Trying to catch up

January 9th, 2007 at 9:33am |

Today is Tuesday and we find ourselves back in an internet cafe. We are now in Montañita on the coast. But, I need to get you all caught up before I start in on present day:

Thursday we went to ¨Monkey Town¨really called Misuahilli. At first we didn´t see any monkeys and were pretty disappointed, but after we ate lunch and toured a butterfly garden, we headed to the river and spotted our first wild monkeys. We have lots of pictures and videos we´ll have to share with you all when we get home! (The videos take a really long time to upload so we´re just posting a sampling.)

Thursday night was our last meeting in Tena and it was very sad. Carolina (the young girl whose house we had bookstudy in) almost started crying and she hugged me and said, ¨Don´t go!¨ I told her that was a horrible thing for her to say and promised we would come back to visit her. A few of the friends went to get pizza with us as our final supper.

Friday we woke up at 3:30 am and finished packing and headed in to town to catch the 5:30 bus. Mark had arranged for a taxi to pick us up at 5:00, but of course it didn´t show. We started walking in to town and the wheels on my suitcase broke at the very beginning of our walk which means I had to drag it the whole way. Mark started running at one point and sent a taxi back for me and Nathan. We arrived at the bus terminal at about 5:25.

We took the bus to Papallacta. (about a 4 or 5 hour drive) We went straight to a little hotel and booked two rooms. We left our luggage and headed up the mountain to relax in the hot pools. We spent about an hour sitting in the boiling hot water. Mark was in heaven because it was cool in Papallacta and he hates cold weather. I, on the other hand, was finally feeling some relief from the heat in Tena. When we got out of the water we walked around the beautiful park-like place and had lunch. We went to check out the spa and see about getting massages, but the first available appointment was about a 4 hour wait, so we passed.

We hitched a ride to the bottom of the mountain and as it turns out, the driver of the van was an English guy from North Carolina. We visited with him and his wife on the way down and by the time we arrived at the bottom, they had offered to drive us in to Quito (where they are Baptist Missionaries) that very afternoon. We decided to go ahead and do that since we had really only come to Papallacta to visit the pools. We told the hotel that we no longer needed our rooms and they very graciously didn´t charge us a dime.

We loaded our stuff in to the back of the couples van and took off for Quito. The drive was beautiful! (we took lots of scenery pictures, but they´re not that great because they´re all out of either a bus or car window) We arrived in Quito at about 5:00 in the evening. The couple invited us to stay in their home that night and the guy would take us to the bus terminal the next morning. We agreed. We put our bags in their house (with a slight feeling of uneasiness) and the guy took us to the mall. It is a brand new mall and is the biggest mall in Ecuador. It was really nice. We walked around there until about 9:00 and then went back to their house. (Nathan and I bought a new piece of luggage with all its wheels attached). We went to sleep and got up Saturday morning and went to the bus terminal at 7:30. I´d like to report that we did not get kidnapped or have any of our things stolen. We even left the couple with a Thank You card, a box of chocolates, the latest magazine with the Gilead Graduation review in it, and $20 bucks for the use of their hot water. Yes, we finally got to take showers with HOT WATER!!!

Mark bought our tickets to Othavalo and we were on our way. It was about a 2 to 3 hour bus ride. We again found a hotel and left our bags. Othavalo was all about one of my favorite things….SHOPPING! We spent about 4 hours walking around the outdoor market buying tons of stuff and haggling over the prices everywhere we went. I have to admit, we got pretty good at it. Mark and I fell in to this kind-of tag team routine. We would both be looking at something and decide amongst ourselves how much we wanted to pay and then we would start talking to the owner. We would first ask the price and then make a face to show we weren´t really happy with that price. Then we would tell them how much we were going to pay. They would say no and try to make a counter-offer. We would say no and then Mark would walk off. I would stay there and just repeat our offer. It worked every time! One time (my biggest accomplishment) I made an offer on something that was about 75% less than the asking price. The woman said no and came back with her own price. I said no and walked down the street. I had to pass her booth again on my way out and she was standing there with the item in her hand telling me I could have it for the price I had offered. (Heather, that one was all for you! You´re going to LOVE it!!)

