Momostenengo

We travelled to Momostenengo after leaving Todos Santos. The last 12 miles to Momo were the most interesting travel. We were dropped off at the edge of town along the Pan American highway. At first, we thought the bus to Momo would pick us up there. We soon learned we had to walk to the center of town. No problem, we see a hill and the town center is at the top. Well, the town's name was San Francisco el Alto. Alto means tall. But tall does not come close to describing the walk we encountered, ever upwards! Surprisingly, we walked past about one mile (yes that's right, one mile) worth of vendors set up in the middle of the closed off road upon which we walked, every one of them selling new clothes of typically American style. This is not to mention the permanent tiendas which lined the road also selling these same clothes. We have no idea how there would be enough market to support this many clothes sales.

We did finally reach the top and the town center to await a bus. Two came, but they were so full, we weren't even going to try to get in. A pickup truck came by so I asked if they were headed to Momo. Indeed they were, and we could travel there for 75 cents each. In we jumped with a bunch of other people. What a glorious ride. For all but the last couple miles of those 12 miles we seemed to be driving through a National Park. A narrow road, winding through some of the tallest standing pines we have seen on this trip. Once in a while you break out of the pine forest with a breath taking panoramic view of the area. In the far distance, one could see mountain peaks across several valleys and ridges of smaller mountains in between. I won't soon forget those views. Checking the map, those distant mountains were the eastern edge of the same range where we left Todos Santos, and actually was where Nebaj lay nestled. Sorry for the lack of a picture, but we didn't even try as the majesty of the scene would not be captured by our camera!

Momo is a town that Linda visited on a day trip in 2001 with Melissa and Connie, noted for the their weaving beautiful and practical heavy wool blankets. We spent two low key days there as not all of us were feeling 100%. There were a few places we would have liked to visit had circumstances been better, notably a hot springs/swimming area. One of the things we did do was visit Los Riscos, the oddly eroded area shown in the top picture. The next two pictures are of the municipal building, and a restaurant.

We also (twice in one day) visited a shop that Linda has talked about ever since her first visit, Tonica Lopez, a personable, elderly artesian who makes painted paper mache masks and all sorts of wooden figurines, scenes, etc. We found Tonica and his shop exactly as Linda described. You would look at something with a price tag which might say 5, and his first response is, "no, no, 4." He has a sense of humor too, he said if Ti's and Willa's parents wanted a mask, the price would be 15, but for the kids, 8. He loves kids. Finally, when you have made your purchases, he then pulls one or two more items off his shelves and puts them in the bag just for good measure!

After two nights and almost two days in Momo, we headed off, travelling together as far as our paths coincided. Linda and the kids headed to Nebaj, while I continued to Antigua to meet Julie, arriving that same day.

Our last, for awhile, Todos Santos hike

We have had 8 days back inTodos. The first five were rainy, mucky and quite chillling. Not conducive to outside activities, plus a few of us were feeling not the best anyway. The past three days have been the typical sunny mornings, cloudy afternoons except yesterday which was sunny all afternoon too. Tias was particularly hard hit with cold like symptoms with a strong sore throat and a fever thrown in for good measure. Needless to say, we have been having quiet times in Todos.

However, I am happy to report that everyone has bounced back, the sun shone this morning, and we plan to move on to another new-to-us town tomorrow. We could not leave though, without taking one last walk, way high above town on the mountain side that has the painted white rocks that read 'Todos Santos.'

We were escorted by a very nice dog that hangs out near the language school. When we walked past the school, I invited the dog to walk with us using the same phrase we use for own dogs: "want to walk?" The dog (Bobby) didn't move a muscle. Since he does like to hike with anyone, I was surprised. A short while later down the road, I realized I had not asked in Spanish, that was why he didn't jump up to follow us! At the same moment, I saw him with us. I guess he is as slow translating English to Spanish as I am Spanish to English.

Especially in the picture with Tias, the mountainside looks steep. That is because it is. And we are way above the village. A great walk.

One last note, this week, having been lazing around quite a bit, talk has drifted to what everyone will do when we return home, who we will see, what we will eat, etc, etc. Even plans into the summer. Our trip feels like it is ending even though we have almost three weeks to go. The reasons we think the trip feels 'ending' are two fold, one is that we started our trip by coming to Todos, and perhaps this return feels like closure until our next visit. Another reason is that my sister Julie is coming in three days to meet us to share the balance of our travels with us. This last bit of the trip with Julie's company will actually be another 'vacation' within a vacation since we are so looking forward to her arrival!

