After Don Quiñon informed us that he and the other workers who were expected at the brick factory would be going to Pedernales for the day to see the President speak, Tom and I moved the dried bricks from yesterday off the pallets and into the stockpile (we weren’t able to do anything more without their help) before heading to the
hotel to figure out what to do with ourselves until lunchtime... as soon as we got there, though, the sound of a low-flying helicopter drew us out towards the beach, along with at least 50 other curious citizens, mostly children. It was announced that the President would walk through that area to greet the people of Cojimíes, but would not be
stopping to give a speech. As we waited for him to arrive, we encountered an excited bunch of little friends from our previous trips, and later met a good deal of students from the local high school who proceeded to treat us like celebrities... a little awkward, but overall just fun. They all but lined up for photos with the gringos, and had fun
practicing their English with us. We got some fresh bling out of it too... I don’t normally wear jewelry, but I’m a sucker for friendship bracelets, haha. When the President finally arrived, Tom and I barely caught more than a glimpse, but Juliana and Camila, who were sitting on our shoulders, apparently got a pretty good look at him. So good, in fact, that
Juliana actually bought US a treat from the ice cream man for once! First time for everything, I guess.
Zoilita (Marcelo’s mom), who hosted the security guards for breakfast at the hotel and actually got to hug and speak personally with the President later told us that he did give a very brief speech to the people encouraging the people to clean up the town a bit and prepare for tourism, which will likely be a future cash cow for them. Specifically, he mentioned that there are poorer towns that Cojimíes in the U.S., but the people there do a better job of keeping their streets clean and their houses painted, and have a stronger sense of pride in their city’s appearance in general. Interesting.
After all that commotion, we headed back towards La Casa del Niños, but were first stopped by a man who was born in Ecuador but who had lived in Houston for most of his life, and spoke perfect English (with a southern accent and everything). He asked us where we were from and what we were up to, and he was very interested in potentially buying some bricks from our company because he’d just bought some property in Cojimíes and is going to build a hotel on it. He also said that if we ever come back, he plans to have some speedboats, jetskis, and water sports equipment available for us to utilize whenever we want. Excellent... I’ll be putting him in touch with Archi as soon as possible.
We had little time to eat with the Sisters and get ready for our fishing trip... which turned out to be more of just a boat trip, but was an absolute blast. We went to two different islands with the family that owned the boat and some of their friends to play soccer and swim on the beach. Tom, Sofi, and I have been invited back Wednesday afternoon for an actual
fishing trip and dinner as a sort of goodbye party for Tom. Can’t wait... the children we went with are absolutely hilarious.
That’s it for now... it looks like we won’t have time for that trip to Machu Chindul, and we’d be skipping out on too much work for the brick company if we went anyway. Hopefully, we’ll be getting back to it in earnest tomorrow morning.
a successful trip.
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