Off the Beaten Path: Cinquera
We finally arrived in Cinquera, having passed through a great deal of road construction. The slow going allowed for story-telling and quiet time. We peered out the small windows of the micro-bus as workers raked the soil, spread the gravel, built the forms and formed the curbs by hand. In the background, breaks in the trees revealed breath-taking views of Lake Suchitlán. At one point we saw a little cement mixer - the lone piece of mechanized equipment along the winding, mountain road. A paved road with curbs will make this drive much safer, but an influx of tourists might also change the quiet aura of forest and story that fills this place. We emerged from the micro and stretched our legs next to the town square, across from the church. We were a small group of Salvadorans and North Americans. Papa gasped, "There was nothing here when I left, nothing here." Papa was the only one of us to have been here before. He had worked here n...