Sarah Shirk: December 2008

15 December 2008

Christmas lights in Barranca

Parque de la Vida (Park of Life) in downtown Barranca,
all lit up for Christmas

My favorite, the iguana in a ceiba tree

Posing in the women sculptures

My other favorite, the snowman beside the palm trees

Enjoying ice cream at the Parque de la Vida on the Night of Lights

Sara, Chris, Stewart

Christmas lights on the palm trees lining the park

Velitas (little candles) lighting Mary's way on the night of the Immaculate Conception

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” –Mark Twain

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” –Maya Angelou

“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” –Cesare Pavese

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” –Mark Jenkins