Made it to Peru!!! Let me tell you how… we began our travel day on November 9th when our first bus arrived to our home in Ecuador at around 11 pm. This first bus ride was around 8/9 hours. I literally slept the entire time (thank you Ecuadorian sleeping pills). All I remember is waking up at a bus terminal early the next morning with a 5 hour delay before our next and final bus ride to Peru. During this time I slept on the ground, ate a sandwich, and got a strawberry smoothie. When it was finally time to board the bus we got in a long line outside and couldn’t have looked more like tourists if we tried. This bus ride ended up being about 21 hours, which sounds horrible but honestly I loved it. Also, the bus was soooo boujee( for adults who are not familiar with the term “boujee” it translates to “fancy as crap”). I sat with one of my favorite people ever, Allyson Peterson; Ally if you’re reading this, I miss you dude. We got on the bus and left at 2 pm before making it to the border at 7 pm. When we arrived at the border we had to leave everything on the bus and go in this sketchy building with just our passports. We waited in a long line, got our passports stamped, and then got back on the bus. Then they fed us dinner which included chicken, rice, potatoes, some crispy chip thingys, and a jello that smelled like a doctors office. It was pretty good overall. I’d give it a solid 6/10. This would be a good time to go to sleep right? Wrong. I put in headphones, leaned my seat back and was almost asleep when the bus stopped and the lights turned on. For those of you who don’t know, I HATE being woken up. Thank you Jesus for blessing me with patient parents throughout high school. Anyways, when the lights came on I was livid. We literally just stopped and I thought there better be a good reason to be stopping again. Well, sadly for me, there was not. We all were ordered to get off the bus, yet again, while they checked our bags to make sure we weren’t smuggling drugs or something like that. I’m not quite sure and at that point I didn’t really care. This whole thing took like 10 minutes and we got BACK on the bus. We drove though the night and made it to Trujillo, Peru at 8am. At the bus terminal is where all the teams spit up for the month. My team, along with two others, are staying here in Trujillo; not together but just in the same town. Another team is staying in the jungle and the boys will be in Cusco. It’s so weird not living with 1,000 other people this month. We are all doing different ministries but our ministry looks different everyday. In the mornings we either clean or work to clear out a field in front of our house. We eat lunch at 1 then start our next task at 4. Sometimes ministry looks like doing Bile study with women around town or it could just be playing soccer with kids- these 9yr olds get very aggressive with soccer and are way better than I gave them credit for. But like I said, everyday looks different and we haven’t done the same thing since we’ve gotten here. I love it. It’s so random, there are always kids running around here, and the beach is 30 minutes way!!
Now for a little about my day. I was asked by Abby to take a walk around outside and little did I know what I was getting myself into. We started out by looking for snakes and ended in discovering that there are dinosaur-like lizards living right outside our house. Some kids saw us creepily chasing them and laughed at us then informed us they are called “lagartijas” (you have to choke a little when you pronounce the j to say it correctly, just sayin) which is just a cool Spanish word for lizard. We literally were outside for hours getting sunburnt and chasing lizards around. We did not catch a singular one, even though our strategy was outstanding. However, it was one of the best days I’ve ever had. Sorry we are 12. Videos soon to come.
Lastly, parents, I am happy to inform you that since we live so far from a city or town or anything, really, I have spent approximately zero dollars. You’re welcome.
PS- guys!! I am only $400 from being fully funded for this trip! If you would like to donate, just click the donate button at the top of my blog to keep ya girl out here spreading the love! Any amount, any at all, would help and be mucho appreciated! Thanks so much! Hope you are all doing well; sending prayers of peace and happiness your way, talk to you when I have new thoughts to share:)
Also, random shoutout to my trusty mentor, Caleb Chappell, keep holdin it down brother (he’s not actually my brother, it’s just a new slang term I have acquired from the creepy kids I live with).