Todos Santos dog packs

Here is a picture of Willa making friends with one of the dog packs we see frequently each day.

There is a Vets without Borders group of about 8 vets and vet assistants here this week from Canada. I think they said the city invited them to come and offer their free services to any village pet owners and any strays that could be caught. They nueter, give rabies shots and a parasite treatment. We learned that the dog packs I have written about so much before were much greater in numbers about a year ago. However, some disgruntled person poisoned a large number of the strays. We are told that within a few more days, they will have pictures and their experience here in Todos Santas posted on their web site.

I was going to comment also that we have had quite a bit of opportunity to observe dog pack behaviour. The behaviour mostly centers arounds females in heat. Those are easy to observe in that there is usually up to six males following one female as in the picture above. Sometimes these males fight over their position in the pecking order. I've not actually seen a fight up closely, but have heard several start and see the final result, which usually is the loser pulling back from the pack about 10 feet on three legs (these fights don't seem to exclude the loser from the pack.) Seems as if the tactic in the fights must be to go for the legs, crippling a leg for several days, if not for life. So, when you picture these packs of males following their favorite female, be sure to include the one or two dogs eagerly loping along on three legs, holding the fourth up.

self test

This little blurb is a self test for those who wish to challenge themselves. This picture shows a device that is not in its customary location for use, (for some reason it has been banned to a corn field all cultivated, ready to be planted) but every household has one, whether a rich or poor family, brand new house or an ancient adobe single room house. Can you guess what it is used for? You probably can, something that sort of looks like a specialized laundry tub. Well, this unit is always located outdoors, not in a room. Does that change your mind about a laundry tub? Well, laundry tub is half the answer, this unit is also the kitchen sink, yes, located outside.

Each wing has a corrugated surface upon which to scrub clothes. The center is a deep water resevoir which is filled during the day. Water is dipped from the center and used at either side wing. Even the grande, very newish house in which we are staying has a room with a (propane) stove and no running water or counters. For those functions, you walk about 25 feet out the door this device called a pila (pronounced pee-la.)

Todos Santos revisited

Back again to one of our favorite spots in Guatemala. As you can see from the pictures, our arrival was during an unseasonably foggy, cold, drizzly four day period. (I know, those at home el norte would jump at this 'cold' compared to the cold you are experiencing!) Since Todos has already been described in quite a bit of detail, I'll just mention some of the fun and interesting events and experiences that have come our way since our arrival here a week ago.

First off, I have to mention a sighting we saw on the last day of the 4 days of clouds, drizzle and cold we had here in Todos. The time was late in the afternoon, when the sun was low enough on the horizon so that only the mountain top tips would be lit. Low and behold, there was a window through the clouds, exactly as baroque pictures and especially ceiling paintings were depicted, excepting instead of bursting forth with angels and cherubs looking through this opening edged in clouds and the most beautiful deep blue sky back drop, we were looking at the perfectly framed rocky cliffs of one of the mountains boxing Todos Santos. Unforgettable. Also easy to see how the inspiration for that style of baroque painting came about...

Our friend here in town found us the house pictured to the right. It was built by a Guatemalan with money earned in the states, the funding source for almost every large house built here. The owner is currently back in the U.S. and his sister with her family was to live there. After trying out this grande casa for awhile, she decided she preferrred her own, smaller casa (less cleaning, more the feeling of home, etc.) and the big house sits empty most of the time. Since we had good references and intending to do some volunteer work, she let us rent it for a week. It is not furnished except for one bed, a dining room table and five chairs, and a kitchen stove. However, that is all we needed, and feel quite fortunate to receive this gift. The house is pretty darn new, built entirely of póured concrete and concrete block walls. Quite an echo chamber. We quickly learned to speak in quiet voices! And unheated, wood or fossil fuels are too dear to use for room heat. So we sit around with many layers of clothes on, or in the sleeping bags!

Writing about accomodations reminds me of a young Canadian I met yesterday who is travelling alone. She is staying for free at places she finds through some organization on the web called 'couchsurfing.com' where people all over the world have signed up to host travellers in their house free of charge. Thus far, the system has worked wonderfully for her, she is well into her one year long trip.

What have the kids done with rainy days since we haven't been doing our hikes? This last picture shows a game arcade set up in a temporary structure on the plaza in front of the church. Since school is still out of session, there is a ready market. The kids have enjoyed being there a couple of times.

