Into The Unknown

Thanks to all of you that have followed our lives the past 7 months. We just wanted to post a homecoming entry to say that we are extremely honored that you took the time to keep in contact with us by reading and commenting on our blog. We made it back to the US on Aug. 7th. After a couple of grueling travel days, including an 18 hour bus ride, we made it from the Bolivian border to Lima, Peru. From there we flew to Atlanta, GA where we had to pay a lot of money just to get out of the airport...a story for another time. In GA we were re-introduced to American culture (southern culture that is) by Jen's aunt and uncle...truly wonderful hosts, who wined and dined us like royalty...we even got an official tour of Rome, GA (where they live) and saw the largest university in the US (in terms of land mass) and a statue of the founder of the KKK...although locals would deny this. From Atlanta we flew to Milwaukee in time to see Jen's close friend Sarah married off and then caught a ride back to Iowa (where Jen's family lives) with other friends. While in Iowa we have spent a lot of time watching the Olympics, eating, squeezing Jen's baby niece Shelby, and yes...going to the Iowa State Fair - officially the biggest state fair in the country for those of you ignorant of such things. It is a spectacle to be sure...hard to know what is more entertaining to watch, the animals or the people. They are all about creating the biggest of everything and thus we were able to see the biggest bunny contest (the winner weighed in at 22lbs), the biggest bull ("Tiny" topped the scales at 3012lbs), and the biggest boar (1259lbs...it wasn't a pretty sight...somewhat of a freak!!). You can see a video of the pig at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDEC7LWZrpk.

Or you can check out another oddity at the fair at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKoLuuPkeog ...this even made it on CNN. Here we are behind the largest pumpkin with Jen's sister, Megan.


On Aug 26 we make the final flight "home" to WA. We are still unsure what our future holds, but we have several people that have generously opened their homes to us and have arranged some temporary work in Ellensburg until mid November. After that we are unsure what we will do. There is a slight chance that we may go back to Bolivia to work, but we still need a lot of prayer, guidance, and thought before that would happen. In the meantime we look forward to seeing many of you face to face. The past 7 months have been an amazing experience for both of us...and truly God blessed. We would encourage all of you to take a step of faith and do something similiar...you won't be disappointed by what you will discover.

Out Of Bolivia

As some of you may know, we were a little worried about what would happen when we tried to exit Bolivia given that we had overstayed our 90 day visa by 80 days!! It is a long story, but when we tried to get an extension while we were in Cochabamba they refused to give it to us, saying that we could stay up to 30 days more in the country and just pay a fine for every day over our 90 day visa. They threatened that if they "found" us in the country after the 30 days then they could deport us and give us a "special stamp" that wouldn't allow us to come back for as long as 10 years. Given the commitment we had already made to the children's homes, and our desire to travel more in Bolivia, we stretched the 30 day limit to 80 days (what is 50 days anyway!!).

When we arrived at the border we had enough money in Bolivianos to pay the fine for the 80 extra days we had stayed. They thankfully did not give us the promised "special stamp" and of course the threat of deportation becomes a rather mute point when you are standing at the border ready to leave. But unknown to us, they had raised the daily fine by almost fifty percent...it was even raised in the middle of our discussion...after a consultation with another border official who assured us that the first officer was confused. We didn't have the money in Bolivianos and thus after exchanging a rather large sum of dollars a horrible rate (only one money exchanger at the boarder who knew our situation), we were able to "escape" Bolivia.

BUT not before they had given us an "official" receipt for our payment...lest we think that they were corrupt and had pocketed part of the money. It was the perfect way to go out of Bolivia though...we wished we would have videotaped it. During this whole exchange the bus was waiting for us on the Peru side of the boarder and the bus employee with us was telling us to hurry up every 5 seconds and probably would have left us if we had delayed them much longer. We payed over 2000 Bolivianos in fines, but their receipts were pre-printed in the value of 70 Bolivianos. Thus the border official had to personally sign 32 separate receipts. As he signed the last one I about ripped them out of his hands, but he insisted that they needed to be pasted onto a sheet of paper before he could give them to us. We watched in horror as he carefully ripped off one receipt, took out a wet sponge, moistened the back of the receipt and pasted it carefully in the upper left hand corner of the page. After watching this process a second time and multiplying the time involved by 30 we (including the bus employee) did rip the receipts out of his hands and started licking and pasting as fast as we could. When we got the the bottom of the page he announced that he would have to look for another sheet of paper, we insisted (rather forcefully) that it would be OK to use the other side. After they were all officially pasted, he counted them three times to make sure he had the right amount (we helped with the math) and then stamped each one of them...reapplying ink after every four stamps and finally signing his name at the bottom of the page, taking some more time to think of what day it was...making it an official 33 signatures on one page of paper. Thus we exited Bolivia at a full run (literally) with our passports and a true Bolivian receipt clutched in our hands, ran into the Peruvian immigration office, got our stamp, and ran to the bus, apologizing profusely to all the waiting passengers. We asked another American on the bus how long they had all been waiting for us, and were relieved to find that they had only been waiting on the bus for 10 minutes. Above is a picture of us holding our visas and our "Bolivian Boarder Receipt".

