Kirk was kind enough to get some photographic evidence of me actually working. Here Gloria, Kent and I are mixing the drilling fluid. I'm told it's both a lubricant and has a specific gravity heavier than dirt, so it works to push the dirt up and out of the hole.
The village women had cooked some fish for lunch, but we politely told them gringos had weak stomachs and couldn't eat their food. Some bad past experiences on these trips has led to a "better safe than sorry" approach on such matters. So it was PB&J, Pringles and something like Gatorade called Jumex Sport.
I did still manage to spend time with some of my new friends, who all call me Esteban.
I have new appreciation for the movie Armageddon after this. Drilling down five feet at a time then adding a new section of pipe takes time. Fortunately we weren't doing it on a comet bearing down on Earth.
And once we hit the aquifer, we then had to pull all of those sections of pipe back up and take them off, again one five-foot section at a time.
For those of you counting at home, that's 22 sections of pipe when you drill 110 feet down. Then after drilling the hole, we went back down with something called a reamer to widen it. All in all, pretty tiring and muddy work as promised yesterday.
Right before we got back to La Colonia a huge thunderstorm hit. It's over an hour later, and STILL pouring. I guess the rainy season isn't quite over after all.The dirt road we take into Azatlan that's already been quite an adventure may be a little more interesting tomorrow...
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