Bathroom Quadrafecta

Making the decision to head back to Peru was one of the most difficult
decisions on the trip. We absolutely loved Chile, but knew that Peru
was where we were supposed to be.

The city of Arequipa, Peru turned out to be one of the nicest places
we've been on the entire city. Nicknamed "The White City," Arequipa
was built almost entirely of white volcanic rock from an eruption 1500
years ago. It's Peru's second largest city and it's a gem.

We headed to a Nazarene church on Sunday morning and met with some
great missionaries for lunch afterwards. We were really hoping to
build another house or an addition or something, but no doors seemed
to open up.

After lunch we met back up with the pastor of the Nazarene church and
talked to them about their needs. They were in the middle of a pretty
big building project, but they had stalled at getting their electrical
work done. For 13 months the bulk of the church has been without
electricity because they didn't have anyone who was able to do the
work. We decided to tackle the job not knowing what we were in for.

We bought a few more electrical tools and showed up on Monday to work.
For those of you who don't do wiring, there are empty pipes put in the
walls and floors for pulling the wires through. Within 5 minutes of
showing up at the church, I tried to do a few test runs of putting
wires in the pipes and the first 5 pipes were all blocked. I almost
just packed up our stuff and left.

Wires don't make tight turns very well. Instead of sharp 90 degree
turns, you're supposed to make big sweeping bends so the wires can
just glide through the pipes. Because they made all sharp turns, we
basically had to rip up their concrete floors with hammers and
chisels.

Not very fun, but I work with some of the best guys in the world who
didn't know enough about electricity to know how miserable that job
could be, so we pressed on and got it done in 3 long days. We pulled
thousands of feet of wire, hooked up ceiling lights, wall sconces, put
in emergency lighting, and installed dozens of outlets. When all was
said and done, it turned out to be a cool good deed.

Now we've started our journey back to Lima. We decided to splurge a
little and see what a real first class bus is like. Oh. My. Goodness.
First of all, instead of sitting in the terminal with the other
people, we had a special lounge. This lounge had the first quadrafecta
public bathroom of the ENTIRE trip. "What is a quadrafecta bathroom?"
you ask. It had a toilet seat, toilet paper, soap, and paper towels.
Uh-mazing.

We get on the bus and we're treated to legit blankets and pillows and
free headphones. Why headphones? They don't play the movies and music
on the bus speakers. I shed a little tear. Plus, we have wifi!!!

Speaking of movies, we have gone through a little ritual a lot lately.
Whenever we turn on the tv and see something we really like, it is
always at a part with no talking for like 5 minutes. We sit there and
watch it only to hear them begin to speak Spanish. That's usually
followed by Jordan, Cory, and I shouting some term of displeasure. At
least this bus has movies with English subtitles. Even when you
understand it, it's no fun watching tv in Spanish. One other funny
thing is that I had shrunk down some tv shows to watch on the
blackberry. Elias and I were watching, but the audio had gotten out of
sync with the mouths and that was driving me crazy. It didn't bother
Elias and then I figured out why. Most of the tv he watches is
English dubbed in Spanish so the mouths never line up. Haha.

I'm getting pretty retrospective as the trip comes to an end, so I
decided to make some lists about the trip. So here they are in no
particular order.

Things I wouldn't change:
- The guys on this trip. Sure, there are a few additional people I
wish could have come, but I wouldn't trade these guys for anyone or
anything. They have been so easy to travel with and so great at
keeping on mission. They're amazing guys--but you already knew that.

- The trip itself. So many people told me to just pick one country or
one missions organization and explore that. If we had limited
ourselves to just people an organizations that we could have
researched from the US, we would have missed out on 90% of the great
experiences and ministry opportunities we had on this trip.

- My backpack - A surprise gift from Keri, my Kelty backpack has
performed flawlessly on this trip. It's been in some of the nastiest
bus luggage compartments known to man with nary a thread out of place.
It pained all of us when the all of the bus companies in Peru STAPLED
our luggage tags to the straps, but we survived. Actually, all of the
backpacks held up well from Cory's Northface to the $70 Coleman 65
liter bags Elias and Jordan got from Walmart. In fact, if you plan to
do some hiking and don't want to spend a lot, I'd suggest you go grab
a Walmart bag before they run out.

