Pamita´s Festa, My Bday, and more

I haven't blogged in a while because I have been in Topo and haven't really found (or looked too much for) a place to use the internet. I am posting from the firestation in Topo as Brian´s wife Lucia told us about. Since the last post I had my 22nd birthday on June 6; Nelia got me a really big birthday cake and we had the best champagne I have ever had. We went to Palmita's festa on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday June 7. It was also in Ribeira D'Areia and it was about the same as Grandma Silva's festa. I was still craving the festa food so I am happy that there was another festa we were invited to. After Palmita's festa we have been living in Santo Antão at my Ava's house. We got the water, phone, and electricity working. We got a a lot of dust and cobwebs out of the house but there is still a lot of work to do. My cousin, João Brasil came and weedwacked our front driveway during the middle of a huge storm. We didn't know he was out there till my dad called and told us. I think it was very nice of him although pretty crazy to be out there in the middle of the rain and wind. We are extremely greatful to have a driveway you can walk through without weeds up to your bellybutton. I haven't had too much luck on the fishing front mostly because I am a horrible fisherman. I have only caught one fish successfully and had a lot of fish that I reeled into the rocks to have the line snapped because of a wave taking the fish into the rocks. The one fish I caught was a really tiny rock cod. Some people have told us that the fishing isn't as good as it used to be because of people in boats trolling around the island with 1000 lines out catching everything in sight but I don't know for sure. The hike down to La Basal has become more treacherous than it used to be because of an earthquake. The trail apparently used to be a lot bigger and easier to get down to the bottom. Now you have to climb pretty much straight down at one point and use a rope to give yourself more traction. The two times I went fishing I had a lot of fun although I wasn't very successful with the fishing. I think I learned a lot about how to fish off the rocks from my failures. Also, after I got a little bit frustrated from the fishing I just walked across the rocks and looked at all the stuff washed up on the rocks. I found a life preserver from a ship in Panama called the Santo Lucia. I thought it was pretty cool so I hauled it up the mountain with me back to Ava's house. The reason I prolonged the blog was that my 200 picture cap on flickr ran out and I was trying to figure out if there was any free way to continue posting picture slideshow's easily. I figure the 25$ per year charge to upgrade to a flickr pro account is worth it since there is a large group of people looking at the slideshows. Here are a whole bunch of photos and I hope you guys like them.