I am sure after seeing the pictures I will have a lot of requests to borrow my beautiful dress, so all of you ladies back home will have to take turns. It's quite a number! Jenny, my cousin who is visiting us right now, was a professional leprechaun. Danee's husband, Steve, found a shirt at the Cancha that said, "I am Troy Davis," so he was Troy Davis... whoever Troy Davis is! Their daughters were Waldo and a Candyland girl.
For actual Halloween day, however, we were invited by the school I work at, Carachipampa, to chaperone a senior trip to Torotoro National Park here in Bolivia. Seeing as the seniors were in desperate need of chaperones, they gave us a pretty great sales pitch, and the trip ended up being incredible! Jenny came along for the six hour (one way) bus ride and the three day excursion. The trip was filled with adventure, nature, and conquering fears! Our first day, which happened to be Halloween, we spent sporting helmets and headlamps and venturing a kilometer below the ground into a huge cave. I am extremely claustrophobic and, needless to say, was unexcited after our three Bolivian guides painted a picture on our way in of climbing through extremely tight spaces. I am here to write about it, however, and not only did I make it: I would totally do it again!
A majority of the cave was easy to stand up in, and the magnitude of the cave (which extends well beyond the kilometer we covered) was hard to digest. We made a loop, entering and exiting the same opening in the mountain, but traversing down one way and back another. We climbed, slid, and crawled almost exclusively using our headlamps for light, and viewed stalagmites, stalactites, various kinds of animal poop (our guide obsessively pointed out all the poop he could find), and various formations that are thought to look like things such as condors, trees, the Virgin Mary holding Jesus, and a wedding cake. It was fascinating and really fun.
Day two we spent touring a part of the park that resembled Arches National Park in Utah. The views were spectacular, and it was probably the thing that made us the most homesick since we've been here. We miss our Colorado mountains!
The third day we hiked into a canyon that is Bolivia's version of the Grand Canyon. We saw fossilized dinosaur footprints along the way. We hiked down and back the same way, with a vertical descent of about 350 meters in a little less that a kilometer. The hike was more or less straight down and... of course... straight up! Everything about the hike was 100% illegal in the US (not a guardrail in sight), so we spent a lot of the time praying that the senior boys, most of whom haven't seemed to master the concept of cause and effect well yet, would come back from the hike with a pulse. We traversed the river over huge boulders, sat alongside huge waterfalls, and swam in pools in the river at the bottom of the canyon. Scott conquered his fear of heights as he jumped with the boys into the pools from rock ledges. Jenny spent time coaching kids on how to climb waterfalls, and I took tons of pictures. It was quite the adventure!
Other than our fantastic side adventure, we are still continuing to do our work for IOU. Scott now spends a day a week doing accounting and adminstrative duties for IOU, a day or two doing construction on new orphanages, a day working at the restaurant, a day tutoring kids in math and just started Spanish lessons today. I am still working at Carachipampa every morning, and have been offered the opportunity to teach 11th and 12th grade English at the beginning of the year for the spring semester. I am honored by the opportunity and am intrigued by the idea of an education experience in such a different context. Although I still have not made a decision as to whether or not I will take the offer.
Jenny will be with us until the 17th when she heads toward Lake Titicaca before returning to the US. She has been able to see many parts of our life, including helping with construction on the new orphanages, working at the restaurant, Carachipampa, Casa de Amor, and babywashing.
