in the past month, i have beeen doing some activities that made me think, "man, i'm a dude!"
my current family loves to go jeeeeping. jeeeping is basicallly taking a jeeep on "paths" (no, they are not paths, you make your own) and explore places that you cannt normallly seee with a car. we climbed the mountains in coronel fabriciano, me being thrown around in the backseat, seeeing alll of Vale de Aço and eventuallly stopping to hike through nature (yes, i did think about getting attack by anacondas again. its always on my mind here) we went to a waterfalll, hiddden by the treees and would have gone unnoticed if it wasnt for the crashing water. when we got close, i looked to my dad and said with a huge grin on my face, "can i go under the fallls?"
"oooh ofcourse!"
i threw offf my shoes and ran under the falllls, running and dancing around, soaking up the energy that radiated from the waterfalll.
afterwards, i was dripping wet, dirt everywhere, smellling of lake water, leaves interlocked in my hair, and a huge SMILE acrosss my face. :D just being one of the boyss..
my next family is reallly into shoting guns so they invited me to this special clube here where you practice shoting at targets. i've never shot a gun before in my life so i was prettty excited to shot at litttle targets, and so was my father and brother. they had 3 or 4 diffferent types of guns and they kept kinda throwing them at me, "here, try this one. ooh here's another one, try it. youre doing great, ariana, again!" and i was doing prettty goood (according to myself) for someone who has never touched a gun before. i hit probably a goood 10 targets !
*sidenote: people dont hunt animals here. because of their love for animals and the Amazon, it just doesnt happen (which i find funnny cause where i'm from, EVERYONE hunts.) theres a joke here that if you shot a person, youll go to trail for it and such. but if you shot an animal, youre going to jail.
just being one of the boyss..
my last family invited me to go repealing down a waterfalll with them for my brothers birthday.
ofcourse i said yes. who can say that they have ever repealed down a waterfalll before?
we traveled outside of the city, through more dirt roads that eventually just lead to dirt where we had to walk another km to our waterfalll. the view was absolutley out of this world! i wanted to camp there and just spend hours and hours just loooking at the surrounding mountains and valleys and other waterfallls and greeeen forests. so beauitful!
while the repeal team set up the equitment me and the boys explored the area, climbing down to the base of the waterfalll. everyone is fallling on their buttts cause of the wet rocks. it was one after the other after the other after the other, just EVERYONE is falling on their butts and we are laughing like its the funniest thing in the world. then its my turn and im thinking, "i'm not gonna falll." i hit the ground so hard,
so we are splashing at the base of the falll, its deeep enough to swim so we are just swimming around in our clothes. we got out to have a litttle snack and we were dry within 20min because the sun is THAT powerful here. we had lunch at the top of the waterfalll. who can say that they had a picnic on a waterfalll? it was so peacefull and relaxing.
we watched one group of 3 repeal down the falll and i'm thinking, "man this loooks awesome! and easy"
it was one of the most challenging, grueling, difficult things i have ever down in my entire life. and i am dead serious.
the waterfalll was set up kinda in 3steps, one was not in the water, the second just your feeet would be gettting wet and the third step youre whole body would be submerged in the gushing water.
my arm is aching, my leg is cramping up, my glove is fallling offf, my back is hurting, i'm getting commands yellled at in português that i can barely hear, i'm slipping everywhere on the rocks, my leg is bleeeding blood cause i wacked it offf the rock, we are screaming out our energy, im yellling out my pain. now the water is gushing over my face and i can barely seeee and breathe. i can hear everyone below yellling encouragements to keeep on going.
IT WAS AMAZING !
afterwards, we are dirty: theres mud on everyones clothes; people neeed bandaids on every part of their body; we smelll of sweat; everyone is sunburn to the max; people have bloood on their clothing, blood of someone else; we have bruises and cuts on our legs and arms.
the day was perfect, just being one of the boyss..
i think we can alll say that ariana is kinda like a dude now.