Jen goes into the wild

Although we feel a bit guilty and had some conflicted emotions with our guide touching all the animals (not so environmentally friendly), it was amazing to see the animals up close. Here is a series of pictures of Jen experiencing the wild up close and personal.

Baby alligator on the night boat ride

Getting stuck in the mud...did yoga poses to get my boot out--check out my socks (threw them away)...Andrew just laughed at me while another guy from Switzerland helped me out of the mud! Andrew says he loves me and would lay down his life for me, but I have some serious doubts about this! ....She (Andrew writing now) didn't tell you about the multiple alligator and wild rodent attacks I saved her from...if it hadn't been for my courage and quick reflexes who knows what would have happened!!

I just wanted to touch the skin and before I knew it he was handing this anaconda to me...yes, that is REAL fear. I had just watched it bite our guides rubber boot and was not exactly keen on harrassing the wildlife.

This constrictor was found right by a camp we were visiting on one of our hikes; again, our guide chose me to demonstrate its strength by having it constrict my arm...felt like somebody pumping up the bloodpressure cuff a bit too tight! There's the Swiss guy who saved me from the mud while my husband took pictures!

Pampas Tour

After a night in Rurre we headed out on a tour of the ¨"Pampas"...think grasslands mixed with jungle and swamps...a rather fascinating environment, but the main attraction is the plethora of animals. We took a crazy three hour 4x4 ride crammed into a landcruiser with the other 6 people on our tour (most of whom had been on our jungle tour). At Santa Rosa we got on a boat for a beautiful 3 hour ride up river. The river was lined with crocodiles and caymans...literally every 50 yards you would see one sunbathing on the shore (see photo above) and that didn´t account for the ones that were in the water. We also saw monkeys, turtles, sloths (Jen´s personal favorite), anacondas, capyberas (Sp!...the largest rodents on earth), and an incredible variety of bird life. It was a little hot and humid to say the least, but very few bugs...a welcome relief from the jungle trip!!!

In the end, we had stayed so long that we decided to take a flight out. Then it rained and planes/buses were all delayed. This was the grass airstrip that we finally were able to exit Rurre between rain storms. Thank God!

Jungle Tour

La Paz in the valley, Mt. Illimani in the backdrop

Jungle Jen

We arrived back to La Paz from the mountain at 6pm and left the next morning at 6am for the jungle. It was a beautiful 8 hour drive down through the cloud forests, with stops for breakfast and lunch and swimming, to the jungle town of Guanay where we got on a boat with 12 other gringos, two guides, a cook, and two drivers for a two day trip down river to Rurre. Our trip was actually postponed for the night while we waited for a river blockade to end...if they don´t have a road to block, then they settle for rivers. I envisioned a big net across the river, but the guide said that they just announce their blockade and if anyone tries to go by they come zooming out on their canoes and throw rocks at you...the joys of Bolivia.

During the trip, we would ride for a few hours down river, stop for lunch, take hikes through the jungle, and swim in beautiful pools at the base of waterfalls. At night we´d camp on the beach of the river in tents provided by the company and eat wonderful food by the campfire while being entertained by some very funny guys from Amsterdam. The one drawback was the sandflies once you arrived at the beach...they would bite without feeling it and then like five minutes later, you would be scratching out of control..I think they might even be in a class above mosquitos--we were still itching 5 days later!

Leaf cutter ants

Piranha

Huayna Potosi (6088 meters - almost 20,000 feet)

Parasites couldn´t keep me down...I decided to try climbing Huayna Potosi even though I wasn´t in the best shape physically or properly acclimated. By God´s grace (truly!) I made it to the top without any problems whatsoever. It wasn´t exactly a walk in the park, but I felt that I could have even climbed another 400 meters higher (height of the nearby Illumani - you can see it in the background). It is a fairly basic climb - very few crevasses and so many people go up a day (about 60) that the path is nice compact snow and ice. I was on a rope with two Brits and our guide. I thought we would have to turn around when one of the Brits lost his cookies a full two hours from the top, but with some frequent stops (the guide even said he climbed like a girl :) he pulled through - I was quite proud of him...although he couldn´t feel a couple of his toes by the time we got down. We prayed he didn´t get frostbite...he refused to take off his socks to show us though.

Jen came with me and joined me for the first day of a little experimental ice climbing on the glacier. I had never done any sort ice climbing and was a little nervous that the whole mountain was going to be like this, but the guide assured us that there was no ice climbing involved on the actual climb. Jen stayed at the refuge while I hiked up to high camp...she passed away the time sitting by the fire, reading, and helping the cook. Below is a picture of the refuge where Jen stayed with the mountain in the background, and another of the gorgeous sky--perfect climbing weather.