(A group from my squad decided to go to the Equator one day)
We finished up our month in Ecuador on March 9th. It is always hard saying goodbye to the people who become your family for the month. It was also sad because it meant the end of all squad month. Having the whole squad together all month was so nice. The last few days we got to encourage each other in preparation for Peru.
At 9pm Thursday night, after saying our goodbyes, we loaded all 58 of us into the double decker bus. I had an awesome bus buddy, Stephen; if you can book him, I would encourage it. We got to watch a movie before we went to sleep on the first travel day.
Friday morning at 9am (12 hours on a bus so far) we got off our double decker bus and onto another bus to get to the border. This bus ride only took about 15 minutes. Once we got to the border, we had to wait in line for FOUR HOURS. You read that right, four hours, in the hottest weather I have experienced on the race this far. After getting checked out of Ecuador and checked into Peru, we got back on the bus. It was a hour bus ride across the border. At 2pm, we made it to Tumbes, Peru. We needed to find tickets to Lima so a few groups went out searching. So with all of our bags on the side of the road we waited. It turns out there were no buses leaving for Lima until the next day 3pm. So we needed to find a place to stay. The police had been checking on us all day, and they told us of a hostel that would fit all of us. They were also nice enough to give us a ride so we didn’t have to carry all of our bags. We got a police escort to our hostel for the night. It was so funny and I got to scare my mom with a picture so that’s always fun.
Since it was so hot and we had been sitting/laying/standing on the side of the road all day, we all felt very blessed to actually get a shower. I was in a room with Danielle and Denea, and we had a lovely roommate named Freddie… He’s a lizard.
Saturday morning we had to check out of the hostel by 10am. The owners of the hostel trucked our bags to the bus station so we didn’t have to carry them. God is so good and it’s fun to witness what He provides you on travel days. We got on the bus at 3pm, another double decker, and this bus had a stewardess. The bus company, so all future racers know, is called ITSSA….because it’sa great. On this bus ride, I had the privilege of sitting next to the lovely Joey; I would also rate her highly for those interested. At about 5, we started watching movies…and never truly stopped. The first movie was Jurassic World, I am Sam (I’ve never seen this one and it was so sad), The Shallows (My favorite movie to watch with the group because everyone was freaking out), A Walk to Remember (This was fun because none of the guys had seen it before), Journey to the Center of the Earth 2 (I fell asleep during this one). At around 10pm, our lovely stewardess brought us each dinner….this had never happened to us before. We got chicken, rice and some weird jello thing. God is so good and so was that food.
Sunday morning woke up still on the bus. We continued the movie watching marathon pretty early. First on the list was The Day After Tomorrow, some Spanish movie called Instructions Not Included (Joey and I watched a few episodes of Parks and Rec instead) then Freaky Friday came on and finally we got half way through Percy Jackson. At around 2pm, we finally arrived in Lima, Peru. Our team of six had to find another bus station that went to Huanuco, Peru. The only place we found had tickets for 9:30pm, so we bought them. We went to the grocery store to stock up on water and snacks, then we went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. The restaurant was shockingly good. After running around all afternoon, we got our bags and camped out at our bus station waiting for our time. We had three different people come up to us and tell us to really watch our bags and never leave them. Isn’t that comforting information coming from the locals?
My advice to future racers: Always pack a toothbrush, face soap and underwear in your day pack. It’s the little things that help your insane travel days be less awful. At 9, we got to get on our bus and at 9:30pm it left Lima, Peru to Huanuco, Peru. This bus was….bad…so so bad. It had no AC, and the stewardess lady wouldn’t let us open the windows. For about 5 minutes she opened all the windows and then quickly shut them after we were clearly showing joy on our faces. She then proceeded to put her blanket on and go to sleep. I was so hot on this bus that I was starting to get a headache. I thought I was going to throw up from the heat. I walked to the bathroom a few times because it had the window open and air was nice. The heat mixed with the rocking of the bus made for a very long night.
Monday morning at 7:30am my team made it to our destination of Huanuco, Peru. Praise the Lord. We are so excited for God to use us this month and grow as a team and individually. If I ever have to travel less than 24 hours again, it will be such a cake walk.