And what of our volunteer work? Turns out to have been pretty thin here. Our first day, we 'helped' at a baby health clinic monthly weigh in to make sure kids up through age 3 are gaining weight as they should. Linda and I helped weigh some babies. Linda gave a short speech in Spanish as requested by the director, who had to translate that speech into Mam, the local Mayan tongue as most of the 100 people at the meeting do not understand Spanish. After the weigh in, a demonsration and give away of a nutrition supplement for babies and pregnant women was done. Interesting experience, wish we could have contributed more.

Here is another fun and educational experience of travelling: upon arriving in Todos Santos, we discovered that there were 8 Norwegian students at our favorite Spanish school. A very friendly group, we had great fun talking with them. They signed up for a program that takes post high school students on their way to university for about two months to various parts of the world to learn the local language, travel, do volunteer work. What a great group of young, open minds that will help shape the world into a better place! Willa's great Uncle Gordon had taken the time years ago to teach her the Norwegian names for the fingers. This sparked Willa's interest for more Norwegian, which she learned from this group of travellers. (Is Willa thinking of visiting Norway in the future, perhaps after her African trip????)

After writing about the market yesterday, I thought to comment about tienda's, Spanish for a small shop. Since everyone's house fronts onto a street, right up to the edge of the sidewalk, anyone can use their front room for a tienda. They seem to buy up a supply non-perishables such as soda, cooking oils, various packaged items (chips, etc.) rice, noodles; well you get it. Most also sell eggs since they turn over quickly. Typically, one can't walk more than 10 houses without going past a tienda. We have one just across from our mansion, making shopping quite convenient. I don't know how anyone sells enough volume to make any money at this, but their existence does make life easier!

Sunday morning I was heading down to plaza to see if I could attend mass when I caught up with a procession being led by a small boy carrying a cross. They also ended up at the church. One fellow broke away from the crowd following and explained to me that a relative had died and was buried that week. This procession was in that relative's honor.

Which brings me to something else I wanted to reiterate about travel here, how friendly pretty much everyone is. Walking these streets means frequent greeting all those around you, young, old and in between. Few people travel here in town isolated in vehicles, so you are constantly in contact with people surrounding you.

One last note. If you remember from some of the earliest postings, I believe I managed to get a picture of people lined up at the upper plaza railing what all was going on in the street and plaza below. Well, we were sorry to see that upon returning, a row of 4 two story tiendas are being built opposite the upper plaza, blocking the view to the lower plaza.

market day in Todos Santos, sustainable living?

Again, my apologies for the sideways pictures, but thought you'd still enjoy seeing them. To the right are a couple of pictures showing the beautiful array of foods. Probably only due to economics, the food is grown within a couple hundred miles, with much of it being grown within a bus ride away. Since the Guatemalan highlands rise immediately out of the low lying tropical lands, both cool weather and tropical crops grow not very many miles apart from each other. Food that travelled the furthest would be tropical, lowland, hot weather produce which exists less than 50 miles away as the crow flies. I don't have a picture of the meat market. All the meat sold there that is locally grown. The meat does not even get frozen before it is sold and consumed. The butcher shop is about 4 blocks from the plaza. That is truly local eating. Eating relatively locally grown foods certainly is part of a sustainable living picture.

Saturday is market day in Todos Santos, and being the biggest (yet still small) town for over an hour bus ride in any direction, Market Day is a big deal here. The market area quickly fills with local inhabitants, people coming in by bus either to buy or sell, etc. From about 530 am until mid morning, just about every incoming bus parks until 11 or 12 am since no one leaves until then. The picture to the right shows the plaza in front of the church with vendors.

There are two rather large buildings near the plaza that are devoted totally to market. Multistoried, tall and airy, just about anything sold (not just food) in Guatemala that is portable can be bought there. The next picture is an inside shot of one of these markets.

Despite the huge square footage devoted to the market, vendors spill over into the streets and every available nook and cranny in just about every direction from the plaza. Despite having been here for two other market days, we discovered all kinds more vendors tucked away in other corners since we live in a different part of town this time. This next sideways picture shows a street scene from one of the market buildings three stories above.

