Mountain Hike

5-31-09
Mike´s host family asked Jill to wake him up. Then we tried to go to mass but there was no mass because of the festival(?). On the way back from ´´mass´´ we saw a structure on top of a mountain in the city and realized it was a church. Jill´s host dad took us up the mountain. The church was beautiful and the view even better. To get into the church we had to venture in a dungeon looking door and were told it would be very dark as we walked through this cave under the church - it is dark to honor the dead. As Jill nervously gripped on to Mike´s shirt we walked through the pitch black into an underground chapel. After the cave we went into the actual church which was had 3 glass sided walls and a 4th wall as the side of the mountain. The balcony overlooked the city and the bay as well as a larger than life rosary - each rosary bead was represented by a pillar as tall as us. After our hike and almuerzo (potatoes in spicy sauce, rice, vegetables, chicken, and a squid mush - whew!) we explored our town some more and found more celebrations going on. We´re looking forward to our volunteering tomorrow. We hope we can make all of our posts this detailed but we may end up having less time in the future. Pictures soon!