With airfare already purchased and after a conversation with Geno at Mariposa that the generator was working we dropped in 2 days after Ivan. Our suitcases were packed with rechargeable power tools, screws, nails and tool belts. With machete and newly purchased chain saw every road seemed like a clearing project. In the hills we had already told a friend to distribute our igloos out to preserve food for those w/o current (everybody) and 2 or 3 days into the trip when ice became available we every trip included loading as much ice into the Island Car and getting it to the hills as fast as we could. A friends orchard had been devestated and the chain saw would cut split over trees to make braces to prop the root balled trees back up. I will always remember that with the leafs all gone how hot it was, then in Feb of the following year the combination of foliage on the ground and a drought causing fires in the hills. Mom's Place restaurant was buried under about 6 feet of sand, they had to dig down into it. That was the end of the old Boat Bar building. My laughs of the week were Fidel explaining the Chop Bush song to me before we had heard it as we sat after chopping the road clear drinking a cold bottle of water on the side of a road out in the savanna and bringing phones and chargers into the room to re-charge and our room becoming a ringer a minute as they took power.
