The Last Leg or Jungle Love

So first full day in Puyo, started with a walk to the lookout tower. After that took a walk along the river. It was just beautiful, I took about 150 pics along the way. Then in the afternoon, we headed out with a small group from the Kiaros Church (Darios home church in Puyo) to do some ministry in the jungle. So first there was a 40 min ride along paved roads in a van with no seatbelts (i wasn't even sitting on a proper seat) with no speedometer (the tire would squeel a bit as we went around corners) and then after that we drove a little over an hour down dirt roads until we came to the first of 3 communities. We split into groups and I ended up going to the last community of Chai. It was very warm and there was a very beautiful view of the jungle from the ridge at the edge of the community. There was a childrens feature for the kids before they went out to play and then there was a Lesson on communion for the adults that I stayed with despite my lack of spanish skills. Luckily with them talking slowly I was able to get the just of the lesson. Meanwhile outside with the kids, I guess they were asking about "the tall white guy". So Rachel, Dario and Juanita's renter tells them that I am from Canada. They don't know where Canada is so Rachel tells them that it is above the US and that it is always cold. Thanks so much for that Rachel. Anyways after we are all done in Chai we head back to Puyo and then head over to Dario's Mom's house for a visit. After that we headed to the psuedomennonite pizza place and then off to bed. the next day we headed off to Shell, where Dario's sister lives. the are adding onto their house nad doing a very good job. After we headed off to Banos. We went for supper at Casa Hood, where I had the closest I could to turkey dinner, which was delicious. Then we headed off the to the hot springs. That was a good evening. The next day it was back to Quito, where we had a games night with Some of Dario and Juanita's friends and the next day we just relaxed. I took Dario, Juanita and Rachel out for Crepes and Waffles, and now I get ready to go home.
Later.

From Mindo To Cuenca or The Long And Winding Road

So when I last wrote, Ihad just gotten back from watcing the hummingbird show in Mindo. Well the next day Dario and I went to the Canopy for zipplining. I went on 13 seperate cables over the jungle travelling above the jungle at up to 80 km and hour!!! That was fun! After that we headed back to Quito, where Dario and Juanita had a bunch of friends over for a dinner party. It was really good because one of their friends is a gourmet Chef. He made a delicious salad witha awesome dressing, and passion fruit pork. It was an amzing meal. Then next day I had to myself, as Dario and Juanita had a meeting at Youth World, so I just kinda wandered around th area that the live, It went pretty good. Had a coffee at Sweet and Coffee, went to the mall, and had subway for lunch. Later that night we boarded a plane and went of to Cuenca. We got there in the rain, but we grabbed quick supper and then walked around a bit downtown. The next morning, we hopped a bus, in the sunshine, to Ingapirca. This is the largest remaining Incan ruins in Ecuador, and while it is no Machu Pichu, it was very neat and informative. After that we headed back to Cuenca, ate at Wunderbar and watched team Ecuador trounce Venezuela in soccer and eliminate them from the World Cup. That night we went downtown again,and they were having a celebration of some sort with traditional danceing and a crazy old guy smoking and lighting of homemade fireworks. That was kind of sketchy. Quite a few of them set of car alarms. The fun thing about the dancing was that while I was trying to watc, I was getting hit on by a trio of 16 year old girls. ohthe look of disappointment on their faces when I said I was 26.
What can I say, I´m a heart breaker. Anyways, the nextday we hopped a bus to Ambato and Puyo, which ranged between a 5 and 10 hour bus ride depending on who you asked. We got to Puyo, had a delicious Pizza, mada by a lady, who lookedvery Mennonite.
well anywaysthat is all for now. Talk to you later.

Where To Begin or Its Been Awhile

Ok so I got into Quito and about 11:30 Saturday night, I disembarked on the runway, and had a good night sleep(I actually beat Dario and Juanintas flight in from the states). The next day I headed to The English Fellowship Church for church. I guess that on the first Sunday of the month they do a message on what they call footsteps of faith, in which they focus on a person whose faith is an inspiration to us in the Church now. This week was on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was a big part of the church reformations in Germany before and during WW2. It was very good to learn and I will have to read more about him soon. Then we went for lunch with some of Dario and Juanitas friends from Chuch, some who I met once 2 years ago and still remember me. We relaxed the rest of the day. On monday we went downtown for a while and I made my world famous Spaghetti, this time with chicken breast. It turned out good in my opinion. This morning Dario and I headed out to Mindo. We went down to Butterfly garden and then watched some Hummingbirds. It was quite amazing! Tommorow we will be ziplineing in the jungle, and then head back to Quito.

