Caleb & Della: 5/24/14: Day 83: Franklin Tourism

Della didn’t get much sleep last night. We got of bed at 5:30 and left the house at 6:30. We stopped by the church and got six cases of water bottles and then went to a gas station to meet a brother from Santa Catarina Masahuat. The brother and his wife arrived shortly after we did at 7:10. I started to take Lucky’s suitcase out of the back but as I was opening the door I was told that they had walked. Apparently they had been walking since before 6:00 to meet us here. I had no idea that they had walked… I could have arranged for someone to go with me that knew the way but it was too late. So they jumped in the van and we drove down a dirt road for 25 minutes to reach the church where Lucky was going to teach today. We then rushed back and managed to make it to the hotel just before 8:00. The Franklin group had a 5 minute bible study and then we headed out. I had five people from the Franklin group plus me and Della in the van. I somehow managed to get pulled over twice for random inspections. Our first tourism destination was the El Salvadorian version of Pompey. The story is that a volcano erupted and the people evacuated because of the earthquake warnings but their entire village was perfectly preserved in volcanic ash. There were 12 excavated buildings that we were led through with a tour guide. Della interpreted for the guide to the group. The most interesting thing in my opinion was that they figured that they had excavated less that 1% of the ruins. The last building was a replica of a sauna that we said we could crawl into. About 8 of us went in and sang a few songs because the acoustics were good. We then went to lunch at a lake. The area was beautiful and we ate on a very precarious dock. They said that they built it when the water was high. The water has been nowhere near that high for a very long time now. Several other restaurants had built their buildings at the current level. I felt very uneasy the entire time we were eating. The whole place was just barely standing and it was high enough to kill us all if it fell. But the food was surprisingly good! Samuel’s team was playing in the world cup and he couldn’t help but watch it. The T.V. was about 200 feet from the group and someone said that they could hear Samuel cheering. After lunch we tried to go to some other ruins in Chalchuapa but they closed just before we got there. We ate a late lunch so no one was hungry for dinner so Hector got pizza to go for the group. Then we drove up to the hotel dropped everyone off at 7:00. Then I took Della home and drove to the church building. There I worked with Carlos, Samuel, and Hector to check that all the new sound system, drain the baptistery (kiddie pool), and move a ton of water bottles back to the kitchen. I got home about 7:45 super tired.

It is raining the hardest since I have been here. The power has blinked more than five times. (I am on the laptop).

Tomorrow should be a fairly standard Sunday except I need to be there very early to clean and refill the baptistery. Hopefully I will get a little rest in the afternoon after driving all day for two days.