Santiago

Wednesday a small group of us went into Santiago to do some treasure hunting (ministering to individuals on the street the Lord highlights to us) and sight seeing. On the way into the centre (2 buses and a metro later) Ben had a word of knowledge for someone walking with a cane and pain shooting up their right leg. He saw people with canes all around him so prayed and shared with them, the second lady started walking perfectly healed, having never walked like that before. She left with her cane under her arm ready to give it away, rejoicing in her healing. 

Santiago is a great city, I felt really comfortable here, maybe because after the craziness of my last 7 months of living on the road it gave me a sense of normality, I did live a very corporate lifestyle in London for 4 years after all so being in a business centre is very familiar to me.

Lunch in Santiago with Ben, Kurt, Liney and Liz

A view through Santiago

Thursday was an early start to drive to the airport at 5am - got lost, drove down the wrong side of the road twice, numerous turnarounds, competing with the GPS and where we thought we should go, asked the car next to us for directions at a freeway offramp... No stress as the time for my flight got closer and closer! Got to the airport perfect timing thanks to Liz's amazing driving, Kurt's impressive navigation and Liney's fantastic help with Spanish, in time for a flight delayed by an hour. 

You know you've been on the road for too long when you're excited about airplane food. It was good, even got a fresh bread roll warmed in the oven, plus real butter! Haven't had that in months. My interchange at Buenes Aires didn't go as smoothly - possibly to do with the fact that I was trying to check into the Iberia direct flight to Madrid at 1:05pm instead of my 1:20pm flight to Rome (and then Madrid) with Alitalia. Easy mistake to make considering I'd been up since 4am after 3 hours sleep. Also a good time to discover I'm actually in the wrong terminal, not just at the wrong boarding gate. Oh, and I don't have a boarding pass as I'm in transit and haven't actually checked in. Great, not challenging to communicate this in Spanish at all. All's well that ends well and I got on the flight, all 13 hours of it. 

And now I'm on a much needed holiday to Spain to spend some time with family resting and recuperating. Living as I have been for the last 7 months has taken its toll, it's been an unforgettable experience, but it's also been exhausting. Two continents, 13 countries, thousands of kilometres travelled by car, bus, train, airplane, taxi, motorbike, metro, tuc tucs, hitched rides on the back of pickup trucks, boats and of course walking, living in very close community with between 20 and 33 people at any given time in very challenging conditions, not to mention all the ministry we've been part of, no wonder I'm tired. And ready for a break. I'll meet up with the team again in Argentina in May. Well that's the plan... If I've learned anything over the last 7 months it's that what we plan and what actually happens is generally 2 different things...

5 day drive from Peru to Chile

First night in Chile we slept in the town of Iquique on the beach then headed off at a reasonable hour on Saturday onwards towards Santiago. It's over 2000km from Tacna, Peru to Santiago, Chile, so understandably we needed to do this journey over quite a few days. The first two or three days of driving were through the Atacama desert. It's the dryest desert in world, I think this explains why the terrain is so not interesting, just giant piles of dirt in the shape of a hill really.

We spent 2 nights at Antofagasta so that we would have Easter Sunday as a family day of rest. This was a fun relaxing day of a late breakfast and family dinner with communion in remembrance of our saviour's death on the cross.

As you can see the Peru to Chile (all 5 days of it!)

drive was not along the most interesting of scenery...

Driving to Santiago, don't be deceived, it's not

nearly as pretty as this photo makes it appear!

Monday we set off off again for what turned into a super long day of driving, we arrived at the town of La Serena after 11pm, boy were we ready for dinner plus bed by that time!

