Day Two...Into the Wild!

From the mouth of TJ....

The first sleep of the trip was very much needed and enjoyed! After finally getting everyone downstairs at about 8:20 am, we enjoyed our breakfast. The fruits were a huge hit! After that, as we were about to travel and explore the sites, we stumbled upon a very convincing travel guide person named Roberto. After $40 usd, we were on our way! When walking down the streets, we were stared at as if something was wrong with us. As soon as we entered the Town Square park, we were followed by two accessory salesmen and our “guardian dog” that we called Rusty. (not to be confused with our mascot Rusty). In that same park, we saw the “telephone free” sitting in a tree. The name says it all and as Sarah went up to take a picture with it, we discovered that it was actually still functional.
Walking down the narrow streets, stopping at various trinket stores was a different experience! The girls would look at jewelry, while the boys would be looking at the cigars. Looking at little shops got boring after a while, so we visited the insane house! There were pigeons everywhere! Once again, Natalie, Sarah and Renee met new guy friends and got pictures with them. Girls will be girls I guess!
As we were walking, we were brought to a beautiful old fashioned church. It reminded me of churches in Europe! Tomb were lined along the sides with crosses about them.. The roof above the beautiful alter was magnificent. It was a piece of art that demonstrated life vs death…Heaven vs Hell. It was interesting hearing about all of the famous leaders and loved ones that were there! It was so religious that we had to remove our hats in respect of the church!

After about a two hour tour, we finally arrived back at the hotel…Jay, Jack and Jake, the three amigos, went for a walk to get a more in-depth look at the city. The ladies were enjoying their vanillas on the patio… As we all gathered finally, we packed our bags into Dennis’ car and we were on our way for lunch. For lunch, we went to El Conuco restaurant. We were the only ones there when we first arrived but slowly the placed became packed. The cool thing about this restaurant was that they danced. We all went up at one point or another to show off our meringue skills! After all filled up, we were finally on our way to San Juan. After a long three and a half hours, we were finally at our hotel named Hotel Gallery.
Later that night, we go the opportunity to interact with the Habitat family. It was amazing. After all of us introduce ourselves, we were talking about their previous conditions. They were telling us how happy they were. This was their family dream! Regularly, without our help, it would have taken 10-15 years to own a house. At the moment, they all sleep in one room together. After refreshments were passed around, we were on our way…and so was the family! The depressing thing is that they arrived on a small motorbike and they have a family of 5! I personally have never seen anything like this! It was time to call it a night after a very long day…as you can see!