Expect the unexpected-Day 8

10 August 2008

We woke up in our beautiful bedroom with 5ft windows facing the cloud forest and the sun rising over the mountain. I dozed off and on as the sun rose higher, but I was completely unmotivated to get up. I could hear the others moving around on the third floor above, but I was not ready to face the day. Around 7:30am, I got up and went upstairs. Several folks were sitting around the open windows with cameras, telescopes, and binoculars watching the hummingbirds and other birds.

A couple of the adults were talking about times their kids or themselves had said certain words. One of the parents said that their child had said something like, "It's OK. I already heard it on the bus." The stories went on and then they realized that Rob and Tara's kids had been listening. The adult said to Peter in a kidding voice, "Don't tell your mom and dad what we've been saying." Without missing a beat he replied, " 'It's OK. I already heard it on the bus.' " It cracked everybody up!!

We had an amazing European style breakfast with homemade plum jam, fresh baked bread, cheese, and homemade oatmeal. We also had fresh juice and tea/coffee. There was the thought that we would also have eggs, but it wasn't necessary after everything else.

After breakfast, the small group that was still hiking on to the next village took off. Rob's son John went along with Ty, Wendy, and Rob. They were going to hike about 5 hours to the Mennonite village in the cloud forest. The rest of us had an hour or so to get ready to go down by truck. We headed down to the waiting area at 10:15 to be ready by 10:30. We waited until 11:00 for the truck and it didn't come. The kids went down to find the truck, but discovered it couldn't make it up because of the heavy rain the night before and the fact that it was empty. We hiked down to the truck (even Lisa on her bad ankle) and once we were loaded in, he drove right up to where we were in order to turn around!! We were about 30-45 minutes from the village of Tucuru when the truck got stuck in the mud. We off loaded people, we push, we hiked up to have lunch and get out of the way, and, in the end, decided to abandon the vehicle and walk when the whole transmission failed and the driver only had neutral left for a gear!! We started walking about 3:30pm. I was really hoping it wouldn't rain and it didn't so I was happy about that. We eventually caught up with our driver who had also walked up the hill in order to find cell reception and call for help. I was in NO way the slowest one today, but I guess if I couldn't at least keep up with someone on crutches, I would really be a sad case. When we got to the intersection of the 2 roads, we waited while Tara and a couple others walked ahead to get reception and confirm we had a ride coming. We just hung out and played cards and waited. Around 5:30, the even SMALLER, 2-wheeled drive truck came to rescue us. We climbed in and sat on our bags for the journey. When we finally got to Tucuru, we stopped again at the owner's mom's store, though now he was also our rescue driver.

We got back on a mini-bus quite easily after that and were back by 8:00pm, so again a 5 hour journey took 10 hour, but this was not really anyone's fault. It worked out OK, though, because Lisa REALLY wanted to hike, and now she got her chance.!!!