The time had finally come to offload one of our pop-up trailers. Having made it all the way from Portland in the USA to Chile it had finally fallen apart enough to not be worth carrying around with us. So we put it up one last time while we in Antofagasta to see if we could find anyone who would like it. Alas no such luck (!) and so it got hitched back up for one last travel day with us... This pop-up had been home to 6 of us ladies for many months through Central America, so understandably it meant quite a lot to us. I think you could accurately say that we had a love hate relationship with it - hate because it was so broken and such a hassle to put up and down, but also love as it was our home for many months plus it was a place we'd laughed and cried in and shared many memories. Of the 6 ladies there are 4 of us still on the trip, so we took a couple of photos of us with the pop-up for one last memory...

The four us

Retelling stories from the pop-up one last time

We really wanted to bless someone with the pop-up trailer rather than just leave it as a dump or sell it (once you've put it up it could be a good home, it's just not strong enough to be driven through all the rough terrain as we have been travelling through). So mid-morning we pulled over in the middle of the desert where we saw some trucks. We found a husband and wife there who were delighted with it - turns out she'd been praying for a pop-up trailer for a year, asking God to give them one as they couldn't afford one. And here we go and just give them one for free! I love it when my prayers are answered, but I can honestly say I am more blessed when I am part of the answer to someone else's prayer. The husband explained to me how one of his son's is serving the Lord in Peru and how he didn't always believe in the Lord but while he was in Peru he became saved. They were so happy they gave us food for the road. So we left our pop-up home on the side of the road in Chile for 20 sandwiches and a bag of candy and drinks!!

Putting the trailer down one last time

What we swapped our mobile home for -

20 sandwiches, a bag of candy and some drinks!!

Driving away, minus one pop-up trailer

This is what 2 full days of driving to Santiago consisted of, dessert and more dessert

Tuesday was a shorter 6 or 7 hour day straight through to the YWAM base in Santiago.  It's a lovely base outside of the city on a big plot of land. Only thing is the ice cold showers, and Chile is kinda chilly to begin with...

Kurt syphoning petrol out of one of the cars 

for another one which had run out of petrol

Rest time with "We Will Go Peru" Ministries in Tacna

I then met my friend Liz in Lima and we took the bus south to meet the rest of the team inTacna to Amy Lancaster's sister ministry "We will go Peru". This was a wonderful few days of some much needed rest. The result of being sick for the last month is that I am constantly exhausted so any time to sleep and I take it. 

Tacna is not the prettiest town as you can see but a great time of rest!

Good Friday and we set off towards the Peru/Chile border. This border crossing was particularly painful as they were super strict about not taking fruit etc into Chile so they had us unpack each of our 4 cars and motor homes. Why was this so painful? It's hard to imagine just how much stuff we have in ours cars, everywhere. 20 plus people travelling in 4 cars with 2 pop-up trailers, it's crazy. 

Machu Pichu

I spent just Thursday  in Lima trying to get organised for a few days in Cusco plus had the luxury of afternoon coffee as a farewell to Roberta who was leaving that evening, all the while trying to deny the fact that I was getting sick... By the evening the diarrhea had well and truly set in with hourly trips to the bathroom all night. Friday was a challenge as Melissa and I were flying to meet the rest of the team in Cusco. Let's just say that taking a plane, bus,  taxis and a train with diarrhea and the worst stomach cramps I've ever experienced is not the best way way to spend your birthday. And so began two weeks of me being sick with giardiasis. Giardia are parasites living in your intestines, you get them from contaminated water. I probably picked it up when I was in the Amazon. Not surprising. It truly is an awful sickness, I don't think I've ever been that sick, such pain in the stomach. Anyway, 3 sets of medication (2 sets of antibiotics lasting 10 days plus a course of pain killers for the stomach cramps) and 11 days of diarrhea later and I started feeling more normal.

The famous Machu Pichu

Part our group with Machu Pichu in the background

Worshipping at a high place overlooking Machu Pichu

Cusco is a beautiful city, feels very European, like a Spanish town. Machu Pichu was cool to but unfortunately I really was too sick to enjoy it properly. It was fascinating to learn about its history and the Inca people, although not much really is known about it at all! In line with us worshiping in the high places we took communion, worshipped and prayed up on Machu Pichu. I spent about a week in Cusco, most of the time in bed but by the end of my time I was able to explore a bit which was great.

