Day at the finca

this is emily...

On tuesday we drove up to the coffee finca. (which means farm) and stayed at a little house up there. The family we are staying with here in El Salvador owns a coffee farm, so we went with the husband. Coffee is grown in the mountains and this one is at the top of a very steep mountain. The roads on these mountains are not paved,and the rain has washed huge channels out so the drive is VERRRRY bumpy. We took turns riding in the back of the truck to see the incredible views. We could see a huge valley and three volcanoes from there. The view was all of Guatamala, because we were right on the border. It looked just like I would imagine the land before time.

On one occasion we hiked down the mountain so we could cross into Guatamala...so I guess I´ve been there now too! On the hike back up I thought I was going to die of over heating. I cannot even explain how humid it is and when you start hiking up a mountain with less oxygen in the altitude and add a very steep rough terrain it wears me out. I can´t believe men carry 150 bags of coffee up this same path! But, two cold showers later...I was back to normal. ha.

The finca is incredibly beautiful, and it was eye opening to see how coffee is grown. It´s basically like a huge jungle of coffee trees, and you´d never know you are on a farm. The only negative was the insane amount of spiders, and the cockroach the size of a small child that we found in the house.

We hiked down to church in the afternoon, and it was an insane walk. They have church every single night of the week!!! It was along this little path that was on the edge of a cliff, and then down this huge rocky mountain, and through a horse field. We got to pray with the pastors family for about 45 minutes which was really neat. We didn´t stay for the actual service because it was so dangerous to hike back in the dark in the rain. Yet they do this every night, but our host was not sure about us inexperienced Americans surviving it. A little tiny girl went with us, and I think she was there just to show me what a big wimp I am.

Sorry this is kind of disjointed, there is a lot of activity in this room and I´m having trouble assembling thoughts. I´ll let the pictures do more talking.