Mallory and I had been promising each other for weeks that we'd go together since all our other friends like running and we....don't. So we finally did, and we completely regretted it during the first part. So. Many. Hills.
Here's one of the hills from halfway up. Note that you cannot see the bottom.
And here is the rest of that hill facing the other way (I totally used picture-taking as an excuse to rest here!) The hill continues up and to the left there, past that house and up behind it to the right. And this was just one of the 4 or 5 hills. Mallory and I were definitely cursing our former vigor for Hashing.
But eventually, we got to the top of all the hills and it was pretty much all downhill from there, and we were out of the little town and in the jungle/forest-y area, which was much prettier.
Here's Mallory with the donkey we found randomly tied to a tree in the middle of the forest. There were many inappropriate jokes about Mallory and her cute little...well, you know.
We were some of the last people back because we kept not paying attention to trail markers and missed a turn not once, not twice, but three times and had to turn around, go back, and figure out where we had gone wrong. But finally, we made it back. And here's where things took an exciting turn.
They were selling some cheap local food at the end for those of us who actually made it. (Please ignore the sweat stains. It's really hot and humid here.) My food was great, but poor Mallory made an unpleasant discovery in hers.
I made the picture extra large so you'd be sure to notice it. That is a piece of pork. Mallory said, "Ew, there's hair on it!" One of the other SOs said, "...so pick it off." Mallory replied, "NO! There's HAIR on it!!!" Yup, that's pig hair, my friends. I had to talk her into not throwing it away immediately so I could take this picture. That is genuinely what her face looked like during this ordeal. No more pork for Mallory.
Here is my, admittedly too cheerful, attempt to explain to everyone else that it was pig hair and not human hair. Mallory was too traumatized to express herself clearly.
After we had all eaten, they asked all first-time Hashers to come forward. I had heard some rumors and was pretty sure about what came next, but all our friends were adamant that we go up, so I played along. Here we are all listening to the man giving the speech about Hashing. Notice the people with bottles behind us.
We got sprayed with beer. The picture on the left was taken the second they started spraying. The picture on the right is me apologizing to Mallory because between these two pictures, I jumped in between her and her husband and crouched down to avoid getting too wet. Notice how soaked the two of them are compared to me. :) Mallory may or may not have aimed some expletives at me during the beer shower.
But here we are, friends again, with our certificates saying we survived a Hash! The best part was getting home to Bryant, who immediately asked, "Why do you smell like beer? And why are you all sticky?" I followed that up with a real hot-water-and-soap shower and went to bed.