Cusco

A short song to describe our 4 day launcher trip...

Our group of 4 increased to 5 when Bridget joined us in Iquitos. So the 4 day launcher trip was her first experience of this kind. In honour of this we dedicate the following song to her, sang to the tune of the "Twelve days of Christmas". It's an accurate account of just a few of the crazy things we experienced. 

On Bridget's first launcha trip, there was so much to see...

12 men a staring,

11 vendors selling,

10 babies screaming,

9 ports a passing,

8 peeing chicos.

7 (hundred!) swinging hammocks,

6 dolphins swimming,

...5 happy gringos...

4 skewered grubs,

3 starry nights,

2 fluffy ducks 

and a parrot on a wheelchair!!

Piura and Shekinah - round 2

Needless to say we were ecstatic to be getting off the bus, especially as we were heading straight to the mechanics yard to pick up Shekinah and begin our road trip down to the rest of the team in Lima. Alas this was not to be, as no surprise but Shakina still wasn't ready. After 6 hours of sitting in the mechanics yard dreaming of a shower (5 days of not showering or changing clothes day or night is not pleasant) we picked up our bags, headed to the mall for some much needed food and then back to our trusty hostel for our even more needed shower. 

Instead of sitting around Piura (not a very happening town) we headed to the coastal town of Colan for the weekend. This is when I started feeling sick, with Sunday and Monday spent in bed. What a waste to be in bed when at the beach! Humorous story is me turning down my first Peruvian marriage proposal. The son of the hostel owners invited me for a walk along the beach the last night, which I gracefully declined. The next morning while hand washing some clothes before we left his mom came over to tell me they're looking for a foreign wife for their son, and me being South African is just perfect. Err, awkward.

After ministering to another guest where we were staying we headed back to Piura on Tuesday to get the car, which no surprise wasn't ready (as I write this the car still isn't fixed, it's been in the mechanic's yard for over a month now). Natalie needed to get back to Lima as she was flying back to America that Sunday so the two of us took a bus back to Lima on Wednesday. This was the poshest bus we've ever been in! We were really like 2 overly excited kids, reclining chairs, personal AC, good movies to watch, yummy food (dinner and breakfast), a waiter, footrests plus wifi!! Oh my goodness what a step up from the last bus experience. Actually any bus I've ever been on. And was the same price as the previous awful bus ride!!

Iquitos to Piura via a 4 day boat ride and the worst recorded 20 hour bus ride

After the conference we went back to Iquitos, forever changed after this experience, my heart full. After a very sad goodbye to our American ministry friends we went to take the launcher back out of Iquitos that Saturday 10th March. We landed up missing the boat (literally), again a problem with never really knowing when it will leave, so we went back to our lovely hostel and waited for the next launcher in 2 days time.

It was nice to have a couple of days to chill in Iquitos again, hanging out with our friend who is on her way to becoming a shaman, we went to visit the nose guy who we'd ministered to on the launcher on the way to Iquitos, plus we watched a shocker of a movie at the cinema. It was so bad... but kept us laughing at the awful sub-budgetness of it. I treated it as a good Spanish lesson as it had Spanish subtitles and the speakers were so bad we could hardly hear the English dialect anyway :)

So Monday 12th March we headed for the launcher again, this time with more success with us arriving there with plenty of time. Leaving Iquitos is upstream so this time the boat took 4 days. Again, I never thought I'd survive 4 days on a boat... Plus sleeping in a hammock!! We had some darling children with us, little Katia (3 years old) stole my heart. She had an incredible ability to arrive every time we were eating, especially apples, which she had no problem helping herself to!!!

