Wish I could walk...

On Saturday I taught an English class to fifteen 10 year olds here in Mexico City about the Appalachian Trail.

The current topic we’re studying is the “great outdoors” and we’re talking about adventures, so what better way to get the kids involved than me, their dancing monkey teacher, telling them of my …..ahem….. future daring feats.

One kid asked his mother if he could join me, he said he’d had enough of academic pressure!

We did a brief brainstorm for my trail nick name, most were pretty terrible, but some of the better ones included Jake-achian, Rattle Jake and Stinky Toes. Thanks kids, but I’ll be opting for a real named-on-the-trail trail name.

A quick survey showed that 9 thought I was tough, 4 thought I was crazy and 1 said I was dopey. If you switched a couple of the numbers around we’d have a clearer picture, I feel.

In other news, my achilles is getting very slowly better but it’s still a ways off until I’ll be able put together a solid walk and it’s a little sensitive, I could go for a walk now but I know it’d flare right back up again. I’m pretty  nervous about it and let this be a lesson to ya; one walk can really mess with your stride if you’re not careful, even in a pair of shoes that hadn’t previously caused problems.

I’m kicking myself for it, but I’m also very grateful that because of the nature of my work, I can delay if necessary to make a May start flipflop thru hike (half the hike in one direction then jump to another part to do the other) or even a July southbound attempt. Plus I’ve learned a hard lesson that otherwise I could’ve learnt on the trail which would’ve been worse.

I’m happy I have this freedom if necessary but I’m still aiming for an early April start northbound.

I just gotta remember that according to Mexican 10-year-olds,  60% think I’m a tough guy.

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