While I have focused mosty on food, the offerings the textiles which the Mayan women are so noted for making incricate weavings by backstrap looms. This is the same type of weaving previously reported during our first visit to Todos. The men are responsible for weaving bolts of cloth on big, wooden, hand operated floor looms. They progress at amazing speed with their flying shuttle machines that need no electricity.

food in Nebaj

We wanted to show some of our favorite places to eat in Nebaj. Popi's has all kinds of well made affordable meals and treats that one does not otherwise find in Guatemala. Beyond the each and every outstanding you-can't-go-wrong-with-any-dinner on the menu, the most extra-ordinary notables was the hot apple pie topped with home made (soy based) ice cream. (Ha, and you thought we were roughing it!) Wait, I'm not done, how about the time we asked Donald to let us know when he had a hot out of the oven fresh loaf of bread? He was also kind enough to include his homemade jam (papaya, strawberries and apple juice.) Do I need to write that the entire loaf was consumed in one sitting?

We also wanted to mention two of our favorite street vendors. Maria's green cart is portable, appeared every evening in the same place. She cooked meat, onions, potatoes (which alternated with a pasta every evening) various condiments, tea, frioles, cabbage salad, seemingly unlimited tortillas all for $1.50. Hers was the best of three vendors offering about the same item each evening (yes, we personally tried them all.) She, as do the other vendors, carts along a small table and stools which you can see with the red table cloth just next to the cart for her patron's use.

Rosa, immediately adjacent to Maria, offered a tortilla covered with a cabbage salad, smothered with a red sauce. Since the latter two items were not cooked, Linda and I approached this caustiously. Experiencing no ill effects, we added it as daily item. Oh yes, and after the first day, Linda started adding hot sauce to hers....(she may have done that to stop me asking for bites...)

We tended to eat out once, usually Popi's, cook at home for one meal and cap off the evening with street vendor food.

bus basics

Spending so much time on buses yesterday while thinking about updating the blog, led me to realize there is fertile ground for writing about understanding bus travel here. As long as I can convey these thoughts in words! At th right is the bus named "Maria Linda." Of course I had to get a picture of this bus, since I am married to Linda Marie! Note the windshields almost all have some sort of reflective material at the top with a saying, in this case Maria Linda, and the bottom of the windshield has decorations laminated to the glass or just that dark laminate, leaving a narrow band through which the driver can peer. Also pictured is the inside of bus looking towards the inside of the windshield.

I have written about how narrow many streets are in the old sections of town (and even many newer parts.) Yesterday´s part of our journey to Todos Santas from Nebaj included riding through Huehuetenango, a fairly large town with many narrow streets. Public transport buses, as mentioned below, tend to be retired school buses or combis (skip to the section below for a more full description of each.) What I wanted to write mainly about here is how these buses are manned. Obviously there is a driver. Among duties such as avoiding road holes, loose boulders, dogs, people, other vehicles, is honking the air horn whenever passing is required. Also, laying on the air horn when buses are going up or down blind mountain switch backs that are so tight that the bus stretches across the other lane is required so that head ons are avoided. The vehicle coming down the mountain is required to stop as some places are so steep, and some trucks or buses so overloaded, they may not be able to start again from a dead stop.

Buses here have one or sometimes two other people. If there is just one other person, that person´s duties include collecting fares and seeing to luggage getting to the roof of the bus and one other function. If there is a third person, the fare collector is relieved of the luggage job. The luggage man takes care of matters on the roof, sometimes even riding up there, less often climbing down the rear ladder while the bus is navigating the highway, opening the rear door (remember those emergency exit doors in the rear?) and climbing aboard after the luggage was all tied down.

The other function required of the assistant is jumping out of the (sometimes) moving bus to check that at least one inch of clearance exists between the bus and some obstacle such as a parked or approaching truck, a building close to the road, especially when turning the corner of a narrow street. When turning the corner, sometimes people have to be motioned off the corner sidewalk since the bus sometimes needs that space as well. Duties even include jumping out into busy roads, stopping the traffic so the bus can emerge from a narrow side street and jump back onto the now accelerating bus. Rear view mirrors stick out the furthest, there must be a thriving replacment market here.

Another bus basic for the pedestrian, at least taller pedestrians, is to watch your head; as where the streets are narrow and the pedestrian is walking on the usually very narrow sidewalk with a building on one side, and a bus or truck next to the curb, the approaching mirror sometimes needs to be ducked!

leaving Nebaj on a bus...

Before I tell you about this bus ride of leaving Nebaj, I want to describe something about transport here lest I be accused of just trying to take the lowest cost way.

Most all of the major tourist towns and attractions can be accessed by a variety of public and private transport. Private includes booking comfy Greyhound type buses, smaller (sort of comfy) combi's (van like buses with lots of windows and bench seats) and in a few cases, even air flights. Public transport includes retired, repainted school buses (desiel only) or variously sized versions of combis. The latter have appeared relatively recently on the scene, wrenching many lower traffic routes from the school bus sized transport mainly as they are lower cost to operate and don´t take as many passengers to fill (or as is usually the case, overfill.) So, the bus situation, including the skill driver to make a smooth trip, is the luck of the draw for public transportation.

