June 26, 2010

Not much sleep last night so i woke up feeling really groggy. We decided we wanted to take a canopy tour today with our group. Pastor Larry and Eddy went and got everything figured out for us. Kevin decided to join us so we all got ready and got in our van. It was a long drive out there. It was funny to see that Leticias highways is like Kennewicks Locust Grove Rd. Very small and two laned. In Leticia it is also very easy to speed there because there are not many traffic police. When we got to the Canopy Tour or Zipline we walked about 15 minutes into the rainforest. Our tour guides gave us facts about the rainforest and what animals live in it. When we got to the zipline they put us all in harness' which i didnt realize but we had to climb up the 100ft tree.(or atleast it seemed that tall) They strapped us in our climbing gear and the climb was very fun and difficult. Im not very physically athletic but i like challenging my self. The way you climbed the ropes was you sat down stretched and pushed this Kong rope and chest accenders(look on google to see what it looks like) with you hand as high as you can and then when you let go it stays up and then you pull your feet up with the other rope latcher and do it until you get to the top. It was very hard for me but while on the rope any time i felt i couldn't do it anymore i prayed to God, which was more then half the time. God came through though and I made it to the top. My team was very supportive! We reached the top and then they started strapping us in for the zipline. Donna went first, Kody, Kevin, Hillary, and then me. The first zip line was very slow but when i was strapped in for the second zipline oh that was a joy. You could see th eentire rainforest and it was just so beautiful. I just kept thanking God for making something so beautiful. The zipline was short but very fun. When we were walking back Hillary and I walked with one of the tour guides. The rest of the group was behind us. When we were walking the guide stopped us pulled his knife out and stabbed a tree. White stuff started oozing out and from what hillary understood it was a natural antibiotic like neosporn. So we tasted it, and i didn't get much of a taste. We got out of the rainforest and the rest of the group came except Jared Kevin and Jeff. 10 minutes later jeff comes out with Jared and Kevins shirts saying that they were eaten and then the two pop out with leaves covered in them for outfits(above picture) It was so funny. The native people thought it was really funny to. Since our van still hadn't arrived the let us go see the snake zoo for free. I saw a posinus frog, a large crocadile, about 10+ different kind of snakes and i believe thats it. At the end of the snake sighting they let us hold a 10 month old anaconda it was so cool and slimy. We left and when we got back to the hotel a group of us headed to the festival area and cleaned up from last night. It was very windy there but it was fun helping clean. We walked back to our hotel and then after we were cleaned up we walked back to the festival for the last night. I got to see Jacki Valasquez sing. God has defiantly given her pipes to sing. She was absolutly wonderful! When Raza for Christ came on me and hillary had some kids who came to say hi to us. We didn't recognize them at first but then they ended up being the kids from the orphanage. I felt so blessed that they remembered us. We played with them for a while and then right before we left a women approached us asking for prayer. The orphans that were at the festival (4 of them) were staying with her. She treated them like her own because she had no kids, but some people in Spain wanted to adopt the kids, the kids don't want to go and the women wanted to keep them but financially she was struggleing. So we got to pray for her. Defiantly a highlight of the trip. We left the festival and it was about 10 o clock. Our hotel had a huge BBQ for us. It was so much fun. We ate delicious food and the manager of the hotel had dancers and live music. It was a lot of fun. It was sad it was the last night for everyone to be there. I grabbed my camera and took pictures with all of my new friendsl. The best part of the night was the open mic session. We had Michael, Natalie, Lori, Jared, Anthony, Trevor, Ester, and a guy from Raza for Christ all play us some songs. Towards the end Lori went up again and started sining worship songs. We all got in a huge circle and just started praising the Lord. It was so uplifting. My favorite song that we learned there was "Santo, santo, santo, yo quiero verte" which means "Holy, holy, holy, i want to see you" it was so cool just seeing everyone sing!
This is Lori and her son Michael singing.