Esperanza 11-12 / Part One

"Hola!" Now imagine a hug, sometimes loosely and sometimes tightly, with either a kiss on the cheek or their cheek pressed next to yours with a kissing sound in your ear.

You have just received your first proper greeting to Peru, South America! And get used to it cause it's the first of many! :)

This trip marks my second official mission trip, but first one out of the country and I am hooked. I knew I would be! I could feel it in my bones. To experience another country firsthand is just amazing. The people, their culture, their food, their language, their lifestyles, all of it is fascinating! I loved sharing it with them, trying things out and just as much, they loved sharing it and laughing at/with me! LOL!

As some of you already know, my wonderful husband made it possible for me to go and not worry about our boys. He had enough vacation days left that he could take off all but one day and stay home and be Mr. Mom! He did a great job and I love him all the more for it!!! My in-laws kept them the day he had to work. They passed the time by splitting and stacking wood, laundry, washing dishes, cleaning and sweeping the house. They were well fed thanks to my dear bible study ladies, Jasmine, Kim, and Katie and some great friends too, Marletta and Van! They got to spend a day making pretzels and decorating cookies at their great-grandma's with cousins and Ethan got to go roller skating with his church youth group. Overall I think they had a good time and stayed busy. :) They were all very happy though to see me back home! Adin said he thought I'd got lost and wasn't coming back! What a little squirt!

This may come as a shock, but I left my "baby" at home. It's true, my camera didn't get to go along with me and I missed it EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!!!! Had I known what I know now, I would've taken it and not thought twice, but that is the joy of hindsight! Andrew and I had decided that it'd be best if I took just a little point and shoot along instead of chancing my big camera getting lost, damaged, or stolen. So I purchased a Canon Powershot right before I left and sadly I hated it! I'm sure for a point and shoot they take great pictures, but they don't even compare to a SLR!!! It didn't help that my roommate had brought her big fancy camera along! Every time she got it out I had to fight the jealousy giant! On the flip side, I'm so excited that she'll share her pictures with me! There were many times I just put mine away and let her do the shooting.

So I'm going to share my trip with you through my pictures! You might want to grab a cup of coffee or hot chocolate and a warm cozy blanket cause it's going to be a long picture post! ;) Imagine that! Ha!


Plane ride #1, December 26, at 10:45a.m. from Chicago O'hare to Atlanta, Georgia. We had to get up at 5:00 that morning in order to be in Chicago on time.

Plane ride #2, left Atlanta at 3:35p.m. bound for Lima, Peru. Sherry and I looking fresh and ready for the exciting journey ahead!

Linda and the fourth member of our team Jeanna, who conveniently forgot her team shirt at home on her bed! Tsk, tsk! We wouldn't let her forget it either! Ha! We're all ready to fly across the big puddle!



After a very long, almost 7 hour flight we were very glad to reach our hotel in Lima, just across the street from the airport. It cost us more to stay so close, but when your lugging around 100 pounds each of luggage, you don't want to go far! It was worth every penny! Our bodies thank those who helped monetarily supported us!!!

Here is the view the next morning from our hotel window. My first real look at Lima since it was dark when we flew in.

It just doesn't seem like Christmas was only two days ago! And even more weird, seeing Christmas decorations in 70 degree weather!!!

Plane ride #3 brought much excitement! We knew our plane left Lima at 10:00a.m., but didn't know what airline we were on. We thought we knew which one and stood in it's line for 45 minutes or so to find out at the counter that they didn't have any tickets for us. : / So we took off in a hurry to find out which other airlines were Puerto Maldonado bound. Once we found the correct one, waited in line again (thankfully a much shorter one this time!), and got checked in, we had 20 minutes to pay an overweight fee at another counter (of course!), get through security, and find our gate! It was a rather tense mission, but we got it accomplished and even had time to grab a bottle of water and use the restroom before getting on a little transport vehicle that took us out to our plane.

Here we are leaving Lima and headed back out over the ocean.

Into the foothills.

Over the Andes Mountains.



This ride was a killer on the ears!!!

I didn't know when I boarded this plane that we would be touching down one more time before our final destination. We landed right in the middle of the mountains in a little tourist town called Cusco. Most of the plane emptied there and only a few more people got on.

On our way again! No gentle rise out of the mountains! Wow, it was rough on those ears!!!

Up into the clouds and over the mountains!

To the flat jungle!

And Amazon River! So cool!

It was just so cloudy though that it was really hard to get a good view!

Finally! We're almost there!!! Looks like we're landing in the Amazon!

Right down in the middle of the Amazon jungle, literally!

To an itty bitty airport with a whole three airlines flying into it! :)

What a relief to finally be off a plane for a few days!!!

This wasn't our ride, but it was interesting to see how it could be done!

We didn't take one of these either, but we did get to ride in one later in the week after a late night fabric shopping adventure! It was really fun!

Italo picked us up in his truck and took us to our hotel. A beautiful building!

With a brand new front lobby, complete with it's seemingly out-of-place Christmas decorations!

Very nice! But looks can be deceiving!!! We have now entered the jungle with NO air conditioning ANYWHERE!!! We spent many days drenched in sweat! It was only about 80 some degrees most days, but the humidity is over the top! I had curly hair in Puerto Maldonado, imagine that!!!

This was the hotel's, lounge of sorts, complete with extremely slow internet, in Spanish (very helpful!). This area also had chairs and a couch to just hang out with the mosquitoes if you cared to. :)

The hotel also had a restaurant with an open air patio. 

It's where our breakfast was served every morning and we ate a few others meals there as well.

The "hallway" to our rooms. Located conveniently across from the maintenance room, that was occupied quite loudly every morning at 5:30!!! Seriously people, we needed our sleep!!!

Jeanna and I roomed together.

And it was a glorious moment when we discovered that they offered free wifi! She was so kind to let me use her computer. While still a slow connection, it was faster than the hotel computers and in English! :) ...see our window behind her, no glass just screens. Great for helping the airflow, but a bit shady on security, why bother even putting a lock on the door?! LOL!

Directly in front of our outside door, was our little modern bathroom, without the full conveniences. You were welcome to use it, but don't flush the tp, hence the covered trash can. Why didn't anyone warn me about this before now?! Yeah, kinda gross, but I survived and only forgot a few times after being informed.

After we got our things unloaded and somewhat settled in our rooms, Italo took us on the long bumpy, muddy, rutty road to the orphanage. There we met his wife Rebecca and their son David. Italo's cousin had made a wonderful and yummy meal for us using their first harvest of corn! She and Italo's brother joined us for supper. It was so good and the portions HUGE! Oh my goodness, I wasn't sure I could get it all down, but they had dished up our plates and I didn't want to be rude! So eat up I did! I was so thankful it was something I liked. :) We stayed and visited until we were sitting in the dark, as they don't have electricity yet. Then we went back to our hotel and had a little surprise birthday party for Sherry, our leader.

Only two days had past and we had already been blessed in so many ways, but we were to soon find out that the blessings were just beginning. We had went there to bless others, but somehow received so much in return! I can't wait to share in my next post! Good night for now!