A couple days of fun...

Yup, I took a couple days to do some of the things I used to do everyday. First off, I climbed my highest mountain/volcano yet! 14,500 ft! Honestly I had no idea the change in oxygen levels occured that drastically. HDE is at 10,000ft and I wasn't having any problem although others had been complaining about it...but then Tyler, Matt and I drove back and up from the camp with all the kids for a picnic lunch. The kids stayed with Larry and Charlene who have been filling in as house parents while Tyler, Matt, and I took on Mt. Matador(?). I really could not believe how my legs could go so easily but my lungs were burning. We still made it to the first summit rather easily, but called off the second 20ft from the top on the grounds that we had no rope and I've given up stubborn stupidity. I know some of you are saying yeah right back home, but at least temporarily and when others are with me I evaluating risks at little more conservatively. I'll post more pictures later...maybe after I get back.

Then Friday afternoon after finishing my sewing work and some playing, Tyler and I took off for Tena. The house parents were returning from vacation on Saturday and it was good to give them some time to get everything back to normal. So Saturday morning we joined up with 3 Minnesotians (I know start of a bad joke), a rafting guide from the Grand Canyon, a guy from the Netherlands driving from San Fransico down through South America for 10 months, and about a dozen absolutely crazy Britsh folk to take a 38km Class IV whitewater trip down through the Amazon jungle. That'll spoil me for a few years. Actually the water was a little low so the rapids were probably closer to Class III and we had really strong, good crew on our boat. We purposely went backwards down rapids so we could paddle hard back into them and surf. Then a little over half way through our guide (who kept throwing the other girl in the river) decided to let the Patrick the Grand Canyon guide guide the rest of the way. More of a challenge that way. We purposely spun the raft in circles going down one of the falls. And then at the end decided we could be a pirate ship and overthrow one of the British rafts. The other girl was the lone Britian on our boat.

After a great dinner that night everyone decided to go to a local music bar/club. I went along partially because I didn't want to be the only one but also because most of them had asked why I was in Ecuador and I didn't want to paint the picture of religion, legalism, and rules instead of freedom in Christ. The group that went rafting was completely into getting drunk and partying. I thought that it be best to show that you could have a good time without going over board. Anyway, the club got packed shortly, I had no interest of being there, was not having any fun, and my shoulder that was sore from rafting was getting yanked on like crazy from people trying to get me to dance. I left rather early, was not able to say good-bye to anyone, and had to walk back to the hostal alone (which was most likely better than staying at the club) I'm not sure if God didn't want me to go at all or if I just wasn't relying on the Holy Spirit enough to stay. On the bonus side I was the only one in the morning without a hangover!

I'm back at the HDE now and it's bedtime for the kids and I want to be respectful of the house parents who are still letting me stay even though they're back. Buenas Noches.