The traveling to and from the Cono Norte Conference was by far the craziest adventure we have ever had in our lives to date. Therefore, I’ll talk about what happened and write a separate post with conference notes and cool stories.  For now, here is our traveling story:

We left Friday morning on a flight to Lima (which we were bumped up to an earlier flight….thanks Lord!). All goes well on the flight to Lima which was celebrated with some Dunkin’ Doughnuts Boston Cremes.  Then, when we tried to get our tickets at the counter for the flight to Iquitos the different airline had declined our credit card with our round-trip tickets. They failed to mention that a week ago when we bought them. However, the problem was that our bank had accepted the charges and wouldn’t issue a refund until they could contact the airline (which they still can’t).  Still waiting to hear something about a refund. We had to buy new one-way tickets with very little money we had left. All 8 ATMs in the airport would not function past $100.  We flew to Iquitos that night. A shout-out goes to Rob, Becky, Sandi, Joe and Addie at the Iquitos base for such wonderful hospitality and understanding of our situation.  Also, a huge thank you to our friends and family who spotted us some cash to purchase food, the hotel at the conference and return tickets. We couldn’t have done it without your generosity. THANK YOU.

We determined that Iquitos, which is an island at the base of the Amazon River reminds us of a lot like Thailand.  We woke up at 4:30am to catch the 5:00am (which didn’t take off until 6am) boat for the 10-hour trek up the Amazon. It takes 10 hours going 60mph. It takes 3 days by a boat with one motor.  Every hour or so we would pass villages with houses made from thatched palm fronds and dug out canoes.  We saw a rainbow. Finally around sunset we reached the 3 Frontiers; the checkpoint where Peru, Colombia and Brazil meet on the river.  After checking out of Peru at Santa Rosa, a town that resembled a very dodgy Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville, we crossed the river by motor-boat to Leticia.  Leticia is beautiful. Picture a Folly Beach-sized town where you can walk around 6 blocks of houses with color schemes from the Bahamas, but on the edge of the Amazon River.  Our hotel had the biggest cockroaches I’ve ever seen in my life.  It also tends to rain a lot in the rainforest.  You can walk 4 blocks down from the YWAM Leticia base and find yourself at the open border of Brazil. In 4 blocks the signs change from Spanish to Portuguese, you realize that Leticia is much cleaner and well-planned city, than it’s neighbor, Tabitanga (Brazil). Both cities boasted colorful music and culture.  A huge shout-out goes to Beth and Clark Barnard who helped us get through check-points, hail a motorboat taxi, find the immigration hut and in general treat us around Leticia. You guys are such amazing adopted parents.

 

Fast-forward through an awesome conference. On the way from Leticia, we spend the night in Santa-Rosa in a sauna of a hostel.  Then the next morning at 2:30am we went down to the docks to leave for our 10-hour return trip.  The boat left the port at 4:30am. At 7:45am one of our motors stops functioning. Fortunately, we are near a small town where we hang out for 4 hours (because it takes a smaller boat much longer to get us the part fixed). We get back on in time for lunch. Around 3pm the same motor goes out. We get stuck on the side of the Amazon while the crew argues to keep going or wait. We keep moving, but the boat has an uneven keel and we are moving at 20mph.  I asked God for a porpoise or some natural beauty (like the rainbow earlier) to know that he would provide help for our boat.  Around sunset, David saw a fin. As night fell at 6pm it gets increasingly dangerous to be on the river. We’re hitting logs and it seems that every 100ft we go, we stop; plus the boat is leaning to the left.  We loose contact with the “rescue boat” coming to deliver the part.  It rains. It was the Lord’s goodness that people were for the most part, calm.  After a lot of praying, the rescue boat comes at 11:30pm. We all leave our stuff aboard the broken boat. We managed to get to Iquitos at 3:00am. Around the same time, the broken boat (we find out later) got stranded on a sandbar and had to get help in the morning.  Our bags arrived with the boat at 11am the next morning.  People lost all composure.  We are thankful that Cusco doesn’t have boats.  It was a blessing that the crew tried their best to be so helpful and communicate what was happening and they opened the packages that were going to Iquitos so that we could have dinner of a pack of crackers, a CapriSun and a lollipop.

Later, the taxi to the Iquitos airport ran out of gas. We got to Lima without problems (praise you, Daddy!).  We slept so well at the missionary guesthouse, thanks Rosa! We felt so well taken care of. Then our flight to Cusco had “technical difficulty” and was delayed 2 hours. However, we are safely home in Cusco.  We don’t mean to complain so much. We just want to be detailed at how sometimes even missionaries get in stressful situations. It’s not always “fun.” What a crazy adventure we have been on!  I’m sure there’s a lesson in here somewhere, but we are so thankful to God that he provided calmness on the river, friends to help us when we were frustrated and an abundance of patience and grace at the airports. We’re thankful in the ways that he provided financially for this trip. In the end we did receive 6 months until our next border run, as well as an awesome story for our future kids.  “When I was your age…we had to trek, uphill both ways…up the Amazon…in the snow…on a boat.”