We awoke in the morning to the sounds of little voices outside of our tents. Happy little voices. They gave us the privacy of the tents, but you could hear fingers rubbing along the outside and occasionally someone would trip over the tether lines and dislodge them. I got dressed in a hurry and got the team up. It was around 6 or 7 am. We ate breakfast and prepared for the day.
That morning we sang a few songs and Alissa shared her testimony. Then Pastor Thomas shared with the kids in Quechuan about God's love for them and expanded on what she had shared. Shortly after this, they had another teaching time, so Pastor Thomas and Milagros (her name means "miracles") thought that we should get away for a bit and took us for a drive to a nearby village so we could hike down to the river. Some of us did just that while others remained with the vehicle to rest. It was the first time I had the chance to walk through a village. It was an experience I was glad to have had.
We kept following a little trail down through the houses toward the river. Trickling water trailed along beside us next to mud fences overgrown with cacti of different varieties acting as barbed wire to keep things either out or in. We found an old church, no roof, crumbling walls, grassy floors, and vegetation lining the walls. We moved on further down. We passed a number of tiny irrigated fields and yards, even one whose primary produce appeared to be cacti. We passed the soccer field and down to the clean looking river. Massive boulders sat in the middle, smoothly polished by the rainy season's flowing waters submerging them in the wake of their wrath. A cavern across the now timid river was an abandoned gold mine owned by Canadians. The guys nearly hopped across the rapids on the rocks, but I didn't think they should due to the swift waters and slick rocks. We cooled off in a pool and soon after headed back up, only this time half of us chose to scale the mild cliffs as a 'shot cut'. The distance was far less, but the effort was much greater. After we arrived at the top, we got back in the van and went back to Capacmarca to complete the camp. Jill had a mild asthma attack after heartbreak hill. Some of us prayed again and the tight feeling in her chest soon passed.
Back at the village, they were cleaning up and getting ready to leave for their respective villages. And we got a special request. The mayor had sent a pick-up to take a number of the kids who lived further away back to their villages, but that wasn't enough. The van we were in seated 16. We fit 23. One kid got carsick and barfed into a bag. No one else got sick fortunately. We dropped the kids off just over an hour down the road. The Mercedes Sprinter only had 11, 000 km on it, but we bottomed it out hard a few times, so much so that we had to make some repairs along the way. We stopped at a riverside restaurant for fried trout just before dark for fresh fried trout. The head and tail and fins were all still on them when they landed on our plates, and they were just incredible. I'd like to know what they did and how they seasoned it. Just fantastic. And here two rivers diverged and became one; one blue-green clear as can be (I think it was the one we met earlier) and the other truly terracotta from the work of a mine up the road, making a spectacular contrast. And then the sun went down and we hit the road again.
We looked out the window at stars we had never seen before peeking out from behind the mountains. The southern cross constellation leaned right and led us forward to Ranracassa. We had no idea where we were going to stay, but the church was still meeting when we arrived. They invited us in, asked for us to sing a few songs (I blanked to be honest, but we did figure something out), Pastor Thomas again spoke from what Alissa had shared earlier, and we were invited to stay overnight in the church. Another answer to prayer. Beyond that, the people then let us know that they weren't planning on sending their youth to the next camp at Huanoquite, but our presence had changed their minds. The next morning we were on our way to ATEK for the first time. We looked over the city of Cusco in the daylight from on high (3,632 m) in a humid haze.
We were welcomed at ATEK by Ben's girlfriend Missi and his Peruvian 'mom', Francisca the cook, and our luggage and clean clothes and rooms and beds. Unfortunately, there was no running water. There had been no running water for the past day and the first part of this one. This meant no water for showers, for toilets following a large women's retreat (bathrooms were atrocious), and everyone else in town was buying water to drink like we had been. When the water finally came on in the mid-afternoon, we didn't wait long for the solar heat to warm the water. A cold shower was better than none I figured. We couldn't get the internetAji de Gallina is and how to fall in love with Peruvian cooking.
The next day was Sunday, which turned into a tourist day. We had church in the evening, so we took a bus into the heart of the city. We were on two wheels for a few moments and heard shouts of "Loco!" and "Diablos!" from frustrated locals trying to regain their footing and composure. We left the youth in Ben and Missi's capable hands and Steph and I found an Internet Cafe up the street a ways, just past our supper destination Pizza Romana. After an hour of updating and communicating we returned to the group and they were ready to leave the market, so Steph and I couldn't sample the artisan's wares. We went to other locations in town and some smaller markets, historical sites, and had lunch at McDonald's. We got to the pizza place before opening at 5:30, and the kids were just dying to eat, so they let us in. We had a few minutes to wait until the pizza would arrive at the table, so I dashed back to the artisans market to have a quick look, and made it back with just enough time to catch my breath before eating wonderful pizza chased down by chicha morada (purple corn juice).
- Mark
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