Les Trois Soeurs

At the beginning of the summer, I asked all of the kids if there was something in particular that they wanted to do this summer.  My teenagers were pretty bummed about the fact that we weren't planning any travels anywhere and I was hoping to at least give them something to look forward to in our desert town.  I knew it was going to be a pretty lonely summer as most of their high school peers were heading out of the country.  When I asked, they all looked at me as if I had three heads and made some comment about how there is NOTHING to do here.  But, after encouraging them to think a little harder, Isaac said that he wanted to hike the "Three Sisters." 

The Three Sisters are a group of three plateau/hill type things that dominate our vista across the river.  We absolutely love the view we see of them from our back porch and yet we had never ventured up them.  Finally, last week, on an overcast morning, we drove across the river and scaled all three. 

Here are the Three Sisters from our back porch.

The first one we climbed was way harder than I had imagined.  It was sheer rock and rather than being a steady incline, there were almost like mini-cliffs.  Let's just say that my upper thighs were quite contrary the next couple of days as they reminded me how much the did NOT like hoisting me up the ledges.  Fortunately, the other two were much gentler, though the rolling rocks that dominated the slopes were a bit of a challenge to navigate.  The views from the tops were super and it was a great time for all of us.  We nearly raced up the third one because a storm was obviously rolling in.  We watched the rain across the river, but managed to get only sprinkles on our side.  Here are a few pictures of our morning adventure.

Isaac and Liz were enjoying the view from the top of the first one we climbed, which was actually the farthest one down the road that we traveled to get to them.

Here is the road below.  Do you see the camel passing in front of that stand of trees?

My all-time favorite hiking buddy.  I was thinking about it and I can think of at least 10 countries where this fellow and I have hiked together.  And I know it's been way more than 10 states.  I look forward to many more hikes together!

This is our land, during rainy season.  See all of that green!

Me with my growing young'uns!

These houses are pretty typical residences for our host country.

Here is a funny Three Sisters story that I think of often.  When I first started teaching art in Niger, most of my kindergartners were English Language Learners.  One day in class, we were talking about mountains and one of the students, who was often very quiet, looked at the photo I was holding and gave a little nod of understanding while he whispered excitedly, "comme Les Trois Soeurs!"  I grinned at his connection that the mountains in my photo were like the Three Sisters in our city, which are probably the only "mountains" he has yet to see.