Today was a pretty great day.
We started out early in the morning with the scooter guys bringing us two
scooters. They were nice little scooters
and they did a preliminary check to see if there was any damage. Something
told me to take pictures but I didn't -- I was so excited to get on the scooter and
ride it, so we had breakfast which was huevos
rancheros -- which was fried eggs, salsa , some gallo pinto, something like cheese, and some white bread.
The beans and rice tasted like it had grit in it; other
than that it was very good.
After breakfast we took off!
We first went to a little place called eye of water over there Ajo del agua
and we swam there until a group of very loud Americans came and made it
uncomfortable. There was a guy selling coconuts and so I had a pipa – drank the
coconut water and ate the flesh. Sophie had a Coco Loco which was rum and
sweetened condensed milk inside the pipa.
After that we went to Charco Verde. (my notes say” someplace I
forgot the name of and I don't remember what we did there either”). We went into a Nature Preserve and hiked
around . We saw a huge Lake, and we met a woman at the beginning of it just
sitting and looking. We went exploring,
walking around the lake. We came back
and saw the legend of big boy (Chico Largo).
Charco Verde means Green Puddle in English and I think it refers to the
lake. There were two beaches, and while
we saw the other one, we had a hard time getting to it. So we roamed through the jungle a while, and
then we came out to the touristy side.
We found a restaurant, but realized we’d never found the butterfly farm
that was advertised at the entrance to the nature preserve.
Oh, well. At the
restaurant we had ceviche as an appetizer.
We each ordered one which was a mistake – they were huge and spoiled our
dinner. My dinner was beans and rice, chicken , plantains and salad. My notes say Sophie had something similar,
but my memory says she had seafood soup.
Whatever. We took to go bags and
left. Then we went back to Eye of Water (Ojo
del Agua) and took pictures of Sophie.
After that we went to the beach at la Punta Jesus y Maria (the point of
Jesus and Mary) to watch the sunset. Then we raced home, in the dark. It was
hard for me to hold the scooter on the road with the strong crosswinds but
somehow we made it. The boys were there
to pick up the scooters. They claimed we
had damaged them, they claimed we were
late, they claimed we didn't put enough
gas in them and so they ended up charging an extra $30.
Sophie was furious but by this time I was very tired. I realized it was a hustle and I just chose
to pay them even though I told them I was only paying them because they were
hustling us and I was tired. It's
unfortunate because I should have have taken the pictures as I wanted to but
this is what happens when you don’t follow that still Small Voice.
We came into the hotel whose name I still don't remember and
then we had a lovely conversation with the lawyer and his wife Blanca Julia. We talked
about the fraud committed by the motorcycle boys and how if we had called the
police (As Sophie wanted to do) we would have won. We also talked about being Christian. The lawyer seems very interested in this and
we had a long conversation about Christianity in the first world versus
Christianity in developing countries. It
was fascinating. It's interesting to me
that so many North American Christians associate religion with things, with “God
loves me because I have a big house,” or
“God loves me because I make a lot of money” or whatever -- Prosperity Gospel. However I am seeing people
who struggle on a daily basis just to exist and these people are no less
fervent about the fact that God loves them. Their security is based on their
relationship with God and not upon material
things, and I think that's wonderful.
In light of the current American political situation, and in
light of the fact that Christianity is growing so quickly in the Southern
Hemisphere, and in light of the fact that Christianity there is so different
than what is practiced in the Western Hemisphere or the northern hemisphere, I
can’t help but re-think what it means to be a Christian, what it means to walk
with Christ. I’m reminded of Donnie
McClurkin when he sings about trusting in the Lord, and he says “Will you trust
me,Child, Come what may? What if it
hurts? What if you cry? What it if doesn’t work the first time that
you try? What if you call my name and
don’t feel me near? Will you still
believe in me, or will you fear?” I see
people who believe, no matter what, and it sort of is in contrast to those of
us who act like God is our personal genie or good luck charm….
I’ve started editorializing and have left the commentary on the
day, so I’ll end here. These four blog
posts were all I wrote from the trip. I spent
a lot of time just soaking up experiences rather than documenting them. Perhaps next time I’ll seek to balance the
two (experiencing versus documenting) a bit more.
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