Ecuador 2011 or Here I Go Again (On My Own)

Wow it has been a long time since I've blogged. but anyways... So in 2 days I will be leaving to go on my 6th trip to Ecuador and my time going down there on my own. In order to get you up to date with my experiences in Ecuador I will go through some details of my past trips down there. The first trip was a missions trip through my school (Valley Christian Academy) in grade 11 in Febuary of 2002. There are many good memories of that trip. Then in 2005 I went with one of my friends from school and the boyfriend (now husband) of a girl I went to school with, on another 2 week missions trip. On this trip, I met my good friend and Honorary "Papi", Darius Guerrero, whe my friend Josh had befriended on his previous trip. WE have forged a friendship thatI hope will last a life time. Then in 2006 Myself and three friends from school went down for a 1 month trip. This was longest I had been away from home, and I really enjoyed this trip and all the differant things we were able to see, as we traveled and ministered in many different places throughout Ecuador, Such as Puyo (Dario's home town) where we worked doing construction at his home church, and the "Nigeria" neighborhood in the southern city of Guyaquil (he got this name from the large population of African people), and then we also went to the coastal town of Manta, where I was able to go into the ocean for the first time. On our way back to Quito from the coast we took a 11 hour bus ride, followed by a half hour taxi ride, where Josh and myself ended up getting into a accident in which a suv hit our taxi and then sent it crashing into a brick wall. I did not realize that we had hit the wall initially due to the fact that when the car was hit, I was flung down across the seat (I had no seatbelt int he car) and my glasses were knocked off. Once I put them back on and sat back up, I saw the bricks on the hood of the car. Praise the LORD for his hand of protection on us, as there were no injuries. I had really felt the prayers of the people back home at that point. On our way home from this trip, our flight from Ecuador to Columbia was delayed and we would have missed our flight to Toronto, which only flies out every other day. It was only after I had to phone home to tell my family that we wouldn't be home yet, that i got homesick. In order to make up for this, the airline put us up in the Hilton hotel for 2 nights, with an all you can eat buffet for every meal! For 4 guys in their early 20's this was a dream come true, and a good way to wind down a great trip. God was so good to us. Then 2 years later, in 2008, I went down for a 2 week visit to Dario with Josh and a Mutual friend oh Dario's from Saskatoon, Pettiya. This was a good time, nadhelped establish my Friendship with Dario more. In 2009 Dario got Married to Juanita, my Honorary "Mami", and I was honored to be a Groomsman in their wedding! After some...interesting delays (on our way from Toronto to Bogota, approxamately over Cuba, our Pilot informed us that there was a problem with landing gear hydraulics, that would prevent us from being able to land in the high altitude of the Andes mountains, so we had to turn around and fly back to Toronto) on our way down I had decided that would never fly to Ecuador on standby (My friend Josh is a airline employee and we would fly down on standby as it is cheaper, but not always, how do I put this, relieable going to a place where they only fly to once every 2 days. But none the less, this was a great trip and a beautiful wedding. It was on this trip that I had adopted Dario & Juanita as my parents, due to the fact that when we picked up our suits that we had made for the wedding, my suit had been labeled "Steven Guerrero", so myself being the goofball that I am, decided to call Dario "Papi" (This also goes back to a incident at the Bogota airport, where a little boy called for his father saying "papi, papi, papi..." for quite a while, whic entertained me.) While on this trip, I assisted Dario and Juanita with showing their friends and family around the country as I had been there a few time before and I really enjoyed helping in this way. After the wedding, when we were on our way home, it appeared as though we would not be able to get seats on our standby flights, so Josh aranged new flights for us, including my purchasing a flight from bogota to miami, and the standby from there home, while he left a day earlier. Somehow, due to some very helpful airport workers, I was able to take my originaly planned, even though, because I had not been with Josh I should not have been able to go on this flight. Due to this I was able to actually get home before Josh did, and when he got back he, not knowing that I had made these flights, was checking the passenger list for the flights he had rescheduled for me. When he didn't see my name on the list and coupled with the fact that the last thing I had written on facebook, was that the taxi that had be ordered to take me to the airport didn't show up (I wasn't able to access my facebook after that for some reason) he was quite worried that I was lost somewhere. He was quite suprised that I actually beat his home.Now this brings me to this trip. This trip has been a year and a half in the waiting as I originally planned with Juanita to come in November of 2010 to suprise Dario on his birthday, but fue to the birth of his niece and the 2 of them going to visit friends and family in the USA (Juanita is from New Jersey, and Dario is Ecuadorian and this was his First trip to the States and he got his citizenship while he was there.) So instead we arranged to suprise Dario in New Jersey, which we did. It was a great suprise. So I decided to go this October, as in January Dario and Juanita will be moving to Columbia to start Training in Linguistics so that they cand join "New Tibe Missions" and get set up with a unreached tribe somewhere in the world, and learn their language and translate the Bible for them. So this will be the last time I may be able to visit them in Ecuador for some time. So after some grief with booking tickets, I finally got this trip on the road. Then in August, Dario was able to come out to Canada for the first time! It was a good time and an answer to prayer as Dario had been trying to come up here for many years. So when I get down to Ecuador I will be staying in Dario and Juanita's "maid's quarters" in their apartment that Juanita set up for me (Gracias Mami!!!!) and we will be traveling around Ecuador. A couple of the places we will be going to are Mindo (a cloud forest where they have have a bird watching and ziplines, among other things), Cuenca (a city in southern Ecuador that has a very European style), Banos (a town in the mountains close to the active Volcano Tungaragua, where they have hot springs. I have gone here on every trip except 1), and Puyo (Dario's home town). I hope to do some missions work on this trip, even thought the main purpose of this trip is visit/vacation. So that should be everything for now. I will do my best to keep you updated on my trip, and I hope you all enjoy reading about my adventures.