We made it to lunch and got to go to a real bathroom to wash up. They have very interesting toilet paper holders. They are made from bamboo. Resy nice and great way to use all that bamboo they have! The lunch was chicken fajitas. The entertainment was a combination of local and African dance. Kathleen was picked out of the crowd to join the dancing!
We made our way back to the mouth of the river to a town called Livingston. Here, we went to see a park. This is a picture of something unusual. Most parks in the US do not have sea crocs! There was a large concrete container that was about 8 feet deep and about 50 feet across. If you look at the photo carefully, you can see Kathleen and Nicky on the far side, inside the container you can see a salt water croc with his mouth open and another croc resting his head on him. If you look closer, you will see a man that has his small daughter, about 4 years old, sitting on the ledge of the container!! We learned when we were in Australia that salt water crocs can come up on their tails about 15 feet high! The thought of that little girl being lunch was enough to ruin our appetite for lunch, but off we went! Hopefully, that little girl lived to see another day!
We were riding up river when we happened upon a "resort" of sorts. A tiny hotel in the jungle right on the river. A great place for a honeymoon??
A photo of our vessel that we made it across the ocean in to get to the river! YIKES!! Reminded me of the "Minnow"...
The next time you open up a can of black beans for your Texas caviar or Taco soup from Paula Dean's coobook, think about this sight! Black beans for about 1,000 people!!
Our guide told us that they eat tortillas and black beans. Kathleen and Jimmy were in a contest to see who could make the better tortilla. Seems they called it a tie. We all got to taste their tortillas. We decided they should both stay in school and let these people from Mayan descent keep making the tortillas!
We made it to the school. We were invited into a classroom that was equivalent to 10th grade in the US. There were kids ranging in age from 12 to 19. There was no reason given for the wide range of age unless they just did not get to start school until later in life. Only 3 kids in that room got to go home. The rest of the kids board there. That was surprising. They all walk around with a plate and a cup. They must have to use the same one for every meal, every day. That held true in the town of Livingston that we visited as well. The people in that town were walking around with one plate and a cup. That was something we had never seen. Back to the school. The teacher looked like a student he was so young. None of the students speak ANY english. This was the first school we have ever visited that english was not taught. Really amazing when you think about how many different places we have been. They teach these school kids about their jungles. They want them to go on to a 2 year program outside of this jungle and return with more knowledge of what they have available in their rain forests/jungles that could be medicines, food, etc... All the kids have "jobs" and there are some adults there as well. We toured a "kitchen" of sorts. It was a "tortilla hut". They make 5,000 tortillas a day! Not sure why so many but they do. They invited Kathleen and a boy named Jimmy, who happened to be from Birmingham, Alabama...what were the odds?? to make tortillas. They told us that tortillas are not any god unless they rise and fall while they are on the griddle. The griddle by the way was a giant limestone slab that they kept putting scraps of wood under to keep it heated. The hut, needless to say, was HOT inside! They were churning out tortillas like they were at the Tostitos plant!
Flowers and fauna galore. One gal on our trip forgot to read the suggested footwear...open toed sandals in the rainforest/jungle??
We woke up to storms. Everyone in our group thought our tours would be cancelled. Not the case! Charles had gotten a "cold" and decided not to risk getting sicker or risk his life. The three of us decided, or rather I decided that we would go to the Rio Dulce (Sweet River) as planned. We walked off the ship into driving rain and our umbrellas were turned inside out. The small whaler boats that waited for us at the end of the pier were not looking so good. It would have been easy to turn around and skip the tour saying the weather was too bad, but we did not. We got in that tiny boat with about 9 other brave/stupid people and set out on our one hour ride to reach the river. The problem with the one hour was, it was into driving rain, waves that pounded into the bow of the boat and an engine that looked like it could fall off at any time. Off we went. To say that this one hour ride was bad...well, if you ever thought you had back trouble, this confirmed it for you because you do now. Wooded benches, no cushions, and no "sides" to keep the rain off of you. You will see a picture of Nicky trying his best to stay dry...no luck there but at least with your head buried into a towel, you were less likely to fear for your life! The engine did stop about 25 minutes into the trip. Our "captain", who did not speak english but our guide did, got it going in no time and we were back to pounding the waves. By some miracle from God, when we reached the river, the sun came out and our day turned out to be our favorite. Wet to the bone, we dried out nicely while we made our way up the river to a village. How many people can say they saw "The Village People" for spring break?? Only the Welden kids! ha! They did not appreciate the humor. Actually, this river area is now a protected park. There we saw lots of birds. We became birders back in 2006, so this was a treat. Eagles, herons, egrets, and terns. Loads of them. The pelicans were like squirrels back home...all over the place. I did not know that pelicans could roost in trees. They have webbed feet but they can do it! Once starting up the river, you loose you thoughts to "Oh my goodness, this is remote, beautiful and boy are we glad we came". Everything happens on the river. Small kids in canoes paddling on their way to school, kids selling their parents goods for them along our boat, the mailman is by water and will not leave your mail unless he can hand it to you, they don't have mailboxes (maybe a new business for someone), they fish, swim, do their laundry, wash their dishes...all in that river. We made our way up the river looking at beautiful limestone canyon walls, looking at water lillies and then making our way to visit the "Village People". We "docked" and made our way to a landing. We were at our destination. We were going to visit a school and walk through a rain forest.
No comments:
Post a Comment