My Crazy, Insane Adventure

So Saturday was by far the craziest adventure I’ve had yet. I went with a few of the girls from the States to this village that was destroyed by an earthquake about a month ago. Apparently it was only an hour away, so driving was not going to be that big of a deal.

Unfortunately we got a late start because we were getting a cell phone hooked up in order to call if we got lost. And it’s a really good thing that we did. There was 2 cars that went, the first car had our friend Aben and two other people who worked for an embassy, they went first and were about 2 hours in front of us. We left later.

About and hour down the road we were wondering if we were coming up on our turn and so I called Aben, and he told me to look for the sign to “Porvenir” unfortunately there were no signs for this turn-off, so we drove 30 km past it. We turned around and headed back, it was another 45 minutes to get to Porvenir, then after that we were to ask for directions from people on the street to a little town called Morale.

So I did all the talking since my Spanish is a bit better than the others, and we asked like 4 or 5 people who seemed to be giving us conflicting directions. They eventually pointed us down the right road, and for any future forks in the road, there were enough people hanging outside, that we just asked them. So we started the ascent up to Morale, I didn’t know at first that Marale was a small dirt road headed up a mountain but that’s exactly what it was.

We drove for probably about 45 minutes up this mountain until we finally came to Morale. Morale was like our base-point to go even further up the mountain, because the people who had gotten wiped out by the earthquake were an hour further up the mountain from there. The people up the mountain were also in bad shape because the roads were really really muddy, only four wheel drive vehicles could continue up the mountain. And of course it is also very cold in the mountains and they didn’t have very many clothes.

The other team had gone up the mountain 40 minutes before we had even gotten there, so Aben told me to find a man name Said Lainez, and he would direct us from there. So we went into town and I asked a guy if he knew Said, he said he lived over to the right, so we went a few blocks down and I walked into Said’s house, his son and daughter were there. They said Said was in the Caldia, a little further up in the village.

Since I didn’t know where the Caldia was and what it was for that matter, we drove up to the second level of the village where I continued to ask people where the Caldia was, we finally found it and I got out and talked to Said, who was a very nice and friendly guy. Since we didn’t have a four wheel drive car, they arranged for a man to drive us up the mountain.

So we started driving up, (much steeper roads this time) and the driver was picking people up in the back of his truck every 5 or 10 minutes to take them to their village that they lived in. Then the muddy roads began and all of the sudden it turned from a normal truck ride, to more like a carnival ride, sliding and bouncing everywhere. This went on for about 30 minutes, I’ve never been fishtailing more in my life, and these roads were dangerous too, because one wrong move and your rolling down the mountain. We finally caught up with the other truck with Aben in it. They had already been to the camp which was 20 minutes further down the road, so we decided to turn around and follow them to a different village that needed supplies. As soon as we turned around the truck finally got stuck in the mud, probably in a good 2 feet, the tires were spinning and the truck was sinking. So we got out, and the people from the other truck came down to watch, there was even 2 soldiers with M16’s there and everyone was just watching. So I decided to help push and we eventually got the truck out.

We continued up the mountain, and stopped at a few more villages, but by then most of the supplies were already handed out. We stopped at another village, that seemed pretty well off, and handed some supplies out to a dad, who had 5 or 6 kids there it looked like. None of them had any shoes and of course they looked very cute. There was also the most breath-taking views that I had ever seen on top of the mountain, we only had time to stop and take pictures one time, but it was absolutely beautiful.

We descended back down the mountain, we also had to cross probably about a 3 to 4 foot creek as well in the truck, that was really fun. We came back to the village and the girls started to play with all the kids in Marale, there was like 25 or 35 kids just hanging out in the town just waiting to be played with.

I was talking with Said and he was telling me that barely any gringos every come up to their village. He thanked us for coming and wouldn’t let me pay for the gas that our escort used to drive us around. I asked if we could come back some time and play with the kids, and he said whenever you want! We headed back down the mountain and all the way back home, but we definitely want to go back again, definitely the coolest adventure I’ve had yet.

I think I’m going on December 1st to go with a pastor who trains other pastors, it’s gonna be about a 5 to 6 hour journey.