So, now that I have painted that picture, understand that both Nebaj and Todos Santos are way off the main beaten tourist path. That leaves mostly the smaller Combis as public transport options, and zero private transport options, unless, I guess, you rent a chauffeur and vehicle. The combis run usually with a reasonable frequency during the prime travel hours. When leaving Nebaj, we walked right up to one ready to leave to our next bus change town which was about one hour away. Such luck, even got the last three seats (Willa had to sit in Linda´s lap.) Though very packed, the hour ride should be tolerable we were thinking, even as they squeezed three more passengers in as we departed. Now picture this, 5 rows of seats combi, probably rated for 18 people... we counted 33! Now about 8 of these 33 were babies (not Willa) sitting in laps, so then we are down to maybe thinking 7 too many adults. We soon stopped, picked up passenger 34. The only thing keeping me on the backless jump seat to which I was trying to cling, was Linda/Willa directly behind me, themselves having no further space to go back. I all but had one fellow on my lap at this point. (Personal space dimensions down here aren´t the same.) This had to be the last extra passenger..... wrong again. A short time down the road, they picked up still another passenger. This time it took 4 tries from the outside to slam the van´s side sliding door because all the bodies clustered at the edge of the seats in that door clearance area would not allow the door to latch. This time, closing the door was painful as my legs were intertwined with about three other people's legs. Eventually, the door did shut, the count was up to 35 in the van. Only then did I realize the total count was 36 because the fellow who slammed the door shut was the luggage man who was riding clinging to the roof. I think he had the best seat of us all...

Now all this driving was on the mountain roads described below that were notched out of steep mountainsides, sometimes with one lane covered with small land slide debris. I think the views from the roof rack of luggage must have been spectacular, and if my Spanish was better, I would have asked to ride up there. Anyway, such was our luck of the draw yesterday morning. Needless to mention that was one, long, stuffy (for some reason having vehicle´s windows open seems to be not well accepted,) stomach unsettling hour trip.

Our next two rides to Todos Santos were two of the best rides we´ve had. Enough room on the buses, friendly, good drivers and helpful assistants who jumped out to help passengers on with their packs, etc. And to a misty, rainy, Todos Santos we at last arrived, 6 hours after our departure form Nebaj!

road basics

During our stay in Nebaj, the major (only) road heading east to the next major town (Coban,) experienced a land slide that was reported as one mile long. This occurred perhaps 40 miles east of Nebaj. 39 deaths were reported. This may mean the road will be closed until a new route can be built (years?) The reason is that these roads are carved into the sides of these mountains which are made of a soft rock that is easily fractured. Some of these steep slopes are thousands of feet high. Since the mountain sides are cut into just enough to eke out two lanes, the natural angle of repose is compromised. The roadway under the one mile wide landslide is unlikely to be able to be excavated as who would risk the chance of disturbing thousands of vertical feet worth of newly loosened rocks above the work area?

Watching for rocks in the road when driving is quite an important duty. There are many places, including on the Pan American Highway, where one of the two lanes are buried in rubble and boulders as large as a single car garage. They stay that way for years! Smaller landslides along (and onto) the highways are mined for gravel, small and large rocks. This is accomplished with pick and shovel, usually accumulating a dump truck´s worth of material at the top of homemade chute. The occassional dump truck parks under a chute, sometimes blocking one lane of traffic while the truck is filled shovel by shovel from, sometimes, far above. We even passed by one huge boulder being broken apart with wedges and sledge hammer action! To the right is the only picture, not that great, of a small slide covering one lane of the road. All the more spectacular ones have been seen in fleeting glances from the windows of busses, whereas this day, we were actually hiking along and could stop and take the picture.

why we like travel

Our time in Nebaj was quite wonderful. We devoted part of most days to hiking in the area, quite beautiful. Most hikes we did twice. Part of some days were devoted to doing odds and ends of work at our volunteer residence. Being in Nebaj reminds me of one of the reasons I have liked international travel so much; meeting so many other travellers and ex-patriots that have a different take on life and world politics than is usually encountered in the United States. We hiked or shared meals with travellers we met, discussing many and varied topics. Our kids met neighborhood kids which evolved into street soccer games and hanging out.

Nebaj!

