Geocaching

Yesterday I mentioned this very interesting hobby called Geocache, basically an adult version of a treasure hunt.  The treasure simply being finding the cache, signing the tiny log, then logging the whole thing on the Website.  It is a very interesting hobby and one that could easily be addictive.  You have to use Sherlock Holmes deductive skill, GPS and ingenuity.  Some of these are pretty hard to do.  They have a rating for the difficulty level from 1 (easy) to 4 (hardest) and then a level of terrain difficulty from 1-4.  Today we had class in the afternoon so I went out in the morning with Fr. Joe to find several caches.  We did not find all of them because one was a level 4 but that mystery has been mostly solved and we have to go back to that site.  The other one we did not get because the battery died on the GPS before we could get to the location but the others we found.  There are many variations on these caches.  Most of them are little film canisters, some half the size of a film canister, some are medium to large tupperware pieces and others are tiny canisters the size of small bullet.  Some contain not only a log but markers with the geocacher's logo or motto, some have traveling trinkets meant to be moved to anther location. Some have hints while others have no hints.  Some are puzzles while others require several sites to find the final site, with each site giving a new hint and coordinates.  Here are a few pictures to give you an idea.

This is where we traveled for the first cache.  It is the Piazza Del Popolo.  The hint was, "at the left foot of the River".  You have to know a little about the history of the Piazza.  There is a fountain with two figures representing rivers.

Piazza Del Popolo

 Here is a picture of one of the Rivers, the left river's foot.

Left river figures foot

 And here is a close up of the geo cache container under the foot!

Close up shot of the container

 Here is Fr. Joe signing the scroll found in the container to prove he found it, after signing it he then puts it back and then logs on his computer at the website.

Fr. Joe authenticating the first find of the day

The next one was at a very large park here in Rome, the Villa Borghese.  This huge and lovely park was once the private estate of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the nephew of Pope Paul V Borghese whose name is inscribed on the front of St. Peter's. The World Famous Borghese Gallery, the Cardinal's former Palazzo, is on the property.

This is a fountain that keeps time by means of water from the aquaducts falls on levers in the center part, it keeps perfect time, it is pretty cool!

Water Clock in the Borghese Park

The next find was deep in a wooded section of the park and the hint was "Behind the wooden door".  I had no idea what that meant but Fr. Joe has been doing this for decades and knows some of the lingo and "geo thoughts".  He said we needed to look for a tree with a piece of wood covering a hole.  Voila!  There it was! This was a pretty big container and had lots of Geo tags inside with markers from folks around the world.

The "Wooden Door"

 Here is Fr. Joe extracting the log to be signed, you can see all the stuff in the tupperware.

Tupperware Cache

 Here is a close up of the stuff other Geocacher's have left in the container.  Large containers are for this purpose.

Close up of the some of the stuff in the tupperware

 Then we were off to the next one in a rather off the beaten path location, a bit remote.  The hint was "The highest point"  While Fr. Joe dug himself under a thicket of vines and climbed up a fence to the top to look in the branches - I looked around.  When he extracted himself from the thicket he was re-reading the hint out loud and saying, "well we're just going to have to leave because I can't find it"  At which point I handed him the Cache and said, "Is this what your looking for???".  He then looked at me rather cross and said, "How did you find that?".  I told him I noticed these three rocks in a triangle and one was higher than the others, since rocks do not form naturally this way I knew someone had placed them purposely that way and the white one formed the "highest point" so I picked it up.

"The Highest Point"

 Here is a shot of what I found, a canister embedded in the rock!

The find!

 The last one was very tricky with a double rating of 4.  There were no official hints but several Geocacher's had logged on the website that it was "hard to find the right coordinates" but "the military police" were helpful.  By this time it was late and we needed to get back but I pestered Fr. Joe to look at one possible site but he refused, had we done that we would have found the cache.  The right coordinates requires knowledge of the topography of the area, we think we figured it out tonight and will return to this site to log it.  I will post something if we are correct!

This evening I took Emmanuel Iyevuze to dinner.  He is a seminary student studying at the Pontifical Urbaniana College located right next door to PNAC.  This college is run the by Congregation Propoganda Fide, the Pontifical Mission Office, it houses and educates students from the developing world.  He is from the Diocese of Kasana-Luweero in Uganda, East Africa.  He is from the parish of St. Joseph in Katikamu, the Church St. Thomas More has a partnership with.  His father is Katikamu's Catechist.  Mary Goss also knows his family very well.  I laughed because I asked him where he would like to go to eat, did he have a favorite restaurant????  Remember this is Italy, lots of great restaurants.  What do you think he said???  "Chinese"!!!!!!!!!!  So for the second time I have had Chinese food in Rome, Italy!  We went to one of his favorite ones.  There were priests from the NAC at the next table and in the front room two big tables of Africans.  One table had several bishops, Archbishops and a Vatican Official.  The food was very good but it is comical hearing Chinese speak broken Italian!

Cena with Emmanuel Iyevuze