On a cold April sunny hot winter day…. haha jk.
3am on Friday April 26th, my alarm goes off. Time to get up to get ready to begin our journey to Peru. We have a little over an 8 hour bus ride to meet the rest of our squad in Guayaquil, Ecuador so we can all head to Peru together on a bus that leaves at 9pm that night. Typically we travel into countries as a whole squad. So after a long, curvy, hot bus ride- we made it to Guayaquil around 4pm. Shortly after arriving, my team was pulled aside to be told that not all the tickets (6 to be exact) for the bus rides to Peru got purchased. So there was 6 of us on my team and because we had a shorter travel to Peru ( We were scheduled to arrive at our host late Saturday night. One team wouldn’t arrive to their hosts until sometime Sunday and then the other two teams wouldn’t get in until sometime on Monday!! Yikkkess)
Soooooo we were told we were gonna have to stay behind and catch a bus out at 7am Saturday morning. Not their fault, it happens and it was out of their control. But I was not excited about having to stay the night in a hot bus station. We wouldn’t even be able to sleep because the security wouldn’t let us lay on the floor. So my team and I already started to look for a hostel we could stay at for the night. Before our squad took off, our amazing logistics Em and Tie, found us a bus that was leaving at 11pm that night instead! WOOHOO!!
So shortly after we said goodbye to our squad and my team and I just hung out and played some games and download Netflix movies the next few hours while we waited for our overnight bus! Right before we were getting onto the bus one of my teammates lost her ticket! Uh oh!! But luckily she was somehow able to have them reprint it. Got onto our bus and began our way to Peru. Around 3am we got to the border and had to get out because some bags had to be searched. Happened to be mine, Ronnie’s and Caroline’s haha! After they searched our packs we went in to get our passport stamped. Did all the border stuff (was pretty simple). Then we are back onto our bus to finally make our way to our first bus drop off. Right when we are about to exit the border my same teammate who lost her ticket, realized she checked out of Ecuador but never checked into Peru and got a stamp LOL. So we stopped the bus and she had to get off and go get it (again, was another easy quick fix. I think the Lord was totally with us hahahah)
Okay any who, so after all that we finally make it to our bus stop in Peru around 9:45am. We were actually trying to meet up with the rest of our squad because the next bus wasn’t leaving till 3pm so they were already there since we were only about 3hrs behind them. But we got dropped off at a different bus terminal and we couldn’t figure out where they were. So we just decided to get the next two bus ride tickets on our own. So we get in a taxi that is taking us to a bus terminal that will get us a bus to where we needed to go. So here is where some might say we made a dumb & dangerous decision. As all 6 of us girls get out of the taxis, a man approaches us saying stuff in Spanish but I heard him say the name of the town where we needing to get to for another bus to finally get to our host. My teammate B was communicating with him (she is fluent in Spanish). So she proceeds to tell me that he said he has a private van and he can take us to that first town to catch our last bus. Which side note, it is very common that taxi drivers, and other transportation is out of a bus terminal or airport that is trying to sell you their services for a little cheaper (or more expensive if you don’t know what you’re doing). So that is normal. So with that, we were all just thinking of how much we are just over bus rides and we still had two more busses we needed to be on. I just wanted to get to our host and eat (I don’t eat much on travel days because my tummy is just weird on travel days) We also didn’t know when we’d find a bus (could be hours later), so we decided to get in this van with this stranger haha! Mind you, we all didn’t have any red flags or felt weirded out or that this was a bad idea. We had our own van and we were traveling faster than we would if we were on a bus because of all the stops they make. So almost 4hrs later we made it to the next town and he was going to drop us off at the bus station so we can get our final bus to our host. But our driver ended up saying that he doesn’t mind to take us the rest of the way (about 2hrs). So he did! He ended up taking us allllll the way to our host! We ended up getting there much faster than we originally planned and the drive was really cool! It was like a desert with mountains! It turned out to be such a blessing and a great decision hahaha. And now I have a cool memory!
Yes, we did break the age old rule we were taught as kids “never get into a van with a stranger”. And some may say doing that in a foreign country is even more dangerous. As Americans we are more of a target for kidnappings and what not. But you know what, with traveling around the world these past 10 months I have found that there are still more good people out there than bad. Of course there is still danger and bad things that could happen and you do have to be aware of your surroundings. But we also have the Holy Spirit who I believe will quicken us if we are about to get into a bad situation and we have to listen to that voice inside of us. But none of us felt that, we were okay with it. And now we have such a cool and fun memory because of it. We got to believe in the goodness of a complete stranger. It also has taught us to trust God in new ways. Because traveling from country to country, countries you can’t speak the language in, trusting that the vehicles you’re getting into, the people are taking you where you’re supposed to go. Back home most of the time you would know if someone isn’t taking you in the right direction because you’re familiar with your surroundings, everything overseas is new, you have to totally rely on God and trust in the goodness of people.
Anywhooo, I wanted to share this experience not to freak out my mom & dad (sorry mom & dad). But I wanted to share it to give a new perspective. The world is not as bad as people, movies and the news has portrayed it to be. There is still a lot of good and kind people who do want to help you. Again, don’t be completely stupid, listen to your convictions! This isn’t me endorsing getting into vans with strangers hahah! No no. Just a cool story I wanted to share!
Don’t be afraid to travel and see this beautiful world in fear that it’s too dangerous or that something bad might happen to you.
Till next time.
Much love, T.
