Day 18 the rest of the team from Columbia arrives

Hey all :)

Sorry this is delayed our Internet was down....

Anyway we went to Pilpintuwasi today which means house of the butterflies :)

Here are some of the things we saw...














Then their was the crazy Austrian woman who runs the farm...


She's a botanist by trade and came to Peru 20 years ago to study the host plants of various butterfly species, the host plant is the specific plant a butterfly lays it's eggs on... She spent six years doing this, during that time she fell in love with Peru and never left :) she's kinda a crazy nature woman, living away from civilization in the woods with her animals, I've been to the butterfly farm three times and never have I seen her wear shoes or a bra... The picture above is of her and Pedro the Jaguar




There was also this monkey that followed us around displaying his male dominance, at one point he demonstrated for us the golden shower, which is when he relieved himself and then bathed in it, it was quite charming... He also tried to steal a member of our groups purse :)




Crazy lady and her baby coati, an Amazonian Raccoon




She has other monkeys too, but this one was much cuter than our golden shower friend

After we got back from the airport we collected the remaining seven members of the mission team from East Minster church in Columbia SC
Had some lunch and took the new arrivals on their own city tour then we turned in early :)

That's all forks

Location:Iquitos Peru

Day 17 the Columbia team arrives... Sort of...

Hey all :)

We're back to business as usual around here, we woke up early for final prep for the Columbia team that arrived today, EL JARDIN was all system go today :) Villa, our amazing handyman filled up the team coolers with cokes, water and ice and we arranged them in the team common area so that everything would be ready for their arrival, the ladies Ina and Maria who do the cleaning and cooking, were busy going out and buying last minute things like more pineapple and lettuce... Not too mention chicken, you can never have enough chicken lol

Apparently in the hurry to get everything ready this morning Villa Forgot to close the tap on the cooler, the one you use to drain them out at the end of the day, well I was walking through the little common area and about busted my head opens slipping into a puddle of water, well silly me couldn't figure out where all that water was coming from, never occurred to me to check the coolers, but the second Pam surveyed the scene she knew just what had happened....

After we got the water up, it was off to collect our group from Columbia SC, only problem was, not all of them made it on their international flight leaving from Miami... So we collected 12 out of 19. We got them settled in and had some lunch, then took them on a tour of the El Jardin property, took them to seethe construction site that they'll be working on a little this week... And then it was off for our city tour:) it was an overcast day here, Diego all the rain we've been having and it was actually kind of cool which was nice...


We're about to have dinner and then devotions :) It's just business as usual down here in Iquitos and full steam ahead :)

Tomorrow we go to the butterfly farm :) and then we're having lunch out on the town, tomorrow is also the day when the remain ing seven members of the mission team from Columbia will finally make it to Iquitos... I'll let you know how it all turns out :)

Stay tuned

Location:Iquitos Peru

Day 16 Full steam ahead

Hey all :)

Tomorrow our group from Columbia comes in...

So we spent the whole day prepping... Running around cleaning and buying supplies...

But its Ben's birthday :) we're making cookies... That's really it :) more tomorrow


Love ya :)

Stay tuned

Location:Iquitos Peru

Day 15 business as usual

Short and sweet :)

Today we administrated :) meaning we all sat in front of our respected CPUs and did work... I work on RPM stuff all day... It was all about emails and prep for what's coming up, we had three different power outages and lots of rain... It's been busy as usual and full steam ahead here, today is Pam anniversary... Two years living in Iquitos full time as a missionary, and tomorrow's Ben's 20th birthday!!! So we have a lot to celebrate this weekend :)

That's all folks...

Stay tuned

Location:Iquitos Peru

Day 14 the Cista Cocha Zoo ;)

Hey all :)


We went to the zoo in Cista Cocha today, it was about a thirty minute motokar ride up the nawto highway :)

It's not your typically zoo, some would probably argue it's not a zoo at all, it lacks organization, direction,support facilities and in several cases a path on which to walk, often your left to truck it in the mud or battle the bugs, I managed to get yet another pair of toms stuck in the mud, but I'm happy to report, I'm getting pretty good at washing my shoes by hand lol, another odd thing about this zoo...





It had a beach... (Can you still call it a beach if it's not the ocean?)


Despite the oddities of the zoo the animals were neat and we had a nice time.....





There were jaguars ....


