Up the Escondido River to Bluefields

Encima del rio Escondido a Bluefields

Our morning on Friday February 16th began around 5:30 AM as we strolled and rolled our gear a couple blocks down to the docks along the on the Escondido River just outside the town of El Rama. We loaded three boats with passengers & gear and a fourth with the most of our baggage and headed due east towards Bluefields. The excitement and anticipation of arriving in Bluefields sustained us over the past 36 hours... now God was going to show another facet of His creation and we were all ears and eyes!

Here is the mode of transportation we used on the river - passenger boats on the way to Bluefields had canopies... powered by either 175 or 200 Yamaha V6 engines - did we move! An alternative would have been to take a ferry that can take over 6 hours to travel what took us only 1-1/2 hours... I guess we had the need for speed - it was a real blast!

We saw many beautiful sights along the way... the morning mist was rising from the Escondido River and as the heat began to build up, the mist swirled in very unusual patterns just above the water. Along the way were banana groves... plush forests of very large old growth trees... small villages of 3-5 thatch roofed homes... definitely a fishing and farming center for many. And every once in a while, we would see a small white church building with a cross on it - we wondered what life must be like serving God along the banks of the snake-like river.

One of younger members is an expert bird watcher and I am sure he was taking notes at the many waterfowl... great white herons, snowy egrets and kingfishers were amongst the many we saw. No alligators or crocodiles... although it seemed like a perfect place for them!

A couple of blocks away from the hustle and bustle of the fishing docks in Bluefields was our "home away from home"... the Caribbean Dream Hotel. All things considered, we had pretty nice accommodations... about a 20 minute drive to the work site via bus. We were told we must consider that the streets at night are not safe for single people to simply stroll about, so the rule was groups of 3 or more with a male adult present could leave the hotel compound. For the most part, we ventured out in groups of 10+ as we did want to explore!

Drug traffic and high unemployment can create a scenario that would risk the safety, so we were also cautioned to stay with a 2-3 block area around the hotel. No one really had any issues, so we thank God for that provision of safety.

Our team is a wonderful cross section of ages, professions and interests... just getting to know each other better was one of the many gifts of this trip. I know we all will treasure the friendships started and and developed over these 12 days!

We had time to unpack... get acquainted with the hotel, then we loaded on a bus in two teams... all by our given number at the beginning of the trip. We would have roll call at check points along the way for the entire trip. Sometimes the bus trip selection was done by dividing odd and even numbers... sometimes 1-22 went first, then 23-44 went first... Mike mixed things up to keep it interesting and fair.