This past week was crazy! For the first time in seven months, I got to see my mom. My mom had the chance to come and visit me for a week for what is called PVT. And what a week it was. It started off with the whole squad moving out of our beloved house at Inca-Link. Some people, the ones who didn’t have parents coming, went to Latacunga. The rest of us stayed at a local seminary. This is where we got to see our parents for the first time in quite a while. It was great to see my mom again. (Mom, don’t read the next sentence.) I won’t admit it to her, but I do miss her. Our adventures together started off right away.
Her first day here was our day off. I had decided not to do anything too crazy with her the first day, so we just hung out at a park. For dinner, Kendall and I decided to take our moms out for some traditional Ecuadorian food. It sounded easy on paper, but it ended up being a debacle. I will admit that I put in the wrong address for the uber. That was my fault. And it was also my fault when I did it again. Yea, I can’t really say anything to redeem myself here. I led us astray, but Kendall was fortunately able to get us to what is called La Ronda, which has a bunch of nice restaurants. Dinner was amazing. It tasted so good, and the non-alcoholic Canalazo was great. (Canalazo is a hot drink that is considered a dessert.) It was refreshing to have a nice dinner and just talk to the moms. And talk. And talk. We ended up getting back to the seminary after midnight. Welcome to the World Race mom.
On Monday, Mom and I went with Kendall and her mom to the Equator. My mom, being a science teacher who loves her job, was having a great time. (Well, it was a great time except for the shrunken heads.) We had so much fun trying to walk on the Equator, and failing because of the gravitational pull, balancing eggs on nails, and seeing how water changes the direction it spirals down on either side of the Equator. After we visited the Equator, the adventure of getting home began. Our guide said that he would take us back to the newer part of Quito, where we thought we could get back easily. He ended up dropping us off on the opposite side of town. By this time, we had missed dinner. Kendall and I made the executive decision to go get pizza. Our moms didn’t want to walk anymore, so they stayed at a coffee shop while Kendall, me, and my mom’s credit card walked down a couple blocks to get pizza. The pizza place we went to was a hole in the wall type of place with great music. I had no idea what it was saying, because it was in Spanish, but it was great. Kendall and I started talking to the owner/chef and learned that he had come to Ecuador from Venezuela. Our hearts went out to him, and after he gave us our pizza, we were able to pray for him. It was a really cool moment. After that, Kendall and I went back to our moms, who probably assumed we were dead because we had been gone for so long, and got a ride home. I had to hide the pizza box before I walked into the worship session that we had missed half of.
The next few days were fun. Mom and I went to ministry together, and we got to just hang out. On our last day, mom and I went with Kendall, her mom, Nick, and his parents to Pichincha. We rode up the Gondola and were both mortified and mystified by the beautiful site of the city far below us. It was a cold and extremely foggy day. Well, I say foggy, but we were actually just so high we were walking through clouds. (For those who don’t know, Pichincha is a volcano that is the closest point to the sun on earth. The peak is at over 15,000 feet.) Our plan was to ride horses to the peak, but when we finally found the place for the horses, which took far too long, there were none available. It was still a lot of fun and once there was a break in the clouds, we got an amazing view of Quito. Since we had extra time because we didn’t ride the horses, we all decided to go to an amazing Asian restaurant called Wok to Walk. It was so yummy. And there was a lot of it. Mmm. Later that night, my mom left. I was honestly not too sad to say goodbye. I know I only have two months until I can see her again. Then she is going to leave me. That goodbye will be harder.
After the crazy and exhausting week of PVT, I had a relaxing weekend at LDW. This is text, so you can’t tell that I was being sarcastic. It was relaxing at the beginning. I had WiFi and a nice bed to sleep in. (The first night I actually wasn’t able to sleep in it because I got locked outside my hostel, but that’s not important.) My first day was very relaxed. All I did was watch Netflix and hang out with Kendall. Then, in the afternoon, the squad leaders took us to the park to play some games. After the very first game, which my team lost, we discovered that someone had stolen Hannah Grace’s bag. Elijah thought he saw the guy who took it, and went after him. Almost all the guys followed suit, and so did I. I didn’t know what would happen if someone caught up with the perpetrator, so I wanted to be there just in case something bad happened. While we were running, some dogs chased after the people in front. One of the dogs turned around and saw me. He came at me, and bit my leg. I was able to scare him off, but the damage was done. It wasn’t long before I was in the hospital emergency room, waiting a long time for a doctor to look my leg over. I’m now getting rabies shots for the next couple of weeks. Yay.
So, that is a recap of last week. Crazy, huh? I’m hoping that this next week is a little more calm than all of that. Even if it’s not, at least I’ll get some cool stories out of it. And maybe scars. Anyway, I’m super excited to begin my last two months on the race. So many things have happened, and I know even more are yet to come. Love you all!
