May Day...

We loaded back in the van and used the trip down the mountain to ask Knute more questions. We found out that Raphael owns a security systems company and is not a securities trader as stated in yesterday’s blog…Lost in translation applies here. We learned that Ventura (mine and Chris’s host) has a business that sells kitchen appliances and cabinets and everything else in the kitchen….Knute told us that Ventura does well with the business which we already knew by the size of the house that we are staying in. We also learned that today is a holiday called May Day in which most of Europe celebrates their form of Labor Day. We ended up at a coffee shop/bar down the road where we discovered that happy hour starts early on the islands. We were drinking coffee of course…wink, wink. We were taught that the difference between café cortado and con leche is condensed milk and regular milk. We learned lots of important things in the span of a few minutes.Raphael showed us a contraption called a Pila which is used to distill rainwater for drinking since there is no natural clean water on the island. The water runs over a special kind of rock and makes it drinkable...Doesn't look like much but it does the job. Since it is not very easy to get the water, the water bills for the residents are extremely expensive...We will visit a desalinization plant later in the week.We all hit the bathrooms and headed back on our tour. Knute stopped on the roadside and gave us a tutorial on the reasons for all the cacti fields in this area. Apparently, there is a louse (cochinilla) that attaches itself to the tunera cactus and is harvested and boiled for red dyes which are used to color lipsticks and clothing. The group found it amazing that a plant is sewn just to harvest a bug that attaches itself to the cacti. We were also amazed at Knute's hat celebrating the Chicago Bulls 1996 NBA Championship. He is great and loves America and we love him. He has a wealth of knowledge about the island and has donated his time for us.
We then headed down to Orzola, a tiny fishing village where according to Raphael the best fish are found. We took some pictures and then had to get to Marcial’s house for lunch/dinner. We had no clue what we were in for...