This is a bird called l'oiseau la vierge. They were everywhere on our hike, and made all kinds of wonderful music the whole time. In fact this one in the picture tried to land on me, but I moved because a bird flying in front of my face is not the most pleasant thing in the whole world. It was cool, and it showed that people rarely ever hiked the trail that we were on, which is cooler.
Anyways, we hiked into this place called Grand Bassin at dusk saturday. I was expecting to find just a river and hills and such, but there was a town down there, completely secluded from the rest of the world as there are no roads that reach it. I was pretty surprised, but I guess it could work, I just don't know how. Anyways, people were really nice there and pointed us in the right direction and we slept on the black sand next to this river. There were a couple of small rock slides during the night that fell into the river. So that was comforting. The morning was amazing because we hadn't seen where we were and waking up to cliffs and a waterfall just around the corner and this beautiful winding river, etc. I was really something. We explored a bit and took a dip in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall. It was invigoratingly cold and I was done after a good minute. We dried off in the sun and headed up this other trail that went out the other side of the town and straight up a ridge. It was tough, but we took it at a good pace, and we were surrounded by birds, little toads and something called a tangue, which ressembles a rat-like hedgehog. In fact, I almost stepped on one (of the tangue things). Plus there were flowers everywhere and the trail was obviously not very widely used, and I felt quite at home. Plus there were ladders everywhere and big rocks, so I was quite happy. We got to a crossroads at about 4:30 and decided not to do another day (it was a good idea) and headed towards the parking lot. A guy came tromping up behind us and started to get into his car, and justin decided that we needed to ask him for a lift. so we did, and he said yes. So that was good, but he seemed really mad about something, and we figured out that his girlfriend had just left him, and he was intent on finding her...I don't know what he intended to do when he did, but he was very serious and drove like a mad man. Anyways, we made it to the bus on time, and as we sat in the 6 oclock traffic jams they have here, we decided to get off at L'Hermitage and spend the night there. It was sweet!

k, I got class now. The grades are coming in!!!

Peace!