Part III: All for a Sign

probably my favorite picture- like ever. 

After leaving the Ulibarri village with the double "L"'s we headed out down the narrow road of the curvaceous mountainside on our way to seek out the other Ulibarri village- the one with the right spelling.

At one of the turns, I got a glimpse of what was down the road and what I saw made me freeze. Wait, was that men with some heavy duty guns that I just saw? No way. Was it? 

So I say, ummm husband, I think I just saw some men down there with guns. And of course in typical husband fashion he gave me that dubious look- and it was then, at that moment we rounded the bend and bam there we were, face to face with about 15 men- all equipped with what would appear to be Halo type weapons.

The road was blocked by some crazy spiky barbwire craziness. 

I am sure you can imagine the thoughts that were swirling around in my head as I relayed the fact that here we are, American tourists in the middle of nowhere (literally) in a foreign country. They could do anything to us. 


Husband looks at me and whispers, your name is going to really help us out right now.

I plaster a "I am not worried that I am going to die smile on my face" and take a Que from husband and slowly roll down my window as all 15 men with machine guns surround our golf cart sized car. Thank my lucky stars husband isn't a white guy and Spanish is his first language- is all I kept thinking.

The leader of this army/military/ETA/who-the-hell-knows group goes to husbands window and they converse- I don't understand Spanish so I have no clue what is being said, I just busy myself with the GPS pretending that everything is just dandy and that my heart isn't about to beat out of my chest. 

Then all of sudden I hear laughter and I look up and husband and this guy look to be having a pleasant conversation. I zone back in from my disturbed thoughts and hear that they are talking about Ulibarri.  The man says something to the other men guarding the road and they haul away the crazy spiky-barbwire roadblock and all 15 men depart from our car and we are free to go. Free to go!

As we slowly drive away, I look up at husband and ask him what that was all about. Husband said that as soon as he told him what we were doing and why we were there, his whole demeanor changed and he went from we are going to kill you- to wow, that is really cool and let us on our way.

Needless to say, after that little run in I wasn't about to risk running into any other militia type people. I was good with my double "L" sign picture.

More than good.