Wet Ride with fast flowing rivers back to Antigua
Sowell Family's Travels on Gijima
Skipper: Tim Sowell Admiral Tracy Crew Sean & Alex
Sat 21 Aug 2010 02:22
After a morning in Spanish School for Tracy and Sean, and Alex and I headed
out for coffee and hot chocolate (we have found the best coffee/ cake shop
in 6 months) and then on a walk around sections of lake watching the pangas
and traders and taking in the magnificent scenery. We piled into a shuttle
van and headed back to Antigua, saying good buy to the German Shepherds the
boys had come to call their friends.
As we wound our way out of lake basin and up the steep sides the rain
started to fall, and the traffic struggled up the sides. But as we wound
around the top the rain continued and you had running rivers down the side
of the road, with it washing mud down until it made dams and flowed over the
road, people were struggling walking as they just knocked off their feet.
But it became clear that while there are road works everywhere they are
having major issues keeping up, little lone recovering from Tropical Storm
Agatha's damage, the drain pipe under the roads where creeks come down the
side of the mountain just get full, and then the mud build up, so now the
river runs over the road eating away at the top and foundations and it is
only a matter of time before the road starts to wash away. As some of the
volunteers said this area is "holding on by thread" waiting till the rainy
season stops but they have two more months and one of them is meant to be
bad.
But the buses continued to ferry people at the end of the week, and we
arrived back by late afternoon, enabling us to go to main plaza (square) for
coffee and then the kids found a clown, stand up comedian in the plaza and
they enjoyed watching the juggling etc. While in the square we met a German
lady we had coffee with at the Lake she is driving a VW van from Alaska to
Peru down the trans American highway with just her and her dog. We sat on
the corner of the square drinking coffee and swapping advise for El Salvador
and Peru etc, and we had two 10 year girls from the lake town come up to us
as the recognized us, they had come down from the Lake to Antigua selling
the cloths their mother is making they are here by themselves, in order to
sell and get money to go to school etc, they will go onto other towns as
well, this is an "eye opener " for Sean and sees the kids out working at 5
to 10. But it is also apart of his education, he spoke with them and
realizes how lucky he is.
Our shuttle for tomorrow just arrived with their 2 guests other boaters we
will jump on their trip for the run back to El Salvador tomorrow.
It has been a good week, much achieved and learnt in a wonderful part of the
world.
See the photos of the boys playing in the garden at Lake Atitlan.