- Space Bags. The peanut butter in the Reese's cup that is my luggage.
I'm not talking about the ones you vacuum out, they are the ones that
you roll the air out. These bags have survived daily use on my 2 bike
trips and other various packing duties before this trip. They not only
save space, but keep nasty dirty clothes separate from the clean
stuff.

- Taking buses instead of driving. Driving probably would have been a
tiny bit cheaper and a ton more flexible and possibly more comfortable
for all but the driver, but buses were the way to go. We never got
lost, we were able to travel overnight, we never got hit up for a
single bribe, and to be honest, the roads down here are a nightmare.
We made the right decision.

- Skipping El Salvador and Northern Peru. Those were two places that
we definitely had no business being. Southern Peru is gorgeous and
much safer though.

Things I would do differently.
- I would have brought better clothes. The 3 pairs of Eddie Bauer
convertible shorts/pants were a lifesaver on this trip and at $25 were
probably the most expensive pants I've bought in 10 years, but I still
wish I would have gotten some higher end ones. I really didn't like
them as shorts and because they were on clearance, I had to go with
sizes that worked but weren't perfect. Considering that I wore these
about 75% of the trip, it would have been worth it to spend $75 on
pants I loved. I also would have brought a really nice sweatshirt.

- I would have spent more time in Guatemala. As the trip went on, we
learned how to find opportunities, but I wished that we would have
spent more time exploring opportunities there in the beginning. I
definitely want to go back. The same goes for Columbia. I know a lot
of people were worried about us being there, but Bogota actually felt
like one of the safest capital cities on the trip.

- I would ignore the missions advice I got at my expensive private
university. I was told over and over again that when you are a guest
of someone on the mission field and they put food before you, you
should eat it so you don't offend them. Screw that. That's just
stupid. There has to be some way to explain to people that I'm a sissy
American and my stomach can't handle your food. If I've traveled 8,000
miles and I've built you a house or done electrical work for you, I
think I've earned the right to not eat your food. If you're offended,
I'm sorry.

- I would bring an ebook reader (i.e. a Kindle). Good English reading
material is hard to find and I didn't think about bringing an e-reader
until last minute. By then, the 2 I wanted were out of stock. I wound
up buying 5 or 6 magazines from 2008-2009 for $1 each in Columbia.
That was nice, but the ebook reader would have been better.

- For a group of 4 people, it would have been well worth it to bribe
the bus driver $20 to keep the radio and tv off.

Other Random Thoughts
- I don't miss my material possessions. I woke up yesterday thinking
about this. Everything I've needed for the last 2 months has had to
fit in my backpack. I love my tv and my computer and these projects
would have been a ton easier if I had my tools, but these things
aren't the necessities that I once thought they were. I don't see
myself selling all of my stuff when I get back, but it's nice to know
I can live without it.

- Can you believe that I haven't driven a car or ridden a bike in 60 days?

Favorite Countries (I'm referring to the country itself, not
necessarily the people:
1. Ecuador
2. Colombia
3. Costa Rica
4. Arequipa, Peru
5. Chile
6. Guatemala
7. Panama
8. Honduras
9. Nicaragua
10. The rest of Peru
11. El Salvador.

Most beautiful sights.
1. The Sacred Valley in Peru
2. The mountains of Ecuador
3. The drive through Costa Rica
4. The drive leaving Guatemala
5. The McDonald's sign in Arica, Chile

I know the trip isn't over yet, but I wanted to take a moment to thank
all of you who have been following the blog and have been praying for
us and supporting this trip. It absolutely means the world to me.

Dichotomy

I've spent a lot of time in my blog poking fun at the ridiculousness
that is Central and South America. To someone raised in middle class
America, the rest of the world is a crazy place... but maybe I'm the
odd one.

Less than 2% of the people in the world own a car and yet I usually
own 2 or 3 by myself. Nearly a billion people will go to bed hungry
tonight and about the same number don't have access to clean water,
yet we in America have plenty of both. I don't think that we should
feel guilty about this, but this trip has been a constant reminder
that OUR world is not THE world.

So what about all the whining about bus drivers and onions in my
pizza? Let's just say that my worst day in South America is better
than my best day plumbing a house in America. This is an amazing
place.

Make no mistake, I believe that I live in the greatest country on the
face of the earth. Through none of my own doing and simply luck of
the draw I was born an American. As I talk to people down here, I
don't think the average person has any concept of how much they've
been given from our country. When I was sick I was able to go to the
doctor and practically be given medicines that were developed in the
US and that I still would have to pay a fortune for in the US.

