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Thursday, June 25, 2009

Lima and Cochabamba

We're here! And so far, so good! After our week in Nashville, we flew to Lima, Peru. We stopped in Atlanta and had a little trouble there...we sat in the plane for almost an hour before we took off, and 10 minutes into the flight we had to turn around and come back because our landing gear was stuck down. It took about 30 minutes of flying around to dump out all our fuel before we landed, and they even had rescue crews on the ground in case our landing didn't go well. It went perfectly fine, but I guess better safe than sorry. We sat around in the ATL airport for a long time and finally left for Lima at 10:30pm....ugh. Not fun with a baby rubbing his eyes and nowhere to nap:( He slept almost the whole flight which was nice, and did really well the entire trip actually. After arriving in Lima, waiting for luggage, going through customs, getting a taxi, etc...we ended up at our hotel around 4:30am. Everyone at the hotel said "buenos dias," WE said "buenos noches" and crashed. Unfortunately, Jude woke up at 8, so if we look a bit dazed in any of these pics, that's why. We spent the first half of the day drinking coffee and finding food, and we did find some GREAT food! Our hotel was in an area called Miraflores, and it was right by the ocean. We went to a little local place on the water with a bunch of tents and vendors and they fried a whole fish for us, and we had plantains and ceviche and all kinds of good stuff, including some things we couldnt identify and nobody could seem to explain!


Sorry some of the pictures are sideways, the computer is acting up and won't save it when I rotate. Anyway, we took a power nap and then found a taxi driver who stayed with us the rest of the day and acted as a tour guide. We went to the Plaza de Armas, one of the main squares downtown, and checked out the old Catholic churches and government buildings. Then we went to the Parque de la Reserva, which Jude LOVED. They just built it 3 years ago, and its full of fountains that dance to music throughout the whole park, from classical music to modern stuff. We went at night so we could see the lights, and it was such a nice night. The red fountain had water arches and you could walk through the center, and there was another one that would shoot water at low and high intervals to music, and you could run to the next level while it was low and then get "trapped" when it got high again, until you were in the middle of this huge fountain, if that makes sense....our pictures are a little blurry because we had the camera on night mode to get the colors to come out.







Last Friday we flew to La Paz and had a 4 hour layover, which was a total mistake. If you visit, please fly through Santa Cruz. The altitude in La Paz is 13,000 ft and I felt every foot of it. Altitude sickness is no joke...Jude basically crawled around on a dirty floor because it winded me too much to pick him up. We had a short light to Cochabamba and went to Mike and Bonnie Timmer's house, where we spent the next 5 days. THey're also with International Teams and came down several years ago to start IOU (Internat'l Orphanage Union). Mike took us to the main square downtown on Saturday for "baby washing," this incredible service that happens there every week. A Bolivian man started bringing wash basins and soap to that spot every Saturday and washing kids...mostly babies and young children. It's blown up to a pretty big thing now and homeless mothers bring their kids to a tent to be bathed and given a clean outfit to keep and a glass of milk. It's no small undertaking...there's a truck with a generator to supply warm water and lots of towels and supplies. Ted got to give the young kids baths and I got to wash the little babies. It was incredible and Ted and I were so moved by the whole things...kind of happy for the opportunity to help and sad because of the need for it, but its definitely something we'd like to participate in as many Saturdays as we can.

And finally, some pictures of Cochabamba! We went up to the Cristo, the huge statue that's up on a mountain overlooking the city. You can actually climb stairs up inside of it and look out little holes over the city. It's beautiful. We found an apartment and moved in yesterday, but I'll write more about all of that later on. We miss you all already and thankyouthankyouthankyou for your prayers this past week. We definitely felt them!!






8 comments:

Renee Wilson said...

Glad to hear things have gone rather smoothly so far! What a neat ministry you will have there this year. Thanks for posting and I look forward to following your adventures :)

Unknown said...

Great intro blog. Me thinks this year is going to go by very quickly for you.

Adventures of Aaron and Jordan said...

Thanks for the update! Looks like everything is going well and I cant wait to continue to follow you guys thru this adventure!

Beth said...

Wowwweee! You guys have done more in the last week than I've done in like 10 years! The pictures are beautiful and I love love love being able to visualize where you all are. Give a kiss to your boys from me. xoxoxox

Blair said...

Thank you for the update, I miss you already! So glad everything is going well and can't wait to talk to you on Skype to hear more about it!

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the update, we're so glad to hear you guys are getting all settled and the pictures are amazing!! Keep them coming, we are thinking of you guys constantly and missing you!
Love, Missy, Sam and T :)

Lauren said...

Glad to see some pictures of where you are so I can picture it better now:) I am glad that we have been able to talk already a few times....makes it feel like you are not so far away:) Glad you are settled into the apartment and we are looking forward to hearing more as your time there unfolds!

Jenny said...

Sounds like an AMAZING trip so far. We are keep you all in our Prayers ; )