January 15-16-17

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REPORT FROM THE WALK:

FROM Mike Mason (dated Sunday evening):

Just like an hour ago or so, we walked over the Panama Canal and into what we’re going to define at South America. Here’s a live shot of where we are staying in Tecomen, Panama.

No internet here, so I don’t know when you might get what I am writing. We went through some unbelievable rain forest back several hundred miles, I guess it was in Costa Rica. Hey, I’ve got one picture here from Chichen Itza I wanted to share with you. Everybody sees the standard tourist agency photo of the place, but you don’t see this too often.

There was this huge alter with thousands of skulls carved into it. A bit scary. Could you imagine how warped your head would get if you spent years and years carving skulls out of rock? Anyway, there was a lot of reference here to that winged serpent god, Quetzalcoatl, although they called it something else here. Genero said that if you pronounced Quetzalcoatl three times early in the day. Quetzalcoatl is alive in you if you find yourself saying his name later in the day. My sister says he’s joking of course.

Rita Allen:

We finally reached contact with the Internet. We’re about to get to Bogotá, Columbia. It’s Tuedsay morning We’ve had stunningly great weather this whole trip. It was a bit cold in the mountains of Mexico but right now it’s about 48 degrees and there is a light wind out of the east. As the sun is rising there are just a few clouds in the sky.

The walk organizers say we are on a route to visit the Galapagos Islands, Machu Picchu and the Amazon River while in South America before we head off to Africa. People who were on the EarthWalk last year have been telling me about the EarthWalk Barge that will be waiting for us when we get to the Pacific Coast in Ecuador to take us out to the Islands.

Someone from South Carolina joined us a couple days ago and I hear we now have tied the record from last year for number of states represented on the walk at 15. I bet a lot of records from last year are going to fall this year.

We’ve got a new guide as we left Panama, Genero introduced us to Ernesto. We had a meeting with Ernesto and he explained to us the delicate nature of trying to travel through Columbia. There are a lot of paramilitary groups and they make up their own rules. They decide if you are a threat and should die. We’ve made it without incident so far, but that’s mainly because Ernesto has such a big network of friends advising us on what routes to take through the countryside. Right now we are in this big slum area. Ernesto says it is typical of the places around the outskirts of most Latin Americas and South American cities.

We met a couple kids from here and they said about the same thing Ernesto said. Right here in their village they all know lots of families who have had kids killed and they live in fear. I wish there was something we could to help. These kids we met, Ruben and Jhon, it seemed to make them feel better just to have us listen to their stories. Ruben says he wants to sing and breakdance professionally when he grows up. Jhon has other ambitions: "I'd like to raise my children well, so that they'll live with more understanding between adults and children," he says. "Adults are always looking down on us but spend very little time talking to us. I wish they would take our hand and not be afraid of us."

NEWS FROM OMAHAHA

Iggy the headmaster of the Iguana Web Development Force, has announced they are now building the EarthWalkWeightLoss Support egroup. 10 new walkers are being added each day. This will be a tool for everyone who is trying to lose weight to communicate with themselves through one email address. Already the walkers have lost nearly 90 pounds. Outstanding! That’s more than Iggy weights!

We’ve just been informed that the fired Alligators have barricaded themselves in the web design floor. We were going to tell you who got points from the EarthWalk in Central America and how to earn points while in South America but that will have to wait. – Just let me say this. If you came from central MS, keep Thursday night open. More tomorrow if we solve the alligator issue.

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