After saying good-bye to our beloved lancha and taking an overloaded motocar ride, we arrived at Hospedaje Puerto Alegre. It is a combination pharmacy, hotel and extended family home. Seventy-eight-year-old Marciano Escobedo Alvarez and his wife Telacila are the gracious hosts, surrounded by their children and grandchildren, who live in houses on either side. They have lived here for 30 years, but before that they lived in Lagunas. One of their daughters is a doctor in the hospital here. She has an adorable and very cheeky two-year-old named Maya, who insisted on calling me "senora" (older, married woman) instead of "senorita" (younger, unmarried). The second story has ten 'hotel' rooms, small rooms with 2 beds each. Since I am the solamente senorita (only woman) I got to have a room all to myself!

The stay here was excellent, even though things are a lot different than we are used to back home. The electricity only works at certain times of day -- let's hope there's enough time to finish this entry before it goes off tonight! The water used here is all collected from rain in big vats. There is no running water pumped up from the ground or river. When you want to flush a toilet, you pour a bucket of water down (maybe two!). When you want to take a shower, you enter a big cement room with a huge vat of water and lots of plastic buckets of varying sizes. A big plastic bucket holds water that comes from a spigot attached to the large vat. Then you take a smaller bucket and scoop out water and dump it on yourself. It's the same for brushing your teeth, there's a big tub of water that you scoop out with a small bowl and pour into a sink or over your toothbrush. There's always plenty of water -- just a different way to get it!

Marciano and Telacila were very happy to have us as guests, and they treated us like royalty. We came down our first morning and were served plates of fried eggs, fried bananas, bread, strawberry marmalade, butter, coffee and tea, always with lots of smiles and concern that we were satisfied. We left soon after we ate to try to find the school that had Internet we might be able to use to send our update to you. A boy on a bicycle chased after us to find out if we wanted to have lunch there -- we sure did! When we were back sitting in the main room, Marciano came through carrying a live pollo (chicken)…this was to be our lunch! A little later I saw the chicken hanging under a table in their open-air work area -its neck had been cut and blood draining. The girls laughed at me when I took a picture, but I explained that in the United States, most of us only see chickens in packages in the supermarket!

We are the only guests here, and according to the guestbook, the first people from the U.S.A. in over a year. We certainly enjoyed our time and several wonderful meals with these extremely sweet people -- an excellent last stop of luxury and comfort before we head off in our new canoes into el corazon de la selva (the heart of the jungle).

Jennifer

Jenn fills a bucket from the tank for a 'shower'

Marciano brings a chicken back to be prepared for our lunch

One of the many hugs Jenn gets from Telacila