Wow. A sleep at home has never felt so refreshing. I'm ready to tackle the world now. There were tons of amusing and amazing things that happened down there, but I'll only tell one story right now.
On the last day in Mexico, our group went to the beach which was only ten minutes away and had a barbeque. That was all well and good. We hiked down to check out a dead sea lion and whatnot. Those things are big. So anyway, we're heading off to leave when we hear one of our drivers, Andy, radio us on our handhelds that he's run into a bit of trouble. First, he says, "Yeah, I'm kinda stuck." Then, in about thirty seconds, he says, "Yeah, we're gonna need a tractor."
Well, this was just super news, seeing as the closest farmer was out for the night and we wouldn't be able to get a tractor until the next morning, and we were supposed to leave at 7 the next morning. Nonetheless, with the camp director's 4x4, we tried for around three hours to get the 15 passenger van out of the salt bog it had found its way into... We managed to move it around 6 of the 20 feet, but by that time, it had sunk more, and now most of the frame was laying on the bog as well as the tires being pretty much buried. We decided to call it a night.
In short, most of our group headed out early in the morning, with one vanload staying behind. The tractor showed up at 10 and it took an hour and a half to get the van out still. They broke rope after rope and cable after cable, but finally, the van was freed, and that night, that vanload joined the rest of our group at our night's destination, which was Anaheim.
Now, for some of your questions...
Bruise, yeah, I had carpentry skills from the get-go, but never the chance to really put them into action. The houses were simple sheds with the addition of a loft, and altogether, the square footage of each house was maybe 300 sq. ft. They may be small, but in comparison with their other house, a shanty made of cardboard possibly 8'x12' in size, housing twelve people, these new houses were definitely an upgrade. I also learned the value of teamwork.
Dan, not too much pointy stuff brought back, though I managed to purchase a cheapie folder at one of the markets. The vendor was trying to impress me by his quick flicking of the knife, first moving the blade out a bit to get past the ball bearing indentation, and then using his wrist, and then I showed him some of my techniques, including a finale where I flicked it at his nose and ended with the point close enough to his face that he was a little taken aback.
No harm done, of course, though he gave it for me cheaper for some reason..
Munk, I learned that the water in the showers and from the tap was nasty stuff, due to our camp being on a bit of a salt marsh. The purified water that came around in trucks, however, was fine. We never had to purify our own water, which was nice.
Blue, we travelled in three vans: two 15 passenger vans pulling trailers, and an 8 passenger Chevy Astro. The 15 passenger vans were named Star Command 90 and Delta 88, while the Astro was named White Lightning. Travelling was hot, especially with four people crammed in the back seat.
45-70, the "agua purificado" that came around was decent enough to drink, but on the way back, we stuck to sodas pretty much always. No lice came back with us, though one scorpion did try to make his way to Canada in one of the girls' hair.
Still working on sharpening the BAS... It was left with about a 1mm wide edge down most of the blade. The file's working alright on it, though it takes a while around the sweet spot.
