got to the mango grove. There was also a banana grove (not sure if they're groves or farms or what), but it was neat to see more of them. We got all geared up and my dad mentioned that you aren't really having fun unless the activity you're doing involves wearing a helmet. All of the activities on this trip involved helmets, and let me tell you they were a blast! (I'm never doing repelling again off an 80 foot cliff again in the heart of Mexico though.) Zip lining was really fun. We had to walk up this platform/bridge thing to get to one of the mango tree tops and flew through the air. It was a first for me and a blast!

I began to love the adorable quaint little town of Jalcomulco and recommend everyone to go visit it if you are going to the Mexico area! There are tons of things to do and see. My mom and I bought some fun jewelry/purses from a lady who lived in a house that looks like these right next door to our hotel.