Swimming in urine can be an enjoyable pastime
2 de Julio 2006
After presentations on June 16th, the HSU crew and a few students and teachers from UTC went to General Cepeta on Saturday to look for/at dinosaur bones and other fossils. T-Rex used to roam these parts, as did a few others whose complete skeletons we saw at El Museo del Desierto in Saltillo a month ago. Those skeletons are truly an impressive sight. T-Rex’s mouth could definitely fit a whole human being if you’re into the whole Jurrasic Park thing. I’ve heard dinosaurs had extremely small brains, especially considering their large bodies, but maybe this is just a bias that has come from those recent Microsoft ads. Anyway, I’m really, really glad I’m a warm-blooded mammal without green scales. Also, the fact about dinosaur brains reassures me for the future of the world: it seems intelligence is destined to win out, or at least out-survive in the end. Or, more likely, the insects will take over.
Seeing dinosaur bones gives suggests something of the essence of the desert. The arid landscape with limited resources for life appears timeless, changing slowly. At the same time, its sudden storms and creatures and plants with various poisons, spines, or fangs, makes it volatile and dangerous.
Outside of the museum at General Cepeta we only saw a few dinosaur bones that archaeologists had neatly uncovered and laid bare. It was actually pretty cool and made me appreciate what archaeologists must do, because the skeletons don’t come all neatly laid out like you see in the museums. We also collected a bunch of rocks with tiny fossils of sea animals and shells at about 3,000 feet elevation.
The walk out there had been about 2km and was easy enough, but the walk back, even though it was easy, gave me a bit of appreciation for the power of the desert to make one uncomfortable, or, in extreme cases, dead. Even though I had brought a lot of water for this small excursion, I drank it all, and started feeling dizzy and weird as I was walking. When we returned to the tiny town, the only bottled water offered for sale was really reused, unsealed bottles of tap water. I ended up drinking some along with a lot of Fanta.
Very ready to cool off around this time, we visited a swimming hole Edgar, an UTC student, knew about. The bus had to navigate some gravel and dirt roads that were in less than great condition. Earlier, too, before we got to General Cepeta, we were barreling down narrow dirt roads. I was surprised and impressed the driver would take our huge bus on those roads.
The swimming hole was beautiful, fed by a small stream. Water cascaded from one medium-sized pool formed by rocks into a larger and very deep pool several feet below it. Above the pool, high rock ledges between 20 and 50 feet above the water allowed some of us to safely free fall into the soft and forgiving green water below. Vegetation surrounded the area, and there were even some cattails which are useful for marsh-based waste-water treatment systems, something that Parras program appropriate tech experts are dreaming of implementing in Parras. The knowledge that this plant species already grows in these parts was a joyous discovery for them.
The mention of waste-water treatment is not incidental to this narrative. The beauty I have described was marred not only by the styrofoam cup and cigarettes floating on the water but by some other foulness in the water, as well. We were told there were almost certainly human urine and feces in the water, but the swimming was so enticing that we couldn’t help but go in. Neither did it keep us from jumping off the rocks, which it might have, because it’s difficult to keep from getting water in your mouth when you go in. I don’t think any of us got sick from the experience, though, but those of us who had climbed on the rocks had minor abrasions which, strangely, were stinging when we got out of the water. Deciding it could only be something frightening in the water making this happen, we applied some antiseptic rubbing alcohol and were on our way.
Seeing this swimming hole’s condition made me appreciate how lucky we are to have many protected and clean natural places in the United States. However, as the most consumptive nation on the Earth, we are probably responsible for more environmental destruction and resource extraction outside our borders than any other nation. And there are plenty of places in our borders, too, which have been ruined, most often places where people who can’t afford to live anywhere else have settled. Yet, at the same time, we’ve done an effective job at protected wilderness as a national treasure for those who can afford to enjoy it. Wow, am I glad that somehow I just happened to end up on one side of the equation rather than the other.
That’s all for now. Hey! When is anyone going to post a comment on my blog? Does everyone just have better things to do, or are you clicking the links in my posts and ending up somewhere far more interesting than where you started?
This post was written on an antique laptop running Ubuntu Linux. Then it was edited and refined on a Macinotsh.
aaron :: Jul.03.2006 :: México ::