many the miles

To begin, let me give this warning-this will be very long. But people keep asking me about my trip, and I have decided the easiest way to share about it is to just type it once here. I am going to try to just give the major highlights and keep it brief, but if you've read my blog before, you know I don't usually succeed at being brief!

I think the one thing that stood out to me most during the whole trip was the clear presence of the Lord the entire time. There were many things that could have gone very wrong, and often did go wrong, only to work out for the best. It was clear someone quite a bit bigger was in charge and had all the plans under his control.

My traveling buddy, Ali, and I set off to the La Paz bus terminal at 5pm Friday afternoon...and we didn't arrive to our first destination, Puerto Iguazu, Argentina, until 8am Monday morning. It was a crazy beginning to the trip. We took a 14 hour bus to Santa Cruz, Bolivia and then had 7 hours to kill in Santa Cruz. We then got on a bus for Asuncion, Paraguay. This was probably the worst bus ride of my entire life...so far, anyway. We drove across the ENTIRE country of Paraguay, which we learned is mostly the Chaco, a huge dry, barren, dust bowl. At Paraguayan immigration, we were so hot and so dirty, but we had no Paraguayan currency to buy a cold drink. We thought we were going to die, and this was when the first quote of the trip was uttered, "If hell had another name it would be Paraguay". Honestly, we drove for 16 hours and didn't see any signs of life until about 30 minutes outside the city of Asuncion. We arrived in Asuncion looking forward to finding a way to exchange money, buy a cold drink, and use the bathroom. However, the man at the bus station told us that we did not have seats on the bus to Foz de Iguazu because the La Paz office had not sent our information and all the buses were full. So instead of having 3-4 hours in Asuncion to recuperate, we had to immediately get on another bus to go to another city on the other side of Paraguay and then they gave us money to buy a ticket from there to Foz de Iguazu. Well, the entire time we had been worrying about going to Foz because that is the Brazilian side and we did not have Brazilian visas. We weren't sure how this was going to work and I had been praying about it the entire bus ride across Paraguay. I asked the man if instead we could buy tickets to the Argentina side, but he said this was impossible. So still praying, we boarded the next bus, which was crammed full with people standing in the aisles, and drove another 4 hours. We arrived at the bus station at 3am and of course, everything was shut down. We settled into sticky, green plastic bench chairs, put our stuff on the filthy ground and tried to figure out what to do. At this point, we still had no Paraguayan currency, except for money for the next bus, but since we did not have any idea how much that bus would cost, we couldn't use that money for buying the drinks we desperately needed. We also have no money to pay to go to the bathroom, so we took turns sneaking in, and then settled down for a few hours of rest before the buses started running again. Needless to say we were pretty miserable. However, around 6am (it's Monday morning, now), the buses started running and we learned that we could take a bus directly to Argentina, bypassing Brazilian immigration completely, and that it only cost about 1/4 of our money. We laughed the whole way to Argentina, amazed at how the Lord had worked through the misery to keep us from going into Brazil.

We saw amazing things throughout the trip, here are just some brief highlights:

*Iguazu Falls-If you have ever seen the movie The Mission, those huge waterfalls are the Iguazu Falls on the border of Argentina and Brazil. They are absolutely incredible. We took a boat around the falls and then under a few of them. After being so hot it was incredibly refreshing to be completely soaked by the rushing water! We then walked around the balconies overlooking the Devil's Throat, which was a massive waterfall just roaring into white mist. Over the mist was a beautiful double rainbow. It reminded us of God's faithfulness and his promise never to leave us.

*Buenos Aires- We ended up spending most of our time in this huge, European-like city. There was a lot to see and do. I loved all the street, artisan markets, that also included street performers. There was the weirdest cemetery that looked more like a miniature city than a final resting place. We went to tango show one night, which was quite over the top and dramatic, but full of amazing dancing. We spent a lot of time in plazas and gardens. And of course, spent time wandering around La Boca, the famous street with all the colored buildings, known for tango.

*Patagonia- Because of problems with our plane, we missed a whole day in Patagonia, which was disappointing, because it was the most beautiful place. Yet, the problems gave the Lord another opportunity to show his sovereignty as we were easily able to arrange another flight. Patagonia, was windy and cold and absolutely perfect for those of us who were missing winter. We spent New Year's Eve day gawking at the incredible Perito Moreno glacier...the world's only advancing glacier. There are really no words to describe the magnificance of this sight. We then had a party at our hostel to ring in the new year, complete with a true argentina parillada (cook out)-run by the town butcher, lots of music, fun people, and fireworks (a tradition apparently the US is the only country not participating in!).

*Mendoza- Mendoza is beautiful city right in the middle of Argentina wine country. It is surrounded by beautiful vineyards. The city itself is full of trees, beautiful plazas, and the biggest park I have ever seen. We spent one day here driving a ways out of the city to go white water rafting through the Andes. It was amazing, and I realized how much I really do love rafting. We also ran into friends from Buenos Aires, which was so crazy, small-worldish and lots of fun!

*Valparaiso, Chile- After over 3 hours waiting at the border, Ali and I finally got to Chile (without having to pay $131 for a Visa...another example of the Lord's provision, as we had spent forver the night before looking for a way to get US$ and had been unsuccessful, and so were unsure how we were going to pay for this visa). Valparaiso is a quaint city about 2 hours north of Santiago. It is is very bohemian with lots of fun old houses, painted all different colors, and all of the walls are full of of huge murals and graffiti. We enjoyed a day wandering around the city, running into a British friend from our bus, then spending the rest of the day with him, going out to the famous poet, Pablo Neruda's house. We also had a beach day here, which ended in terrible sunburns, perfectly timed for the long trek back to La Paz.

By the end, I was definitely ready to be back in La Paz, where I knew how public transportation worked and how to do life, where I could sleep in my own bed and not live out of a backpack, but have lots of clean clothes to choose from, and where I did not have to sleep on another bus for a very long time. Yet, at the same time, I felt like I had missed so much. There was so much to see and 3 weeks just wasn't enough time to see it in. I must go back sometime, especially to Patagonia, to really experience and see all that was there. Someday....