Sorry about stopping so abruptly in the last post. I was writing at a little coffee place, and as it was approaching 12:30 AM and they were giving me “the look” I figured I should probably hit the road.

Anyhow…to continue. As soon as we arrived at the campground, we decided to hike up to the waterfalls. This is an amazing place, and most of the guys had never been there. There are a series of little waterfalls and pools along the way, with a big waterfall at the top (as you can see in the pictures). So there are lots of places to swim and cliff jump. The highest spot to jump is probably about 10 m. Jimmy and I headed up there, and eventually (most) of the guys joined us (it took a lot of convincing to get Sandro and Franz up there just for a picture…they don’t like the heights much). While the guys were trying to look over the edge, I handed Jimmy my hat and proceeded to jump off. I kind of had a point to make. The guys tend to think they can do pretty much everything better than me. =) I’m just a lowly gringo who doesn’t know much. So it was kind of fun to be the first guy to do something that pretty much scared the pants off the rest of them…

Now to give credit where credit is due…that wasn’t my first time jumping there. When I visited in 2001 with my youth group, we went to the waterfalls with the guys from the boy’s home, and my sisters and I were the first ones to climb up to the top. As I was looking over the edge and contemplating how high it was, my 14 year old sister Angie jumped. Then right behind her went my other sister Wanda. I was like, “Shoot…now I have to go.” All the guys were watching, and I’d never have heard the end of it if my sisters did something that I was too afraid to do. =)

Eventually all the guys jumped from there, except Sandro and Franz. But they did jump from the lower spot…and it’s still pretty high. Sandro was probably as entertaining as I’ve ever seen him. It was a big deal for him. He’d physic himself up, lean right out over the edge and then sit right back down again. Jimmy’s for sure the most fearless. He even dived off of the 10 m cliff…twice. I wasn’t quite ready with the camera the first time and he wanted to make sure I got a good picture.

Something else you need to understand…when I camp, I like to do it right. That means steaks…big, thick, juicy steaks. I found some nice chunks of meat that were probably an inch and a half thick. They would have been amazing on a gas BBQ. Or even cooked over a fire that didn’t go out every ten minutes…like ours did. We ended up having to take the meat off the grill three times so we could stoke the fire up again (damp wood I think). I also had to cut the meat more or less into bite size pieces to get it to cook all the way through. It ended up being a little…tough, shall we say. But whatever. I also taught the guys to cook tinfoil potatoes. If you don’t know how…you need to learn. They’re awesome. The guys were duly impressed. But they also took a long time to cook. In the end we started at around 7 PM and sat down to eat at 10:30 PM. But the guys kept a good attitude and we had lots of fun taking pictures while we waited! =)

After supper we hike back up to the waterfalls and had a time of prayer. We’ve been going through a rough stretch at the house (more on that another day), so it seemed like a good idea. It was interesting…a couple of the guys actually got a bit choked up as they prayed, which was actually kind of encouraging after the last few days. It felt like God was working. And for sure sitting at the base of a waterfall with the stars overhead is a good place to pray. =)

At 3 AM I heard the first drops of rain start to hit the tent…

I quickly scrambled out to pull the fly down over us (I’d pulled it back to let some air circulate through the tent). By the time I was done, I was pretty much soaked. Every time I woke up for the rest of the night and heard the rain, I groaned to myself. I had visions of being stuck in this campground for the next week or so. There was just no way to navigate that road in the rain. It was too dangerous. I kept hoping to hear the rain let up…but nope.

The next morning the guys entertained themselves by playing futbol in the rain with a bunch of kids from a church group we were sharing the campground with. That’s one of the great things about these guys…they’re easily entertained. I entertained myself by making breakfast…bacon and egg-in-a-hole (another camping favourite of mine). Bacon was a good moment for all of us too. The guys had never had it before…it’s pretty rare here. Last May was the first time I’d ever seen it in the market. So finding some on Saturday was great. Even with the rain I was in my happy place. Bacon can do that.

Rain or no rain, we decided to do a little more swimming and cliff jumping. And then, oh glorious moment…the sun came out. We decided to forgo lunch (it was already nearly 3 PM) and instead pack up to head out. The building a fire with wet wood thing was kind of lame and trying to get back to civilization before more rain, had a certain appeal. One of the other campers came over and asked if they could travel with us, in case any of us had problems. I was happy to have the backup. We also inherited a group that had walked in the day before when their taxi got stuck. It was a fellow who worked with poor families as a ministry of his church. He was there with eight little guys who weren’t so gung-ho to (once again) make the five hour hike back out to the main road.

So the eight of us and the nine of them piled into my truck and headed out, leading our caravan of four SUV’s. Somehow I got elected to go first…because I was biggest? Not sure. I also had the worst tires of the bunch, but whatever.

I quickly discovered that with seventeen people in my truck, it handled like it was on ski’s. Not so good. I didn’t make it very far before I skidded down a hill and off into a ditch/hole full of brush. That was not so much a happy moment. Every time I tried to move I just sunk deeper in. As I listened to the paint being scraped off the side of my newly painted truck, I just kept saying to myself, “Justino (my autobody guy) can fix it. Justino can fix it.”

