Lunch

Our first stop was a small restaurant type place. They said that we had to go to Chinas house. She has been their host for every year they have gone. It was a house set up on a hill where there was a big dining area on the side of a house with the kitchen area in the same part (pic - the walk up to China's house). China was the name of a very old lady who lived there, at this time she really didn’t do much, her kids and grand kids and possible great grand kids did all the work. This place was extremely rustic with chickens running around and very old plates and silverware much like the ones I remember using at my grandma’s house (the big blue spoons with little white dots for example). There was a girl probably in her 30’s that did all the cooking who they called cariña (like a pet name for a girlfriend or wife) and the children were out little servers and got anything we asked for, the kids where really young, like 6-10. Their eyes were so big and they always had a smile and seemed to really enjoy what they were doing. The older guys kept trying to get one of the older girls to sing for us but she was really shy and didn’t want to. Lunch which was cecina (thin piece of beef) con frijoles (beans) y arroz (rice) y tortillas, and it was amazing.

During lunch I was talking to one of the older gents Ernesto who strikingly resembled my Uncle Dave Argumedo (seen right), with his big white mustache and white hair. Even the way he talked in his deep voice was identical. He had his son Mauricio and his nephew Jesus (every body called him Harry Potter because he looked just like him) along with him who were both about 14 years old and this is their 4th year on the trip, and they spoke a little English as well, there was another younger boy there was well the same age, who was Martin’s (the leader of the group) son, and they were all drinking beer at lunch! (pic - Harry Potter slammin a beer)When I gave them cheers they had an extravagant system of tapping the top and bottom then rubbing the bottles together, I asked Hector what it meant and he just said that they are young and think it is cool. The kids played American Football and Ernesto was their coach, so we talked a little about that and also I was explaining a little bit about rugby. While everybody was wrapping up, all the newbies got blessed by China (the kids in the picture were some of the ones who were serving us). It was interesting, my grandmother did the same before I left for Mexico. (pic - me getting blessed by China)

After lunch was over we had time to get our gear ready. We had to tie our cans to the frame and then tie our sleeping bags on top. Everything had to be nice and tight because once you were submersed in the water there would be shifting if it wasn’t tight. After everybody was ready it was of to the drop off site.