The Wild Goat Chase

One Saturday recently we headed out to Upper Barton Creek where we heard there may be a milk goat for sale. Well, little did we know the adventure we would find ourselves on..
 

We headed toward Cayo and turned left at Georgeville up the Mountain Pine Ridge Rd

Pass a few villages-

Laura naps her way along..

We see these carrot farmers..

and soon come to their beautiful fields..

We had never seen so many carrots planted before..

Now, unbeknownst to us, we had missed a turn..

Hard to see in this photo but we came to this extreme decline in the road.. now, we had gotten basic directions on how to get to Upper Barton Creek from a few folks.. and no one had mentioned such extreme driving conditions.. in addition, we had already traveled well over the time mentioned by all who had directed us. Uh oh! We  knew we were lost! We really had no other choice but to pray and continue on...

The cut backs and steep rock roads were intense. Half way down we encountered a worker from the famous Barton Creek Caves resort named 'Mikes'. The employee laughingly told us that we had gone the long and DIFFICULT way and should have turned off miles and miles before in order to take the easy road into the community. (we had been recently been listening to a wonderful dramatization of Pilgrim's Progress.. our current predicament made for some poignant discussions with the children) He also mentioned that we would have 2 rivers to cross but that we SHOULD be able to make it through.. he then shouted 'Good Luck!' as his truck sputtered and spun out all the way up the mountainside that we had just slid down. We were relieved to know that there WAS another way out of this canyon! Now if we could just find the Upper Barton Creek Community and get directions!

As we finally entered the valley, we saw some lovely banana plants lining the road, planted by the resort

Around this bend..

we came to this out-of -commission bridge. Another resort employee drove by us and shouted that the locals had piled rocks on the north side of the bridge in order to make passing the river easier..

'Just make sure to stay to the left!" he said..

As we passed through the river we saw why.. any further over and we would plunge into 15 ft waters

 

After passing the first crossing we saw these lovely hibiscus plants

2nd crossing.. a bit more daunting. Really we had no way to turn back as Grady didn't think our van could climb back up the mountain we had just encountered. 'Let's Go For It!" he said

Ok

And yes, we made it! And came across the lovely site of Upper Barton Creek community! It had taken us an hour longer than it should have.. but we finally made it.

As we pulled up we saw their sawmill which is powered by horses..

the logs are pulled to the mill by oxen

Grady chatted with the men for a while..

 

In the end it turned out that the goats had been sold the day before to a family member who resides in Agua Viva, 1.5 hours away. The great news was that they were sold to a friend of ours who agreed to let Ashley purchase one of the Mamas from him. Yes, it was a crazy day, all for a goat. BUT, our children will not soon forget our Wild Goat Chase!