Saturday - After many days of huge breakfasts, today we were offered fruit, cereal, and toasted garlic bread. Yes, garlic bread with cheese on it for breakfast! Kind of like fancy toast.
Our 18km hike took only 6 hours, including a relaxing lunch break at a restaurant along the route. We started around 9:20am and could have gone farther since we ended at 3:30 but the group decided to stick with the itinerary.
I enjoyed learning about the extensive canal system created to fill a massive hydro electric reservoir as we climbed above the artificial river and through more extensive sugar and coffee fields.
We walked through a few small villages and one very affluent large town. A church with a most colorful outdoor basketball court caught my eye. It's interesting how many different paint colors exist - and you can see all of them here, I believe.
Our trek guides, Steven and Samuel, did another wonderful day of work, leading us around the countryside. My highlight of the day was to skip rocks and swim across a kayaking river with them at the end of the day. Our lodging at Rio del Villa is just on the hillside overlooking this river. After the child river, I skipped a cold shower but our simple dinner of chick pea soup was nice and hot.
Tomorrow is a long, challenging day.