I apologize that it is taking me so long to get all my stories up about the Amazing Race, but it has been busy since getting back to Quito; went to Camp Hope on Tuesday morning (this is a school for special needs children; I'll go into more detail later), and the womens prison this morning (again, more detail later). Anyways, continuing on from the last post; our second day of the race took place in the Jungle. This was the day that Mark Shafer (another missionary working with Inca Link) planned and from what I heard from the other interns that were here the previous summer, his days are the most physically challenging. And sure enough, he didn't disappoint this year. All in all the day entailed a 10km hike through from Huaticocha to the jungle and then to a small, remote community high in the jungle. We began by hiking to a construction site where a future church and school is going to be and we had to cross a river in order to find our next clue. This is when we discovered that none of us were really good at the whole "racing business"; we worked together to figure out where we were and where we needed to go. It had rained pretty hard the night before so everything was extremely muddy; I tried at first to stay as clean as possible, but there comes a point when you realize the difficulty of this. We hiked through the trees, crossed the river numerous times because we could not figure out where we needed to go. Eventually we found our next clue and were able to move on. The next challenge was just a hike; this doesn't sound difficult, but it was a long hike down a gravel road. I think the walk was about 7 km, thankfully it was flat-ish for the most part. I have never seen anything so beautiful! Just to stop and look around at God's creation was breath-taking! I'm so glad my team was laid-back because there were several times when I made us stop just to take it all in. While we were hiking down the road and then later through the jungle this one worship song kept coming to mind;" The heavens declare Your greatness/The oceans cry out to You/ The mountains, they bow down before You/So I'll join with the earth and I'll give my praise to You" (Majestic by Lincoln Brewster). If nothing else, the beauty and wonder of creation is enough to say that there is God, a master artist, who took the time to put this world together.
Our clue told us to walk to a cable bridge and then take our first left into the jungle. The trek through the jungle was a physically challenging one because the trail was narrow and awfully muddy. It was discouraging at points as I felt like I was holding back my team because I was struggling. My team was so gracious and just very encouraging the entire time we hiked through the jungle. There were parts of the trail were the one side was a 50ft(ish) cliff and moss- and green-covered rocks on the other side; the only thing you could do was hug the one side and pray you don't slip in the mud. I prayed the entire time that I would not see any spiders/tarantulas; God answered that pray and I did not see a single spider the entire race... it was wonderful! I saw a lot of really odd insects while we were in the jungle, but I can handle those better than spiders. I was having a hard time 'hugging' the rock wall because you have no idea what is living in the cracks and in the moss/vines that cover them. Some of the members from the church in Huaticocha were out there helping us as we were walking. There was a deep gorge that was about 6-7ft across in one spot that broke up the trail; there were two 2x4's and were suppose to act as a bridge. One of the men helping was standing in the middle of these planks, giving us a hand across. By the time my team got here our shoes were completely caked with mud, this meant I had absolutely no traction on the bottom of my runners. My foot slipped while me and this man were in the middle of these boards and I almost took us both over. He helped me catch my balance and laughed as I screamed and just kept apologizing over and over and over again for what had just happened. The trail followed the river the we crossed before arriving at the trail (I don't know the name and am having a hard time finding it on google), and at the end of the trail was this beautiful waterfall (not as magnificent as Iguazu falls, but the fact that we got to stand in it and watch the water fall above our heads was pretty cool). Standing in the middle of this waterfall was another member of the congregation that had our next clue. We were the last team to get there so him and the other guy (who helped us across the gorge) walked back with us. Vicky and Jereme were in front of me and these two locals were behind me; and though I don't know Spanish I knew enough to know that there were making fun of me as I was having a very hard time walking back on this trail. One of them had a machete and cut me a walking stick because I was having that many problems; I kept falling and slipping and it was utterly ridiculous. Here's what our next clue read: "Go back down to the bridge and one team member must jump into the river at the designated spot...". Here was the problem; I was the only member on our team that knows how to swim, thus I was the only one who could jump. Problem number two; I'm scared of both water and heights. The bridge was about 15ft above the river, and though that does not sound that high, when you're looking down it is really high. I did eventually jump, but it took me at least 15 minutes before I worked up the courage to jump. I was so scared that I had a bit of a breakdown and started crying. Mark came over and told me that if I was that scared that I didn't need to jump; I knew if I didn't that I would regret it later. He also reminded me of the verse that says: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13). It was cool that he said that because all day I was praying that God would give the strength to continue onward as I was struggling with the hike. Casey Brian (another missionary with Inca Link) was standing at the bottom on the rocks that I needed to swim towards; it was a short swim, but the jump was terrifying! I was a bit shaky after I jumped, but I was proud that I did it. From there we got our next clue which read: "Follow the trail straight up to Nueva Esperanza community, ask residents there where you can dig up a Yucca root. Also ask for three "gusanos especiales". Also, find an orange. You must take all of these items to the fire along side the school and prepare your lunch as per instructed of fried chicken, yucca, orange, and gusano. You must eat all of your lunch before time is stopped for the day. You can do it, we have done it too. This is your pit stop". First of all, when the clue said 'follow the trail straight up' it seriously meant straight up! It was a quarter mile hike from the bridge to this community on a trail that was basically straight up and down, and comprised of knee-deep mud. Though it was not a very long hike, this was the hardest part of the day. Second of all, lunch was a little bit interesting... For those who do not know, 'gusanos especiales' are 'special worms'. These a fat, little worms that have yellow bodies with a black head. Talk about disgusting (at least it wasn't cuy, however). By the time my team got up there we were probably about an hour or so behind everyone, and we had  to be leaving pretty soon in order to catch our bus back to Quito. The residents weren't ready for us, so all of the others teams were searching the jungle for yucca and worms. We did not have time to join them, so instead we helped clean the chicken. The chicken was already headless, dead, and gutted by the time we got there, but we were asked to cut it up and get it ready to be fried. When I thought of it as a disection I was okay, but the moment I started thinking of it as food I had a hard time stomaching it. Thankfully, by the time the other teams got back there was not even enough time to eat lunch; so I did not have to eat the chicken. However, we were not let of the hook with the worm. Only five worms were found, so we only had to eat a third of it. It wasn't alive when we ate it, it was cooked over the fire for a few minutes. Surprisingly it didn't taste that bad, it just tasted like overcooked corn that was a bit mushy. If I hadn't known it was a worm I would have thought it was corn and it wouldn't have mattered as much. Just the fact that I knew it was a worm was disgusting. I felt kind of bad, the residents had been looking forward to our coming for a while now and we hardly had a chance to visit with them. I was kind of able to talk with them, one of the guys there knew a bit of English. I understood them, and through charades we could have a bit of a conversation. Earlier, while we were waiting for the other teams to come back, I was talking with Casey and he said something that really stood out to me. We were commenting on how remote this community was and he asked, 'could you imagine giving birth here?'. The infant mortality rate is super high there (not just there, but all over Ecuador) because no one is trained and they don't have access to the proper medical care. I think it's cool how God uses moments like this to reinforce the whole idea of medical missions in my mind. One day I want to go back to Nueva Esperanza and either start a clinic or train people in basic medical care.
Anyways, after we ate the worm we headed back down the 'fun' trail, and back to the house we stayed at the night before to wash up before the bus came; there was no way any bus would let us on because of how muddy we all were. We got back to Quito around 8 at night and spent the night at Casa Blanca (where I am at now). It was nice to do some laundry and to grab some clean clothes and sleep in 'my bed'. I love it here at Casa Blanca, I'll have to post some pictures one of these days (but I need to get through the race first, and I'm still pretty far behind...).
That was day two