Early on Friday 14 adventurous souls started on the arduous trip to Iquitos, Peru.
The trip was uneventful but very tiring as we spent about 12 hours in Dallas-Fort Worth airport and then flew overnight to Lima. We killed another 5 hours before we made our final flight to Iquitos. We were met with a surprise…an air-conditioned bus. It was great to see Juliet and Patricia! At El Jardin we settled into our rooms and it wasn’t long before Shealy and I were settled! We had sandwiches for lunch and then had time to rest & explore. Dinner was at 6:30 and then we had our devotional and it was off to bed.
On Sunday we went to the village to worship with our brothers and sisters in Santa Clara. The river was up and it made our hike to the boats a little easier.
When we arrived at the village we found there was a small creek we had to cross to get to the village. It was definitely a challenge for us but we only had one accident and that was on the return…JoAnn took a misstep and found herself knee deep in mud. She was a terrific sport and did not let this color her trip. We again had lunch, rest time, and then time to pack the duffels for the rest of the week.
The week was filled with fun, challenges, friends old and new, and several new experiences.
We had a storm one day on our return boat ride and we ended up in our life jackets. We made the hike through the jungle to the fish farm and had a great time, and we enjoyed 66 children at Vacation Bible School!
We only had 3 ladies to sew but they were enthusiastic and liked our choice of projects! I got to go into the village and deliver the water filtration systems and I enjoyed this very much. On our last evening we went out to the floating restaurant for dessert and it was lovely but we did not get to see the Southern Cross, as it was very cloudy.
The week went very fast and we were soon back at the airport in Lima. Five of us left the group and made the trip to Cusco. We had the afternoon to explore and my group went to the convent and enjoyed this very much. We all met for dinner at the Inca Café and enjoyed it very much.
We walked back to the Terre Andina and prepared for our 5 am departure to Machu Picchu. The train trip was fun and we all loved our guide Johnny. We spent the day exploring the site and were very tired on the trip back to Cusco. The next day we slept in, spent the day exploring the market, and then shopping in the square. JoAnn, Alice and I had a delicious pizza lunch before meeting Allison and Eliza for checkout and the trip to the airport! We started our long trip home and 28 hours later we said our goodbyes in GSP. It was a fabulous trip renewing friendships and making new ones!