More on Samaipata vacation

April 23, 2007
by: Jessica Dening

Well it´s my turn once again to write of the adventures of Bolivia. This past week we finally took our overdue first vacation. We left Wednesday and traveled about 2 and half hours to the beautiful mountainous region of the Santa Cruz district to a small town by the name of Samaipata. Upon arriving we realized there would be plenty of time to rest considering that the town consisted of very little. So we had plenty of much needed rest that we didn´t realize we needed so badly. We began our time Wednesday with a silent retreat time until dinner, which was very good for all of us, then we continued that night with a time of worship and encouragement. The next day we set out to see the town, which like I said did not consist of much but we were able to use that time to relax and set up a hike for the next day. That night we had the opportunity to have a relaxing fire and enjoy the most beautiful sky of stars that we had seen in a long while. The next day we got up early to trek through a mountainous region and cloud forest, which is similar to a rain forest but recieves it´s moisture from the clouds due to its altitude. We enjoyed a beautiful view and recieved some much enjoyed excercise. Needless to say we were ready to sleep that night, but before we hit the sack Bethany requested that we check to her itchy head, and yup you guessed it, she became the first team member to recieve lice from our kids. So we spent some time removing the lice and then enjoyed a goodnight´s sleep before the group from Canada that has been helping out at the guaderia and hogar for the past two weeks arrived and we met them at a beautiful sight of waterfalls for some swimming in ice cold water and then attempting to go out for dinner. This is when things became interesting...as I asked for a table for 19 at La Vaca Loca (The Crazy Cow) the owner replied that he would need 10 minutes so we decided that we would wait in the plaza. Then the power in the entire town went out, and we discovered that they would not be able to cook for us without electricity which was a bit of surprise due to the fact that gas the most common form of cooking here in Bolivia. So this began the search of a restaurant that was capable of cooking for 19 without electricity. Bethany and I went to scoure the town with Natinho (our Bralisian friend) and Mark from the Canadian group and recieved information from another restaurant that couldn´t take us to go to a german owned restaurant that should be able to cook for us. Little did we know that this would just lead us to another restaurant that finally took us after wandering around town in the dark for far too long. Then we waited for about two hours to recieve the well appreciated food finally with electricity. That night we enjoyed a few games of mafia and hot coffee after freezing in the cold before heading to bed. The next day we ended our journey by going to visit incan ruins where we had our own church service and then headed home only to endure brake troubles and a flat tire. But we arrived safely and enjoyed another dinner with our new Canadian friends. We went back to work today, and though we are a bit tired from translating for the past two days, we were rested and ready to see our kids once again.
Prayer requests:
That are able to fully trust in God and surrender all to Him that will occur throughout our lives.
Our friend Rebecca will be healed, and the doctors can help her.
Team unity as we all have seperate stresses throughout the work day.
Safe travel as friends from the states that have been here since July are leaving Wednesday and the group from Canada is leaving Friday.
Praises:
We were able to rest and have time for ourselves.
We were able to make new friends with the group from Canada.
We are all healthy and touching lives at the guaderia and hogar.