Well after spending a week and a half away from home, (well my home here) I was exhausted. Due to my exhaustion and probably something I ate, I was also ill. Being sick here is sucks, but at the same time it’s not so bad because it doesn’t usually last more than a day or 2 for me. Anyways that’s not what is important. Here is the more important stuff.
I will recap my adventures but try to keep them short. First I went to four different communities in a place called Yocon. We went with a partner organization called the Gideon Project to do trainings in schools on the topics of hygiene and sexual abuse. We visited three different schools and did one presentation with the adults of an entire community as well. We stayed with the pastor of one of the churches in one of the communities. He help me with my Spanish a lot simple because he was willing to take interest and ask me questions. He did this both for his knowledge and to help me with my Spanish as well, I found out. This I really appreciated.

After four days in other communities away from my bed, one of which I was ill, it was very nice to sleep in my own bed…for a short period of time. The next morning I woke up, packed my bag again, and started on a three day hike up a mountain. Nope its not always work here, but most people here think we are crazy for climbing a mountain such as this one. When I say we I am referring mostly to the six white people. We are all volunteers or work here. We all have this in common and so we are all friends. One of the youth from one of the churches here also came and of course our guide. This was an absolutely incredible experience. The first day was kind of typical hiking a few trees here and there going up this mountain along with some fields. Then we started going through coffee farms and finally got to the edge of the jungle which is a conserved area. Here there was a small hut that the coffee farmers use in the harvest time. There is a typical concrete, wood-burning stove, a hammock, and not much more. After about five hours of hiking we set up our tents and stayed here the first night.
In the morning we woke up to Holler Monkeys hootin’ and hollerin’ in the jungle. Unfortunately I did not get to see any this time, but I have seen them in the past. Once we had all our stuff ready, and got rid of whatever wasn’t absolutely necessary for the second day, we headed of into the jungle. This part was a lot steeper than the first day and by this I mean there are parts that are literally straight up where you have to climb a wall of dirt and tree roots. All the plants are so alive and abundant that it seems as if you could see them grow. You also watch some of them die when the guide has to hack through parts with his machete. After about another five hours of hiking on this day, we made it to one of the peaks where we set up our tents. Unfortunately when we got here we were nearly out of water and all very thirsty. We knew ahead of time that there was a source of water but we were hoping not to have to use it because we didn’t know how good it was. There is no path to this source so only our guide and three of us went, including me. We were gone about forty-five minutes and came back with water that was clean but was also extremely yellow. This is the water we had to drink but we had drops to purify it to hopefully ensure we wouldn’t get sick. At the peak where we set up camp, and at the tallest peak about an hour away where we also went, there are dwarfed forests. Hard to imagine right? Well, there are all kinds of unique plants and trees, along with not so unique plants such as pine trees. All of these plants are no more than three or four feet high.

After a very cold night we were fortunate to get up when we did. When we got out of the tent we looked down the mountain onto the cloud cover. A full cloud cover of fluffy clouds with the sun just starting to rise above them. After enjoying this amazing sight we packed everything up and headed back down. It took about 8 hours to get down including stopping for lunch. This experience gave me a new understanding of God’s amazing intricate creations in nature. It was a very tiring but extremely well worth it.

(See a path? Neither did I until I hiked it.) (Miniature pine trees and other plants)

(Dont fall it's straight down!)

(And it is straight up climbing roots)