Barcelona study abroad Summer 2011: Day 12/Jungle trek and Altafulla

I was so tired today. I don't see how people function after continuously not getting enough sleep! We woke up at 7:45am to eat breakfast and get ready to meet outside of the metro station in front of the University of Barcelona (not where we go to school, that is the CEA Global campus) at 9am. We didn't realize that the University was just a couple of blocks down our street until we got back from the trip, so it took longer to take the metro there than it did to walk back. The place where the Jungle Trek was located was really close to Altafulla beach, and near the small town of Tarragona (which I really want to come back and check out sometime before I die), and about an hour outside of Barcelona. The Jungle trek was pretty cool, but i'm sure it was nothing compared to if it was in a real jungle like in Costa Rica or somewhere in the Latin or South America. They had zip lines and various ropes and nets to work your way through, which were a lot of fun! But we always seemed to get stuck behind a few people who weren't as adventerous so that really slowed us up, but luckily we got to go on the longest zip-line before we left.. And we also approached the course in the wrong way, so we didn't get to do the most difficult courses because we ran out of time. Darn! Oh well, I'll be sure to not make the same mistake when I go zip-lining in a real jungle, not just a bunch of trees of different heights. We were probably on the course for about 2-3 hours though, and other people were playing laser tag in the middle of the day in the trees beneath, so that was fun to watch. The course was located right next to a country club-esque place with a swimming pool and tennis courts, amongst other things. After we left here, we hopped back on the bus and headed to the beach. It was a beautiful, small beach with a few restaurants right in front of it and houses on the surrounding mountains. I had to take a break from my roommates, so I decided to sit with some new people and eat lunch. This was a good choice, because I really liked the people that I ate with and they are even heading to Pamplona tomorrow (plus one of them is from North Carolina and used to live in Wilmington!), so hopefully i'll be able to hang out with them while we are out of town. Heck, they may even run with the bulls as well, so it could work out perfectly, I just hope we can stay safe. I overheard some other people on the bus talking about the same thing, so it would be really cool if we could all do it together. The girls split a pizza and ordered patatas bravas (which are amazing), me and one of the guys split a Hawaiian pizza, and the other two guys ordered a Margherita pizza. And this pizza was dang good, but me being starving probably didn't hurt either. It was awesome to just hang out on the beach and swim in the gorgeous blue water, and to work on tanning my pasty skin! The sand here felt so good between my toes, and it didn't have shells in it like at home! I have never been able to just lie down on a towel and not fall asleep, so even though I was exhausted, I decided to walk to both ends of the beach and take some pictures. It was so cool to see the mountains/cliffs by the water and the houses on them, and also the other nearby beaches from certain high points. On the other end, there was a fancy camground where it looked like many people were vacationing, and at the top of that hill there is an old watch tower, but unfortunately it was blocked off so you couldn't go inside of it. And out at the end of the campground was part of the mountain that absorbed some of the waves, so I found a path and walked out to it. I wanted to jump off of the end so bad and get a picture, but I was by myself and didn't want to take any chances with undercut rocks or with swimming all the way back around. So, I turned the other way and found a smaller ledge to jump off of which didn't have any rocks underneath and was closer to the beach. Good thing I have a waterproof camera or else I wouldn't have been able to do it! When I got back, some of us wanted to go swimming, and someone had a bright idea (at the time, at least) to swim out to the buoys so I thought "sure, what the heck." It wasn't until we were halfway out there that we realized that it wasn't such a good idea and that they were much further away than they looked! But, there was no turning back without touching one of them, so we pushed onward. It was neat to see the differences in the Barcelona beach and the Altafulla beach. Barcelona had a much much larger beach with more tourist attractions and no waves whatsoever, but the Altafulla beach had small waves and was more secluded, not nearly as polluted with vendors, loud city noises, etc. The bus ride back was pretty smooth and I even think that I fell asleep a couple of times, which was bad because I wanted to take pictures! But I guess I needed it. There was some talk about going to Parc Guell when we got back because the weather was so nice, but in the end we decided that we were too tired. My roommates aren't going to Pamplona this weekend so they are all going to check it tomorrow, so I guess i'll just have to ride solo and do the trip alone one day after school. Well, I have to do some homework and try to get way caught on sleep before I leave for Pamplona tomorrow afternoon, so I need to go. I have to get all the sleep that I can tonight, because the program we are going on leaves Barcelona at 2pm tomorrow and arrives in Pamplona at 8pm, and then we stay up all night and enjoy the festivities (which I hear there are LOTS) and then the "Running of the Bulls" at 8am on Sunday morning, and then leave Pamplona and head back to Barcelona at 9:30am, planning on arriving around 2pm. It's going to be a very long weekend! But should be a great one.