The Fiesta was a success. Nothing happened the way we thought it would which was par for the course.
The morning after our going away party we hired a van to travel back to Palenque (last Thursday) where we chilled in a hotel room overnight to enjoy comfy beds, hot showers, Pizza and internet.
On Friday we traveled back out to the Park at Pastor Samuel’s place to meet up with the rest of Squad A and Squad B. Friday was an absolute CHILL Day. All of us spent the day at beautiful Misol Ha. Wow! What a place. The picture just doesn’t do it justice. I guess the waterfall is over 150’ high and in places the water seeps through the ground above and just spurts out from holes all along the canyon walls that frame the waterfall.
One of the holes is big enough to be a waterfall in its own right and you can wade/swim into it for some sweet spelunking. They post a guard at the entrance…maybe to make sure the same number comes out that goes in . . . I don’t know. Some of our guys paid him to look the other way while they crawled back into the watery cave for more than 30 minutes. (I was meeting with Squad B Leader Chad so I didn’t get to go!)
Later that night Chad and the Media Team departed for Guatemala to Set-Up for the Race. We began Saturday morning with Squad A Team Leader Debriefs and Team Meetings and then all of Squad A met to share our victories and struggles, the lessons learned and the challenges ahead.
I should mention that the whole time we stayed at the park, Pastor Samuel really took great care of us. On Friday night we had Chicken Cordon Bleu. We had incredible Rotisserie Chicken for lunch on Saturday. We had freshly squeezed orange juice (I know, I helped squeeze it!)
Chad and The Media Team are also the Race Committee. They informed us before they left on Friday that our instructions were to wait until noon on Sunday before making any arrangements to travel and then to simply travel to a certain Lake near Antiqua, Guatemala. If you’re thinking that’s a little vague. Well…there’s a reason for that. Those instructions were merely a diversion.
At 5:00 am Sunday morning, Pastor Samuel and his team awakened us with car horns and shouts of “Amigos, Amigas” etc. It was all in Spanish…but it meant “The Race is on!”
We were given written instructions- 1st– each team had to submerge themselves up to their shoulders in the very cool river! Next we were on our own to travel to the Higher Grounds Café in Antiqua and interview/witness to at least one person in which we shared public transportation with.
By 6:30 am our team had secured a van along with Squad B’s Team Zeo to take us to the border- about 150 miles I guess. We crossed the border about 1:00 pm. The ride through the lower part of Mexico was beautiful. We had been living in near rainforest conditions with altitudes around 2500 feet. In the last 150 miles of Mexico we climbed to over 6000 feet and saw the terrain change to something more like the American Southwest. We even went through a stretch that had lots of Pine Trees and Red Clay and looked like North Georgia!
The Guatemalan Border Guards were awesome. Very Friendly. We ran into two other teams who were just ahead of us while we waited to get our paperwork in order. Just moments after walking across the border we found a van driver (actually, he found us) and we had our ride to Antiqua. Turns out, he was the same driver that transported the Media Team the day before so he knew just where to take us. It was another 150 miles and we didn’t arrive at the Café until about 6:30 pm.
The ride though through Guatemala was stunning though. I don’t know if I’ve been to a more mountainous region (with the exception of flying over the Brooks Range in Alaska doing search and rescue). According to Annie’s GPS and my altimeter watch we were over 9700 feet a few times.
Even though we were the last team to leave Palenque, we were tied with our travel mates (Zeo) for arriving in 2nd Place.
Of course, that wasn’t the end of the race. We thought we finished very well only to find out that the rest of the race was to take place this morning as every team sprinted for the finish line. We here to “hike” to the top of a nearby hill in a city park, spend one hour in prayer for the city and then hike back to a fountain in another city park. Technically- we won. We were the only team that “hiked” (or ran and walked and jogged). All of the other teams ran a little ways but grabbed the first taxi they could find. Well- as you probably can figure out- the teams that took taxis beat us. We came in next to last and that was because one of the teams decided they’d rather pray for a couple hours than even try to win the race. Good for them.
We did have some discussion about whether “hike” means hike or get there any way you can. This time it meant just get there. The Race Committee promised they’d try to be more concise with instructions in the future.
The bottom line is I finished the race and I’m twice as old as some of the other racers. I think that makes me a winner no matter what!
We will spend most of this week in Antiqua chilling out before going to ministry sites later in the week. I’ll post more about that when I know something.
