Covant trip D5

This was the last gas station we saw on the trip, literally

Day 5 we left Jacmel early in the morning and started the day with looking for a gas station. Things that are just a simple task at home becomes a big ordeal in Haiti and always seems to take three times longer. Once to leave the cities gas stations are few and far between so it's important for us to do this before anything else. As a matter of fact this is the last one we see on this trip. I had to laugh because people were coming out and staring at us, our large caravan drew lots of attention.

We still had hours of driving ahead of us. The roads were very steep and dangerous in some areas.

And when we got closer to Covant it was more like trails instead of roads. Most of the people here don't own vehicles and as hard as it is to comprehend some had never rode in one. There were some villages we would drive through and the boys and men would hang onto the back so they could "ride".

Some kids coming out to watch us

It didn't matter how remote the area was people would come running out to stare at our line of vehicles. We laughed and made the comment "the circus has come to town". We had large all terrain vehicles and I'm sure it did look funny to the natives.

When we finally got to the place where our vehicles couldn't go any further the people from Covant was there to greet us. The people were singing and clapping and some of the women were crying. They were so excited that we had come to see them. Later on they told us that they feel like a forgotten people that the government doesn't even remember.

We were sore and tired from our long ride but there was still a long walk ahead of us. The people from Covant were amazing and carried all of our supplies down the mountain and over the ridge for us. The walk took some of us four hours and I personally fell twice.

There were a couple of people from our group that they had to get mules for.

This is Covant's town square, the church and school

Once we reached Covant it was time to unpack and get our supplies organized before it got dark. This is an area that doesn't have running water or electricity. The original plan was to set up tents but there was no place to put tents. The ground was very uneven and rocky. Thankfully Covant's pastor worked it out so we could sleep in the school.

So we gathered our bags and cots and set up our living quarters. :)