People everywhere have been extremely nice to us personally, it's just
really hard for me to hear people say that America is selfish when I
know that money gets taken out of my paychecks and sent to rebuild
Pisco. Maybe that's how God feels when I complain about onions in my
pizza :)

Update: We are in way southern Peru again. We struck out on
opportunities in Chile and rather than have to go farther south only
to come north again for our flight home, we headed to Arequipa.
Tomorrow we are starting the monsterous task of wiring a big Nazarene
church. They've had their building completed for a while, but didn't
have anyone capable of wiring it. I'm hoping me and my 3 newly
christened electrician friends can do the bulk of it in 3 days, but we
could use your prayers. It's big and it's complicated.

Blur

It turns out Machu Piccu is a pretty difficult place to get to. You
would think that one of the biggest tourist attractions on the
continent would have a little easier access, but it takes several
buses, taxi rides, and a train to get there.

After a long bus ride to Cusco, we decided to just go ahead and take a
taxi to the Sacred Valley, which is the jumping off point to MP.
Surrounded by mountains on all sides, this has to be the most gorgeous
small towns that I've ever seen.

That's pretty much the last thing I remember for about 24 hours. I was
just plain sick. I encouraged the guys to go on without me to Machu
Piccu. Maybe I'm just weird but I've never had any real interest to
visit there anyway. I definitely would have liked to go with the guys,
but there wasn't any way it was going to happen.

The next day I woke up still weak, but I was able to eat a pancake. We
hung around the town and watched some (ok, a ton) of tv and the guys
got in a pretty cool good deed. We decided to go out to dinner and I
was going to give pizza a shot because I figured it would be
predictable. I ordered a personal pepperoni pizza. When I got it, it
had peppers, onions, and mushrooms (3 things I DESPISE on pizza)
hidden under the cheese, which made it impossible to pick off. I
scraped the entire top of the pizza off and just ate crust. Having
only eaten 1 pancake and 1 tic tac in 48 hours, our waiter was lucky
he didn't ask how my food was. Of course, that's pretty much been the
story of South American food. You can be as broad as possible
("without vegetables") or as specific (listing every vegetable you
don't want on your food) and they're going to cram it in there anyway.
It's beyond just being picky about vegetables, though. The general
rule south of the border for Americans is "if you didn't wash it
yourself or you can't peel it, don't eat it."

So we took another long taxi ride back to Cusco, and found the only
bus leaving during the day to Chile. It was Ormeño. That's the company
that canceled our bus leaving Columbia and then was late the next day.
We weren't thrilled, but customer service outdid themselves this time.
Since it was our only option, I pulled out my credit card and got
ready to pay the bill. Despite at least 10 Visa and Mastercard signs,
we were informed "we don't take credit cards." Cory and I hit the ATM
and got some Soles. When we got our tickets, they were for a different
bus company. That's when we found out that Ormeño "doesn't go to
Chile." Nice. When we got on the bus, it was about 100 degrees. We
talked to the guy about it and we were told "we don't have air
conditioning" and "the windows don't open." It was a long night. I was
awake for pretty much the entire night. The smell of indigenous foot
cheese was unbearable. I tried tucking my nose in my shirt, putting my
pillow over my face and chewing "Menta Intensa" tic tacs, but nothing
helped. I almost stuck a tic tac up each nostril, but I thought that
might be going too far.

We arrived at a town close to the Chilean border where we got off the
bus and that's where we found out we had to take a taxi to another bus
terminal. We took 2 taxis with the other Americans we had met in Peru.
We were actually kind of embarrassed when our taxi filled with 5 men
pulled up to the second terminal blasting Justin Bieber. We don't pick
the music.

We arrived at terminal 2, but instead of a bus, Ormeño had setup for
us to actually finish the journey in a taxi. First class all the way.
Well, when I say us, I mean the 4 of us and a random Peruvian woman
carrying insane amounts of toilet paper and Inca Cola. 6 of us in a
1990s Crown Vic with all of our stuff. It's a beautiful thing.

The awesome news is that we are in Chile and it looks great. We almost
cried when we saw a billboard for a McDonald's. We haven't actually
seen said McD's, but it gives us hope that Chile's going to be a
magical place.