Peru 2010 Travelling

Zero hour has finally arrived. Chris and I trekked to Calvin CRC at 8:00 pm. Annette Ben and Hannah were already at the church. By 8:30 pm most of the group had assembled and were milling about in the fellowship hall. We talked for a bit, organized our luggage, exchanged excited conversation and waited for our Canada Coach bus to arrive. At 9:00 pm, ½ hour early, the coach drove into the parking lot. Good thing I asked everyone to come early. : ) We packed up, and off we went into the night. The bus was filled with the chatter of excited young and not so young people. Mina just couldn’t contain her excitement. : ) We turned off at exit #1 on the 416 and stopped at the Esso station to pick up the Cornwall crew. Colin phoned them to let them know we were ½ hour early so we didn’t have to wait for them. We were soon on our way and the group settled down for a restless sleep in the ½ empty bus. The sound of the rain and wind (and it was windy) and the hum of the bus helped some sleep, but not me. I gave up my “blow up neck” supporter to Hannah B, and that proved to be a blessing for her, but not for me : ( . In Kingston we changed drivers and received a rude awakening when the lights went on. It turned out that Conrad, our new driver, goes to Kingston CRC. Neat. I talked with him for a bit before we all once again nodded off for a short, and not very deep, sleep. At 3:30 am we arrived in Oakville, right on time. I was beginning to think that maybe I had been a bit over zealous in the time. We were scheduled to arrive at the Buffalo airport at 5:00 am according to Conrad, but I had thought we’d get there by 8:00 am…..oh well. At least there was no time pressure. We loaded up the group from Oakville, while some of us took a pee break, and then it was back on the road. Our border crossing went quite smoothly. We had to go into US Customs and show our passports. The agent I dealt with was….how shall I say it……quite grumpy. He certainly wanted us to know who was in charge in that building. Everyone made it through with little fanfare though. I was quite grateful for that. Just before arriving at the airport we stopped at McDonald’s for breakfast. It was 5:45 am. We had to wait for 15 minutes for it to open, and Colin informed them of our group size of 45 so they began to crank up the grills. We left McDonald’s at 7:00 am and moved across the street to the departure terminal. Buffalo airport is a lot like the Ottawa airport. Small, cozy, and clean. After offloading the bus and saying goodbye to Conrad we organized our luggage and I handed out the airline tickets. It was now time to check in. It took about 1 hour to complete our check in, which wasn’t bad considering it was done by one ticket agent. Then it was off to security. That went very smooth. By 8:20 am we were at our gate and ready for takeoff. The only issue was that our plane isn’t due to take off until 11:30 am. So, we are now playing cards, sleeping, talking together, and waiting. The group is beginning to gel a bit more and it is nice to see us laughing and talking together. We still have a long way to go to get to Peru, but several hurdles have been overcome already and I’m feeling much better. : ) More to come once we hit Atlanta…… Hey everybody in Ottawa ….I am having a great time…despite the lack of sleep I’m getting and you can be expecting me back with a MEGA tan. Hope you guys don’t get too much snow! TTYL

Hannah and Leah wanted to write something to you all.

Hannah <3>

Well, we are now in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s cloudy outside. Our flight in Buffalo ended up being delayed by 35 minutes, and overbooked. It was a smaller, older plane, but a sturdy one. 3 seats, Aisle, then two seats. I booked window seats all the way to Lima. It was fun watching everyone get excited when the plane arrived. It was even more fun watching everyone glue their faces to the airport windows as another plane taxied in with 4 fire trucks following with lights flashing. Eventually we boarded the plane and spent some time at the gate being de-iced. We had a few snow flakes; apparently enough to warrant de-icing. For some in our group this was the first time flying. A hoot to watch the reactions. The flight went smoothly, though my son kept asking me to switch so that Kyle could sit with him. I refused : ). Apparently Atlanta airport is the busiest in the world. It sure is big. We had to move from the “A” concourse to the “E” concourse via escalators and an underground tram. The kids loved it of course. We are now awaiting our 5:10 pm flight departure. Our plane just arrived. A much bigger plane this time. We’ve had some food, and will probably eat again in the flight to Lima. My internal clock is so mixed up, I’m not sure what time of day it is, and we will have some adjusting to do when we get to Lima. Some of us have not slept at all yet. I got 1.5 hours of sleep on the plane and feel pretty good right now. We are all still pretty excited and we continue to journey in anticipation of the unexpected. For those of us who are returning to Lima, we look forward to new things God will do on this Learning Opportunity. For those of us who are first timers, it’s all exciting and filled with anticipation. Monday morning: So, it’s 8 am and people are waking up to the sounds of horns honking and songs from the nearby school. Our final flight to Lima went very well. A much larger plane. It was a 6 hour flight and I discovered that we gained back that hour we lost when we left for Peru. It’s one hour earlier here now. Many people slept on the plane, but not all. I watched the movie “The Blind Side”. An appropriate movie to watch before embarking on ministry here. Without giving away the plot, because my wife hasn’t watched it yet, the one line that stick with me is a woman saying about a person she met, “I didn’t change him, but he is changing me!” This week we will be changed by the people that we meet. After arriving in Lima we went through customs quite smoothly and then it was time to get our luggage. We gathered everyone’s luggage up, but unfortunately Fontana’s luggage didn’t arrive. After waiting about 1 hour to get the paperwork done for that, we were off to the hostel. Everyone was pretty much exhausted. We arrived and went straight to bed. I’m not sure how well people slept, but at about 7 am the sound of hors honking and music blaring from the school must have woken everyone up. We now see how everyone’s doing as we begin day 1 in Patchecutec. TTYL

Some pictures below will help you get a flavour of our tip so far.

I will be posting daily from an internet cafe in Patchecutec, as our Hostel doesn´t have internet this time around, at least not that I can yet find. That is also why the formatting of the blog is not the best. I´m having to use computers here in Peru and my USB stick to transfer stuff over. Not the most ideal, but you adapt as you have to on learning opportunities eh. I´ll probably be posting around lunch time each day, but that COULD change if I find internet access at the hostel. I ask you to be flexible as you read the blog.

You are enouraged to send comments to the group via the blog and I will do my best to relay them to them.

Blessings. Pastor Ron.

So, look at the pictures (especially those who don´t like reading) and enjoy.

This is the basic supply list of Cindy. She followed my packing list VERY well.

The group leaving from Ottawa. Rearing to Go. On the Coach and ready to depart. We add some more folks from Cornwall. Nancy´s unique way of getting sleep. Gerry and Marsha sharing a moment. They won´t get many of these during the week.

Now the whole crew is on the bus. It´s 3:30 a.m.

At the buffalo airport ready to check in.

Now, there´s this thing about girls going to the bathroom in herds. It happened several times in the airport so Gerry and I decided to band together and go to the bathroom together too. We joined hands in solidarity.

In the airport after security checkes. The Oakville group relaxing..except Jackie on the right. You have to watch her.....

The boys playing cards. Why is it that every time I take a picture of Kyle he has that deer in the headlight look.

More of the group relaxing to a game that Kevin made up. Apparently it has no rules.

John catching a few winks. There weren´t many to catch on this trip.

More sleep time in the airport.

Brenda, our nurse, handled the trip VERY well. Always smiling.....

Everyone lining up to watch the fire trucks as the plane taxied in.

Here is Patti. Fearless Patti. Falling asleep on the plane. The kids took some REALLY good pictures of her sleeping, but you´ll have to wait for them.

There ends the travel time.

Monday morning has brought us to Patchacutec. More on that Tomorrow at Noon.....stay tuned.