Eventually it took about ten guys pushing my truck sideways as I drove forwards for me to get back on the road. I have video, so sometime soon I’ll post that. Jimmy diligently filmed everything. =) I lasted about five minutes before my truck went sideways going up a hill and my back end (the truck’s) went off the road again. More pushing and throwing things under my tires. I was happy a bit later when I made it past a especially treacherous part (BIG, deep holes on either side of a narrow spot with big ruts) and the guys behind me didn’t. I was starting to feel like a bit of a loser since I seemed to be the one getting stuck the most. Eventually I kicked everyone out of the truck whenever it got especially bad and made them walk and/or push. Losing all that extra weight actually helped a lot. The truck drove much better. But new tires would definitely have helped too.

It also helped not having eight guys yelling eight different “helpful” insights on what I should do.

“Go left!”
“Go right!”
“Go faster!”
“Slow down!”
“Don’t hit that tree!”

I finally had to yell “EVERYONE STOP TALKING! WHEN YOU LEARN HOW TO DRIVE YOU CAN HAVE AN OPINION!” in the middle of an especially terrifying moment of trying to stay on the road and miss downed trees. The guys mostly just laughed at me.

Eventually, after nearly four hours of skidding, sliding, white knuckle, “OH OH!” moments, we finally made it too the river. Oh happy day….

As we drove on the highway back into the city, I looked in my rearview mirrors. The sky behind us was BLACK with rain clouds. I pointed them out to Juan who was sitting up front with me. He just shook his head….

So that was the camping trip. It was a ton of fun really. Even the drive of death at the end. None of the guys had ever done anything like this (camping…not nearly dying in my truck), so it was good to be able to give them that experience. Jimmy was pretty impressed to be able to sleep in a tent for the first time. I have no doubt we’ll do it again.

Maybe once the rainy season is over… 

Our campsite…

Hiking to the waterfall…

Playing…

Making tinfoil potatoes…

Keeping the fire going…

Waiting…

Playing soccer in the rain…

Drive out…

A helping hand…

The end of this adventure…
 

I took the guys camping this weekend. Let me begin by acknowledging that there a few people out there who think I bring my little “adventures” on myself. That somehow they occur as a result of my own actions. This I vigorously deny. Having said that however…our camping trip was a little…uh…

…adventurous?

See, here’s the thing. The waterfalls where I wanted to take the guys are a little off the beaten path. They’re an hour or so’s drive back into the jungle on a “road” that’s definitely seen better days (the washout from a couple of years ago? Where half the hill came down across the road? They just waited until it dried up and then started driving over it…). A week or so ago I wrote about checking out the road in to make sure it was passable. It was…and I wrote about how impressed with my Tundra’s ability to navigate said road.

Yea, ignore all that. That little Sunday drive was…well, a Sunday drive…in the park…compared to what happened this weekend. I wasn’t even sure we were going to be able to go. We’d planned to go Saturday morning but put it off because of rain. Then in the afternoon it got sunny so we decided to go Sunday instead (Monday was a holiday here, so the guys were all free). We shopped and packed and prepared and threw everything into the truck and away we went after church.

It was sunny and hot and perfect. We stopped for lunch and then suddenly it was cloudy and cool and it looked like rain…and I thought to myself, maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. But then it was sunny and hot and perfect again so I ignored my momentary lack of faith and away we continued.

I should have listened to my little inner voice…

The ride in was a bit treacherous…but passable. At one point a truck was stopped and we were told by it’s driver that someone was stuck up ahead and we wouldn’t be able to get past. I wanted to see for myself, so Jimmy, Ruddy and I hopped out and started walking.

Perhaps this helpful gentleman could have mentioned that the stuck truck was a kilometre or more up the road. Road that was easily driveable. Thankfully (sarcasm, people…sarcasm) the sun decided to come back out (after a series of scattered showers over the past half hour or so) and warm us up…considerably. The truck was stuck pretty bad, but mostly because the driver didn’t really know what he was doing. It was also, contrary to public opinion, quite possible to get past him.

So we walked the kilometre or so back to my truck, and again set off. I’m not saying that it didn’t make my heart beat a little faster as I drove (skidded) past the stuck guy…but again, in light of the next day’s travels…piece of cake.

We arrived safe and sound at the waterfalls, but you’re going to have to wait for the rest of the story.  It’s late and I need to go home.  =)  So if you come back tomorrow (or maybe the next day) I’ll post the rest of the story…along with a few more pictures of our camping experience. But enjoy these pics for the time being. As you can tell…we had a good time!  Oh…and don’t look too closely at the swimming pictures.  You might notice that most of the guys are wearing the American Eagle boxers they got for Christmas.  Seems the guys didn’t want to get their swimming trunks wet and boxers were an acceptable alternative. 

I don’t try to explain these things people.  Anyhow…the pictures…

Stay tuned for more of the story and more pictures…