Sunday January 11, 2009
Today has mostly been a travel day for us. We were allowed to sleep in a little later today, and have breakfast around 8:30, but I was up and out around 7:00 AM, I really haven’t been sleeping well since we left home. So, I decided to be productive with my time and get caught up a little bit in my journaling and writing.
Since we are traveling so far today we are taking the bus that picked us up at the airport, instead of the two vans that we had been traveling in. We met our new driver who will be with us until the end of our journey and right on schedule, we departed the little village of Suchitoto. We began this trip in the metropolis of San Salvador, a big bustling metropolitan city, and then traveled to the classic little Central American town of Suchitoto and now we are traveling four hours up into the mountains of Morazan to the little village of Perquin. We are truly on top of the mountain, as a matter of fact the last 100 yards of our journey was straight up a humongous staircase consisting of 58 steps, carrying our luggage to get to our cabins.
Soon, Dong and I were originally put in cabin #4 but because of a Bee infestation we were forced to move to Cabin #1. This of course met with great laughter and amusement from the people who worked at the lodge. (I’m glad that I don’t speak Spanish, I would hate to know what they were saying, although I had a pretty good idea.) Cesar, our guide, even said that you can’t get away from the bugs up here. I can just imagine their thoughts about the wimpy North Americans (You have to distinguish North, South, etc, they are Americans too:) But, it wasn’t’ the wimpy North American that had the problem with the Bees, it was the Koreans who hate anything to do with bugs.
After getting settled, a group of us went for a walk into the town of Perquin. Cesar told us that it was right up the road not far. What he didn’t tell us was that it was ALL up hill. I thought I would die, but once there, we sat down in the beautiful park in the center of town and watched as Soon Won became an immediate hit with the children of the village with the camera. “Photo, Photo por favor,” the little kids would ask, and of course Soon would oblige them and then show them their picture in the digital screen. After a few minutes we were surrounded by kids laughing and playing and wanting their pictures taken, Then the parents came up to see what was going on, and of course they got there pictures taken too. There was one boy that seemed to be quite a ring leader, his name was Brian Martinez, I think that I will always remember that name, not necessarily because of anything that he did, but the way that Kate took such a shine to him, and would imitate the way he said his name with great bravado. I hope that there will be some way to print these pictures and send them back to the kids so that they can have the pictures as a reminder of their time spent with the crazy gringos.
The walk back down the hill was so much better, I was glad that we didn’t have to walk uphill both ways. Well, I should say that it was all downhill, until we got to the 58 steps back up to our cabins, this is hard work on an old fat boy.
After dinner we watched a video about a woman, Rufina Amaya, who was the only survivor of a massacre at the nearby village of El Mozote. In the massacre, the village was destroyed and the people were murdered. Tomorrow we will go to this village and hear for ourselves the story of these people. I am growing weary in my soul of these stories, so many people died, men women and children and no one seems to care.
On a thankfully much lighter note, I have to mention that my Korean friends are a constant source of amusement to me. Tonight, just before we went to bed, I was treated to a very exciting hunt. As I mentioned earlier, my Korean friends don’t like bugs of any kind, and tonight they spent about 15-20 minutes going around the cabin “hunting” bugs. It was hilarious to watch as they stalked their prey, jumping with joy after a successful attack and discussing, quite animatedly, (in Korean of course) their next strategy if they failed in their attempt. The biggest prey of the night was a gigantic Wolf Spider (I have to admit that I’m glad they got rid of that one) But, instead of killing him, they decided to capture it instead and release it outdoors. Words can’t begin to describe how that all took place, you just had to be there. Ultimately, they caught it in a trash can and opened the door and let it go. Perhaps their compassion for the spider was a little bit of residual Buddha influence, personally, I would have squashed that one and left the mosquitoes alone :)
Today has mostly been a travel day for us. We were allowed to sleep in a little later today, and have breakfast around 8:30, but I was up and out around 7:00 AM, I really haven’t been sleeping well since we left home. So, I decided to be productive with my time and get caught up a little bit in my journaling and writing.
Since we are traveling so far today we are taking the bus that picked us up at the airport, instead of the two vans that we had been traveling in. We met our new driver who will be with us until the end of our journey and right on schedule, we departed the little village of Suchitoto. We began this trip in the metropolis of San Salvador, a big bustling metropolitan city, and then traveled to the classic little Central American town of Suchitoto and now we are traveling four hours up into the mountains of Morazan to the little village of Perquin. We are truly on top of the mountain, as a matter of fact the last 100 yards of our journey was straight up a humongous staircase consisting of 58 steps, carrying our luggage to get to our cabins.
Soon, Dong and I were originally put in cabin #4 but because of a Bee infestation we were forced to move to Cabin #1. This of course met with great laughter and amusement from the people who worked at the lodge. (I’m glad that I don’t speak Spanish, I would hate to know what they were saying, although I had a pretty good idea.) Cesar, our guide, even said that you can’t get away from the bugs up here. I can just imagine their thoughts about the wimpy North Americans (You have to distinguish North, South, etc, they are Americans too:) But, it wasn’t’ the wimpy North American that had the problem with the Bees, it was the Koreans who hate anything to do with bugs.
After getting settled, a group of us went for a walk into the town of Perquin. Cesar told us that it was right up the road not far. What he didn’t tell us was that it was ALL up hill. I thought I would die, but once there, we sat down in the beautiful park in the center of town and watched as Soon Won became an immediate hit with the children of the village with the camera. “Photo, Photo por favor,” the little kids would ask, and of course Soon would oblige them and then show them their picture in the digital screen. After a few minutes we were surrounded by kids laughing and playing and wanting their pictures taken, Then the parents came up to see what was going on, and of course they got there pictures taken too. There was one boy that seemed to be quite a ring leader, his name was Brian Martinez, I think that I will always remember that name, not necessarily because of anything that he did, but the way that Kate took such a shine to him, and would imitate the way he said his name with great bravado. I hope that there will be some way to print these pictures and send them back to the kids so that they can have the pictures as a reminder of their time spent with the crazy gringos.
The walk back down the hill was so much better, I was glad that we didn’t have to walk uphill both ways. Well, I should say that it was all downhill, until we got to the 58 steps back up to our cabins, this is hard work on an old fat boy.
After dinner we watched a video about a woman, Rufina Amaya, who was the only survivor of a massacre at the nearby village of El Mozote. In the massacre, the village was destroyed and the people were murdered. Tomorrow we will go to this village and hear for ourselves the story of these people. I am growing weary in my soul of these stories, so many people died, men women and children and no one seems to care.
On a thankfully much lighter note, I have to mention that my Korean friends are a constant source of amusement to me. Tonight, just before we went to bed, I was treated to a very exciting hunt. As I mentioned earlier, my Korean friends don’t like bugs of any kind, and tonight they spent about 15-20 minutes going around the cabin “hunting” bugs. It was hilarious to watch as they stalked their prey, jumping with joy after a successful attack and discussing, quite animatedly, (in Korean of course) their next strategy if they failed in their attempt. The biggest prey of the night was a gigantic Wolf Spider (I have to admit that I’m glad they got rid of that one) But, instead of killing him, they decided to capture it instead and release it outdoors. Words can’t begin to describe how that all took place, you just had to be there. Ultimately, they caught it in a trash can and opened the door and let it go. Perhaps their compassion for the spider was a little bit of residual Buddha influence, personally, I would have squashed that one and left the mosquitoes alone :)
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