I posted this picture in my last blog and there is this brilliant Hollywood adventure story to go with it and I wanted to share it…
In the back of a truck leaving Matucana
In this picture is 7 of 18 people crammed in the back of a pick up truck. 10 of those were gringos (pale people) and they were all holding on to me for dear life (I was in the middle). Also note that we had all our luggage in the back of the truck as well. It was one of the most fun things we did on the trip!
If you don’t know, it tends to rain a lot in Peru, especially in the mountains where you are constantly in the clouds. Well, the last three days we were there it rained a lot. It never stopped! So come friday, the day we needed to leave, there had been numerous mudslides on the roads and train tracks so there were no vehicles of any kind coming up and down the mountain. We really needed to get down that day (our translators had other places to be the next day), so we did what any determined Gringos would do…we decided to hike down.
Let me give you our bearings. Halfway between Lima & Matucana, there is a town called Chosica and that was where we needed to be. On our way up to Matucana, we took a 1 1/2 – 2 hour bus ride the whole way up the mountain. So we had decided to cover that 1 1/2 – 2 hour bus ride time on foot. Get the drift…
Well we started out planning on being at Chosica by nightfall if we were lucky. We all packed up and started off (the group shot in my pics is us just before we headed out.) Immediately after we left Matucana we found a truck who was helping haul people as far as it could go. Go all of us and a few others (it was like the whole village of Matucana was walking down with us) hopped into the truck, 18 of us total, and we headed off. Now this wasn’t that big of a truck. Just think of a less-than-medium-sized truck and you have the right image.
That ride was so much fun! If you have ever been to the Safari Ride at Disney World, well it was just like that. We went swiftly around curvy dirt roads and over raging rivers that had overflowed their banks and were now moving across the roads. We were in the truck for around 30-40 minutes until it came to a point where it couldn’t go any further. I could barely feel my legs after it, but it saved us a good few hours of walking plus, if I haven’t mentioned it before, it was awesome!
After that we walked for a couple hours. Apparently it’s a sight to the locals to see a bunch of Americans walking in a pack down the roads. All traffic was at a dead stop so we just walked down the middle of it. We ended up on international television twice (2 times!) and we couldn’t help but notice the locals were lining up on the ends of the streets taking pictures of us. I guess they weren’t use to gringos in high numbers.
Anyway, after that hiking we ended up catching two buses and ended up in Chosica in time for lunch (we weren’t planning on getting there until nightfall).
God was definitely with us. Who else could have made it so awesome of a time! Never once did we argue or get tired. My whole team agrees that during that time was when we were working best as a team. Our leader mentioned he couldn’t get a single negative comment out of us during that. We all knew anything could go wrong (if someone twisted and ankle, we would be screwed). We were determined to overcome this and I truly believe that is what drives our memories of this event.
Don’t believe me? I just found an article talking about the mudslide here.
We crossed a bridge over the road to get to the beach.
Oh, and we ended up in Lima around 4:00. We got to walk down to the Pacific Ocean (our hotel was just a couple of blocks away). LJ (our leader) told us to go see the sunset, but when we got there the fog was so dense that you couldn’t even see the water. But they parted and things turned out beautiful. I got to go down to the water and clean my boots naturally (I just stood at the shoreline and let the beach to it’s magic. I should have mentioned earlier that since there was rain, there was mud. Most of us had mud up to our knees (including me).
Peruvian Sunset! On the Pacific!!
That was just one of many…many stories I wish to tell from the trip. Hope to share more soon.
Have a marvelous Day!
*edit*- I just added the link to REAPsouth, the organization I worked with in Peru, to the links to the right for you to check out if you wish.
