Welcome to the Jungle

Welcome to the jungle, or maybe I should say welcome home from the jungle as I arrived back in Lima, Peru today after a weekend exploring the jungle and mountains of Peru. I think this trip was the first time I experienced so much humidity, cold thin air, snow, and blistering heat all within only a few hours of each other.
We began our journey at 8:00 p.m. leaving Lima, Peru on a 12 hour bus ride destined for Tingo Maria which is a city deep in heart of the jungle. The city, with only a few roads leading in and out, has only been accessible by road since the 80's.
The bus ride was a little long. Since the roads going up and down the mountains are bummpy and VERY curvy, the bus ride is more like a swaying boat in the middle of a storm out at sea. So needless to say, sleep was a little difficult. There was a couple hours of straight road where I caught some sleep though.
We arrived in Tingo Maria early the next morning and found our hotel to get some much needed sleep. Around noon we meet up with Chano and the rest of his family to spend some time with them. I am going to leave out the details of this part until later for good reason. You will hear this story in much more detail when the time is right :)
After our time with Chano, Rosa, and the family it was back to the hotel for a good nights rest! I think I feel asleep around 8 o'clock I was so tired! I felt good, but still groggy, as we woke early to get a ride to Tarma. (Tarma was our next destination in the Mountains)
This is about a 6 hour trip on bus but because of the holidays the bus we needed was full! So the plan changed from a bus ride to a taxi drive. This is a little more expensive but it was better than the alternative which was not to go at all. And I must admit, traveling by taxi was MUCH more interesting than traveling by bus.
As we left, the rain really started to come down hard. This was the first time I saw rain in Peru. Since Lima is located on the other side of the moutains, it never rains. The closest thing Lima gets to rain is dense fog. So to see the rain was a little shocking but not as shocking as how the taxi driver drove through it!
Maybe it was because he was young, or maybe it was because he was used to it, but for whatever reason the taxi driver must have thought that rain and curves gave him more traction because he seemed to speed up through puddles and around corners. Knowing a little bit about physics I know it isn't so bad to accelerate moderatly in a curve. But to accelerate exessivily BEFORE getting to a corner is something else!
But even with the 3 taxi drivers it took to get from Tingo Maria to Tarma, we were able to arrive just in time for lunch at maybe the best resturaunt in Tarma: The Pollo Stop.
For those who are like me and don't know a lot of spanish, Pollo means chicken and stop means stop. I think the owners of this resturant were trying to get two birds with one stone with this name.
Anyways, the chicken was great and made me feel like I was sitting at KFC. Me, Pat, and Garry all downed our chicken quickly as we missed breakfast in the early morning rush. Garry called their friends, and former missionaries from the city of Tarma, and told them we arrived. So Jr Crouse, his wife, and two daughters met us for lunch there at the Pollo stop. It was a great opportunity to meet some other missionaries in Peru and learn about their lives. Jr is an agriculture expert along with a bit of an entrepenure. He is doing wonders starting microenterprises within the country of Peru. One of his specialties is coffee. Being a fellow coffee drinker myself, I found it fascinating to hear how much of a science coffee beans can be! It was also really nice because they spoke perfect english! They are from the U.S. so this wasn't unexpected.
The time flew by in Tarma and soon the sun went down and it was time for the Sunday night service at the local Church. Pat and Garry, along with JR and his family, knew a lot of people from the Church including the Pastor and his wife. Garry, being a director over many churches and pastors in Peru, actually has a lot of connections so that was yet another benefit traveling with Pat and Garry.
Not long before the service, Pat told me that they might want to hear my testimony. Just as in Comas, the people in Tarma are very interested in vistors and are always inviting them to speak and give their personal story to the church.
I am not the greatest speaker so it always makes me nervous to talk in front of crowds. But since I already has some practice I had a bit more courage this time. Also, since my spanish is only at the introductory level, Pat had to tranlate for me. This also helped since I knew I could mess up a little and Pat could correct it in her spanish.
The speech went great and everyone seemed very receptive to my story. Afterwards, many people came up to me and told me how touched they were. Even the pastors wife brought tears to my eyes as she explained her emotion. I was very touched by the people of Tarma and the love that they shown to a complete stranger.
It was hard to leave but it was getting late and the traveling was starting to catch up to me. It wasn't hard to get some sleep that Sunday night.
I couldn't believe it was Monday morning already and time to head back to Lima. I wasn't dissapointed though. Actually I felt somewhat accomplished as I thought about all the sites I had seen and realized that I had just travled to the three regions of Peru i.e. coast, mountains, and jungle.
The ride back to Lima was much more intersting as we travled during the daylight hours. This gave me more opportunities to snap some pictures. I am not sure where exactly we were at any give time but Garry informed me after the trip that at one point we were close to three miles above sea level at the summit of Ticlio which is 15,685 feet high! This is actually the location of the worlds highest railroad. We also traveled over the smaller, but still impressive peak of Cerro de Pasco at 14,212 feet.
We arrived back in Lima with no problems early in the afternoon. It was good to see the sunshine of Lima and know we had done it! It was also interesting to reflect on how I felt in Lima. When I first arrived in Lima from the U.S. just a few days earlier, I was nervous and felt out of place. But after traveling to Pisco, Tingo Maria, and Tarma, Lima felt just like home. At times, it's amazing how my perception depends solely on the position from where I am looking.