Jessica, you can assure the boys that their Auntie Jen has taken care of them and won´t come home empty handed!

We had one more shopping excursion on our list of things to do so we hopped on another bus going to Cotocachi. It was only about a forty-five minute ride. This town is all about leather. I found a really cute purse and bookbag for myself and an adorable purse for Jessica Sargeant (as requested).

With a full day of shopping under our belts we headed back to our hotel in Othavalo. The boys decided there was no need to stay the night there since it was only about 7:00pm. So we told the hotel we no longer needed our room and they were not gracious about it in the least bit. We finally agreed to pay half of what they wanted to charge us. ($12) We jumped on another bus and went back to Quito. We got there about 10:00pm and bought tickets for Guayaquil. This was about an 8 hour bus ride so I put my foot down and we got a bus with a BATHROOM!!! We arrived in Guayaquil about 6:30 am. We got on another bus and went to Bethel. We asked if we could leave most of our luggage there. They said yes.

I have to admit that I had about had it. We had literally been up and travelling for 27 hours or something ridiculous like that and it was HOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Once you enter the Bethel grounds you have to walk up a hill for about 30 minutes and sweat was pouring out of every pore of my body. I kind of lost it. I cried for the next couple of hours. But, our journey was far from being over. After we unloaded our luggage at Bethel (and used their bathroom to apply more deodorant and brush our teeth) we trecked back down the never-ending hill and tried to catch another bus. We had no chance. All the buses were filled to the brim and wouldn´t let us on. We then started walking down the street. We arrived at a little toll road and waited for a bus to let us on. We waited for I don´t know how long and then finally a bus said they´d let us on if we stood up. We agreed and had to RUN down the street to catch it!

We boarded the bus and headed to Montañita. We finally arrived about 2:00 pm and went straight to a hotel. The sign out front said ¨no vacancy¨ but Nathan went in and asked about a room anyway. They let us have one and we unloaded our stuff. It is a tiny little room with bunk beds, a twin bed, and the smallest little bathroom/shower you´ve ever seen. No other furniture in the room what-so-ever. We decided to use the free standing twin bed as a table and Nathan and I sleep on the bottom bunk with Mark on the top.

Sunday afternoon we did absolutely nothing. Well, we ate at the hotel restaurant (since we hadn´t eaten in about 20 hours), I bought some Ecuadorian pants, we walked on the beach, the boys ¨body surfed¨, and then we went to bed.

Monday we slept in (if that´s what you can call it when there are multiple roosters outside competing with each other over who can be the loudest) and then literally did nothing all day. We ate a few times and I walked around the town looking at the various little booths selling stuff. But mostly we just took turns laying in the hammock and trying to play unbelievably hard crossword puzzles. Monday was a nice day.

Phew! I think I´ve brought us up to present day. This morning we ignored the roosters as long as we possibly could (which was about 6:30) and went to eat breakfast. We found this place that makes crepes so we´ve eaten there twice in a row. I get the crepe with marmalade and it comes with a fruit salad so I pour the fruit on the crepe and eat it all together. It´s SOOOOOOO good! Mark gets the crepe with strawberries and bananas with chocolate and strawberry syrup. Nathan gets eggs and croissants.

After breakfast we came straight to the internet cafe so we could get the blog caught up to date. This afternoon we will be catching a bus to Olon (only about a fifteen minute ride) for the bookstudy. It´s at 5:00. I think the boys might try to surf after the meeting. We heard that you can rent a sail boat and go out to a little island that Mark described as the ¨poor man´s Galapagos¨. I´d like to do that tomorrow. Thursday we´ll have the service meeting at 4:00 and then Friday we head back to Guayaquil to tour Bethel and stay the night there.

We love you all VERY much!!! Talk to you soon.

Posted in Jennifer's Journeys

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One Response to “Trying to catch up”

January 9th, 2007 at 12:43 pm

hummingbird

Jennifer, I was wandering about everyone and what was going on. I’m glad you got to the Branch O.K. You’ve had such experences, can’t believe ya’ll stayed with Baptist missonaries, so brave. Have fun we’ll see ya’ll Sun. Love you!

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