We had hoped to find volunteer work during our travels to engage us all for some portion of this trip. However, until we started looking more seriously, we didn't realize that everyone would be taking long holidays around the end of the year and could not find any information from any of the groups we had in mind. So, we were faced with deciding our next move without any of the information we thought we wanted in hand. Linda suggested a newe to us interesting place in the same mountains as Todos Santo and a focal area for volunteer work (due to being so hard hit in the war during the 80's.)

The next afternoon we walked into Popi's, sort of a hostel for travellers, complete with a restaraunt that was set up to train locals in some business skills so they could eventually branch off on their own. We ate there (great food,) and in conversation with our newly met American friend Donald who started this and turns out several other ventures over his past 20 years here, had all kinds of things for us to do. For now, we are essentially working on a place he recently acquired the use of for his school for disabled kids, a demonstration garden for growing various vegetables, herbs and other useful plants for the area integrated with raising small livestock (rabbits, chickens, ducks, etc,) and volunteer housing. So, we are volunteering to help fix up volunteer housing! The top picture shows Tias repairing a hole in the fence, the next shows Willa picking up trash from the garden area. Other jobs not shown are erection of a stretch of new fence, creation of new duck and chicken habitat and many misc repairs, plumbing, electrical, windows, etc. Some other more technical projects currently underway include the implementation of a more fuel efficient wood burning cooking stove (to help slow the fast pace of deforestation,) a small steam engine to utilize waste heat from cooking stoves to generate electricity and making a food dehydrator.

Yesterday morning we took a walk to a neighboring village, Acul, that was on the other side of the mountain (quite literally!) A gruelling walk up, where the last picture shows a hidden mountain top meadow we found to be quite pastoral. Then, one would think a fun easy, walk down into Acul... But it was so steep that the descent was surprisingly strenuous.

We are finding Nebaj having similar good qualities as Todos Santos, and plan to be here at least this week, staying in the newly inaguarated volunteer quarters.

This last picture shows another neighboring small town to which we hiked, Cocop. From Cocop we followed the crystal clear, spring feed Rio Azul (Blue River) down hill. The kids summed up that walk by saying they could not think of adjectives great enough to capture the beauty of the stream, water falls, springs, rivulets, surrounding pastures and mountain sides, etc.

New Year's eve

New Year's eve in Antigua! This write up is dedicated to Ron Horn and his love of fireworks! Fireworks going off literally everywhere, Guatemalans love their fireworks! And not just on the street, but ones that shoot way up in the sky just like the 4th of July, all evening long after dark. Unfortunately our camera did not capture at night what we saw, so I don't have alot of pictures to post here. We stayed a couple extra days in Antigua after the girls left as the city promised some great sounding activities! First off was some professional dancing out in the Central Park. These included some local dances from surrounding communities, as pictured below and finishing with ballet from the Nutcracker. The street with the 16th century arch pictured to above (sorry, I still haven't figured out how to turn these pictures with the software available to me here) had different traditional dances going on to live marimba music. These included some 12 foot tall giants, costumes over wooden frames with people concealed inside, to perhaps 2 dozen dancers all dressed as masked old ladies, some hobbling along with canes, to a group that danced with headgear equipped with fire crackers, rockets, and other dangerous fireworks all going off. We did not witness the last described group as it was later in the evening than we stayed and there are a significant number of dancers and people in the crowd that take home lasting memories of the dance, so we opted out.

In fact, for the first two dances we did see, the crowds were tremendously thick. The crowds around the dancing were tightly packed to the walls of the buildings lining the streets. Passing through one of the crowds make take 10 to 15 minutes of inching one's way, baby step by step. We wanted to see the old ladies costumes again, so we got into the thick of a crowd assembling to see them dance. Linda must have sensed the density of people was thicker than thick as she excused herself and headed for the end of the block. The kids and I were going to soon follow, but found ourselves plastered against a building's wall. It started getting hard to breathe and a couple of little kids around us were crying due to this craziness. Eventually, we detected a movement in the opposite direction we wanted to go to reunite with Linda, but went with the flow just to get out of that squeeze. We circled around the block and found Linda, what a relief!

Back at our room, we were in bed and some of us asleep when about 1130 pm, the pace, density of sound and light from fireworks, increased notably. Even though our room was at the edge of town, we became surrounded by sound and light as midnight approached. The last 15 minutes of sopund for 2008 can only be described as what Gettysburg must have sounded like in 1863. Unbelievable the amount of fireworks that had to be going off.

The next morning we awoke to a drummer walking the streets in commeration of the Holy Family's return to their home.