There were gators :) even in Peru Nancy I find the gator nation is everywhere




There were Macaws.... But they weren't very chatty :)




There were monkeys... Oh lordie there was a ton of monkeys :)




Small ones...




Big ones...





Really cute ones...

Ben got his fill of monkeys....




We saw other animals too... Like




Capybaras... The worlds biggest rodent : /




These things are BIGGER than my dog... Lol




An infestation of these would be a major problem lol


We also so the Peruvian version of a raccoon :) their much cuter over here...



And then we saw another twist on something we have back in the states...




Ants!!! lots of Ants!!!




Ants working hard...




Lots of ants working hard...




Yes I know I shouldn't be this excited about ants...

So just because everyone would mock me if I ended my pictures of the Zoo with pictures of insects, especially insects that weren't even on display in the zoo...

Here look at something the zoo actually prides itself on...




A cayman... Yay for the big lizard... If you ask me the ants were cooler lol

Oh and a... Ahhh I forgot again, 'insert name here'


This animal is apparently like a cow... Hmmm maybe it's just me but I don't get cow from this... Do you? I guessed it was related to an anteater but then again maybe I was just a little too focuses on ants today

I'm my defense the fact that I was so focused on the ants helped me avoid getting bitten by ants, which is quite impressive seeing as they were everywhere, so at least theres that :)

The zoo was really neat, and we had a great time, the rest of the day was a wash because right after we got back from the zoo the rain started again,a pouring thunderous rain, but such is life I guess lol, at least it didn't rain while we were at the zoo :)

That's all I got focus :) hope you enjoyed my ants as much as I did


Stay tuned :)

Location:Iquitos Peru

Day 13... I'm not sure how I managed to mess up my dates but today is day 13

Short and sweet....

Today was complicated, we got up at 5am to watch the sunrise over the Itaya river... I wish a could say I took some amazing pictures, but that would be a lie... We couldn't see anything, too many clouds...

That's pretty much how the day worked... We came back to El Jardin, to get a little more sleep, this was difficult because construction that continues just outside the pond house... After we finally got up we began prepping for next weeks group, we met with the pastor from the church they'll be working With next week :) the group will be doing some work here at El Jardin one day and then two days working with this church doing bible study and minor construction on the church :)

Well that's all I got folks... Short and sweet , tomorrow we go to the ZOO!!!

Location:Iquitos, Peru

Day 11 and the rain continues...

Hey all :)

Last night after I spoke with y'all ben and I ventured out to the Plaza de Armas for Churro's :) it was quite a sight, apparently that's the place to be in Iquitos on a Sunday night, there were so many people there, families with children even babies out on the street at around 9pm it was crazy... We saw all the venders with toys, and food, hoping the kids would form a scene forcing their parents to buy them something, we saw tourist taking in the city, we saw local Peruvians just out for a stroll it was nice to see the city so full of life, not just people rushing off to work or school, but people just hanging out and enjoying the city :)

We woke up this morning to the sound of chainsaws and falling trees, as the clearing of trees began here at EL Jardin. The contractor and men brought in all their supplies and tools and got straight to work removing all obstacles because they'll begin dig trenches and leveling out the ground to prep for the foundation that will come in later this week... If you never been woken up by chainsaw, I can tell you it's quite an experience, one straight out of a bad horror movie... It literally sounded like they were in the pond house with us, not they forty feet away, that they actually are...



The new building will be located by the church...


I had a lazy morning... I finish the Kabul Beauty School, it was amazing, like most real life accounts it doesn't end the way you think it should but, does life ever? Lol
Totally a must read if your into that kind of stuff ;)

I wish I could tell you that I ventured out into the city and explored and had a great meal or something, but that simply wouldn't be true, it rained a thunderous rain today, and unfortunately this city offers little protection from the rain and I've already ruined too many pairs of toms, so I declined to go trudging through the rainy puddles outside our Jardin, I will attempt t adventure more tomorrow, weather permitting... But I did venture out a little today to call my folks :) love y'all... Sometimes you just need to hear a little piece of home, even when it results in soggy toms :(

We had a lovely spaghetti meal today with our amazing cook Maria, and we discussed the adventures in store for later this week, which include a visit to a local movie theater, and a possible trip to the Zoo :) yay! I love Zoos we're just focused on enjoying each other company and the quiet that the rain brings :)

That's all for now :) stay tuned

Location:Iquitos Peru