Hello from the airport in Houston, TX!!!!!! We are back in the USA!!!!!! I have wanted to post a blog while in the jungle but never had the time while we had internet access. I am currently very sleep deprived b/c we have been traveling home since Tues. am, and we are to arrive in Memphis @ 1:45 this afternoon (Wednesday). Ellie and Kate want to go straight to chik-fil-a for chicken sand., Hall wants a juicy burger from Harvey’s(Hardee’s)-where did that come from?, Jeff wants a Belmont burger, and I want A BBQ sandwich from McBride’s Café’ in Little Rock!!!!!!

The jungle was a really fun and wild adventure. We are all very thankful that we decided to join the interns for a final excursion before heading back to the states. Here are some highlights of our time in Moyobama –

1.Willy (our favorite taxi driver) took us on our final taxi ride in Trujillo ( true – he – o), for our early morning ride to the airport.

2. We flew first to Lima and enjoyed a fun 6-hr layover @ Larcomar(a nice outdoor mall).

3. We flew to the town of Tarapoto and rode in a taxi for over 2 hrs. to the puerta Mirador hotel in Moyobamba-we were just in time for dinner w/ our friends who had already arrived.

4. Sat. am we left the hotel for a day on the river. We road in long and old canoes for a couple of hours, and we stopped for lunch and ate in a hut in a jungle village. Lunch was soup w/ chicken broth, chicken, noodles, a boiled egg and yucca(like a potatoe). I loved it and ate Ellie’s portion, too. There were 2 treehouses that everyone climbed up into and hammocks to lounge in. We got into smaller dugout canoes to travel further upstream and animal-watch along the way. We saw a lot of the local, small monkeys mostly. The highlight of the day for the kids was when we stopped at a huge mudpit on the side of the river. There was a homemade swing made from large vines and a huge tree to climb. We took some good pix of our muddy trio.

5. Sun. am we went to the pca church there in Moyobamba-it has been there for 60 years and seems to be a thriving church. All of us gringos stood up and sang two songs in front of the congregation. We took a little hike that afternoon and all swam and hung out by the pool until dark. Dinner was very good Peruvian pizza delivered @ 9:45pm. Ellie was pretty miserable.

6. Some of the group woke up early for a not-kid-friendly hike. We enjoyed sleeping in. We all left after b’fast in vans for a day @ some waterfalls. Lot of the interns and Josh Eby jumped off the cliffs, but Jeff and I weren’t brave enough.

7. The bus group(everyone but us) left that evening @ 5:00 and we stayed for a quiet relaxing time there @ the hotel around the pool. We were very sad to be saying good-bye to our new friends. They are very dear to us all in various ways, and we will miss them a lot!

8. We left our jungle resort Tues. am for our longgggg……. Travels back to the States.

We are still traveling, actually…………………………….

Love, Amy