At the Hacienda

Well I survived my three day test trial alone and am now out of the jungle. Yup with Amazon looks just like the movies...reminded me of Medicine Man. I took a bus to Tena but ended up there too late to get to raft at all. Everyone at the fire department and my parents know that I am extremely prone to motion sickness, however the first three long bus rides went great. I couldn´t believe it, really that´s a miracle to me. So I started wondering maybe I was cured and my days of motion sickness were over. God is awesome so I didn´t think that was a stretch. So I decided if I had no problems on the 30min trip from Shell to Puyo I wouldn´t take anything for the three hour trip to Tena. (I had forgotten to get it out of my packback before the other ones. I´m sure you can all see where this is going. Imagine a 3 hour bus ride with 61 people on a 40 person bus in the middle of the day in the amazon heat...going down a road just like Crow Creek Rd in Girdwood. I was the only gringo (gringa) on the bus, and it amused EVERYONE! Fortunately the bus driver allow me to sit on the floor right next to the open door 6 inches away from the cliffs on the side or drop offs. About an hour and a half into it I finally was well enough to open my eyes. WOW was it amazing. Shortly after I got kicked to the back of the bus again. Oh well it was an amazing view for a while.

We got to Tena and the only thing I wanted to do was get in the water. I found the rivers in the center of town after about an hour of being lost. there was a bridge over one where I was wading around, but I was already in the water, fully clothed, I didn´t care it felt great. So in true Alaskan fashion I walked under the bridge through waist deep water with my pack instead of the bridge. The Ecuadorians on the other side seriously loved it. However I quickly realized that I was in a fee entrance zoo so I went back to pay the guy and apologize. He told me I couldn´t have my pack and took it away. Not seeing any other good option I decided to just trust him and walked around the zoo. I found 4 boys cliff jumping into the same river and joinied them. No Mom and Dad, I have no idea what was in that river aside from water but it was well worth it and then some.

Ross and I met up later and started towards Quito and the Hacienda. We stayed in Braeza that night and made in to the Hacienda de Esperanza the next afternoon. (House of Hope--orphanage) It´s beautiful here! and the kids are fun. More later...