found!

We were met by hostel volunteer Judith, who gave us an incredibly detailed tour of the place. She managed to abstain from explaining how the doorknobs worked but little else escaped her introduction. Apparently the management had given away our room -- they didn´t think we would show up so late. (We arrived at nine.)

We fooled them! I am not afraid to hike in the dark! In a foreign country! Without a map! Not speaking the language! Though I probably should be!

The dorm was a very tall barn-like building with three layers of bunks going up to the ceiling. We chose a bed on the second level. It was a bed built for two people - big mattress, not a normal bunk bed type. We chose the next door bed to lay out all of our bags.

As I got ready for a shower, we were pulled into a room to be shown a spider presentation by this Oxford researcher who has been collecting specimen from the area. He showed us several of his catches, a few of them being a newly discovered species. The last spiders he showed us were dead and he pulled them out of a jar from the refrigerator. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that they were larger than my hand with all the fingers outstretched. Think of the biggest tarantulas you have ever seen and then multiply that by five. It was sick. It was also fascinating. Unfortunately, I didn´t have the camera with me. The spider looked like this but imagine it with legs twice as long.

After show and tell, I took a very hot shower and Nadiv drank most of a bottle of rum. We both had a pasta dinner and chatted with Spiderman for a bit and then went to bed. The dorm bunk bed turned out to be really cozy.