From Tarapota began the 24 hour bus ride back to Piura. Which was awful. Again I cannot overstate the extreme horribleness of it. The first 3 hours took 4.5 hours in a pick up truck. It was comfortable (a little squashed but we're used to that!) but took ages as our driver kept stopping to pick up more people or drop them off. That's not the bad part. The good news is we got to the next bus half an hour before it left so perfect timing, the bad news is we got the last 5 awful seats at the back of the bus. The driver drove like a crazy race car driver, so sitting at the back of this budget bus with no shock absorbers we felt EVERY  bump of the 20 hour journey. Each of our seats had their quirks. Mine had no cushioning so I was literally sitting on the bars of the seat. Many a bump I was airborne... only to land with a painful thump, often on top of Natalie who I was sitting next to! When we stopped for our 20min stop we all just sat their looking shell shocked swaying with motion sickness dreading getting back on the bus...

Aurora Conference

On Sunday 4th March we met with the team from the States who we were partnering with to run a conference for the local indigenous Aruyani tribe in the Amazon. Meeting them was a little overwhelming as they were the biggest group of white English speaking people I'd seen in months!!! They were a really great group of people who I loved getting to know. Ministering with them was such a privilege and great experience. The group consisted of the man who invented solar bibles. They're neat as you can take them deep into unreached places where people do not have power to charge devices, nor do they written bibles as books. Another man who is part of the company who films the Jesus movie in different languages, a man who works with the Faith 
Comes By Hearing company, a doctor, nurses, a dentist and others.

Playing with the kids on the boat before heading out from Nauta

These people all work very hard at taking the gospel to the very unreached parts of the Amazon, where people have never heard the gospel. They also devote their time to getting the gospel into a form that these indigenous people can understand it. These indigenous people's languages are not written so a lot of work is done to learn and translate the bible into these (often still being discovered) languages. 

David and Stephanie lead the conference. They have been working with the Aruyani people for many years. They own some land along the Maranon River (which is just below the Amazon river) called Aurora which they have developed and which we used for the conference. The purpose of the conference was to upskill the Aruyani people: the team ran literacy classes, music (for worship) classes, bible classes, practical classes to teach the men how to fix their peki-peki (small boats like canoes which run up and down the Amazonian rivers) motors, a medical clinic, a kids program and more.

Every year this lady has a different pet. This year she had a monkey which went everywhere 

with her holding on to her hair. Last time she had sloth!

Her daughter with the monkey

I was involved in the kids program, helped out at the medical clinic, the woman's afternoon (we organized afternoon tea for the ladies) and general running around helping other ministries. It was a lot of fun teaching the kids to wash their hands with soap, brush their teeth, playing with the kids, organizing the woman's afternoon and then seeing them enjoy themselves so much. Aruyani women are not pampered with things like afternoon tea in their culture. They are too busy working, preparing food, raising children etc so it was great to bless them in this way by loving them and serving them.

Enjoying a sweet

The Aruyani people are not very expressive. It's only after building relationship with them for many years that they will touch you or look you in the eyes. So when by the end of our week with them some of the women were hugging me hello/goodbye that really touched my heart. They are also very unmusical - when they clap it sounds more like rain as they have absolutely no rhythm so they all clap out of time!!!

Evening meeting

This was such a special week for me, ministering with great people, getting to know and love the Aruyani people, and enjoying being in the beautiful Amazon jungle. It was also a lot more luxurious than my last jungle outreach, it really took us by surprise. We stayed on a boat which even had air conditioning!! Ok, so it didn't really work, but still! When it wasn't working the boat company sent another replacement boat for us!! We had cabins, 2 people to a room, real beds and a bathroom! Ok so the water came straight from the river so was dirty, but still, after the last time when a didn't shower for a week... ;) We also had 3 cooked (very good) meals a day plus filter coffee!!! Well, most of the time, when the generator was working, which was a bit sporadic! Swimming in the river was also great fun. We got in just above the boat, drifted down with the tide and then had to swim quite intentionally to get out again - the tide is pretty strong!!

Who couldn't love a child with a smile like this!