To Patagonia and Back Again

Romans 1:20
"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse"

Standing in front of the Torres del Paine

This verse and others like it, kept on running through my head throughout my trip in Patagonia.  I am pretty sure that I have never been in a place so beautiful.  Nestled in the southern tip of South America, Patagonia is one amazing canvas for God's handiwork.  Around every bend there were granite towers whose beauty surpassed any cathedral, breathtaking skies, and deep mountain lakes tinted with blues and teals.  As I looked at this beautiful scenery, all I could do was think "wow if the artwork is this beautiful, how amazing must the Artist be!"
I ended up staying in Patagonia for 5 days, trekking with an international group across what is known as the W trail.  At first I didn't think that this trip would have a particularly high difficulty level; however, we did end up putting in more miles than I realized. We ended up trekking an average of 12 miles a day, granted that was just with day packs and that we stayed in mountain refugios and not tents.  It was quite the experience.  On the last two days, our group eased on the hiking and turned to other means of the exploring the Patagonian wilderness: kayaking and glacier trekking.  

Getting ready to kayak!

When we were preparing to kayak, we put on wet suits and jackets to protect ourselves from the cold, but then there was one more article of clothing that at first I did not know what to do with.  It was this semi-round piece of cloth with a hole in the middle.  I then realized that it was the skirt that sealed us into our kayaks.  So, yes, I have now worn a skirt in my adult life, and I was very glad that I did.  I was amazed at how well the sealant worked at keeping the freezing water out of the kayak and us dry.  When we started, I was in a two man kayak with a new friend I met named Suen and we decided to put me in the back because I weighed more.  That position, however, also meant I was in control of the rudder which took some time to get used to.  I am sure that after crashing into a small iceberg in the first few minutes, that Suen was rethinking our plan of having me in the back!  Fortunately, it wasn't just pilot error as the rudder wasn't in the water yet, but I still felt bad.  After that I learned quickly and we avoided any more collisions with icebergs.  The experience was a blast!  I will never forget how amazing it was to see towering icebergs rising out of the water in front of your kayak.  It made you feel small and mesmerized at the same time.

A view of one of the icebergs from the water.

The next day we had trekking on Glacier Grey on our itinerary, but then the only tourist boat broke down and we had no way of getting back to Puerto Natales except to go back on the trail we came with our packs.  This option was not one that we were not so keen on, especially because it would mean that we would have to miss the glacier trekking and some of us had very heavy packs.  But due to  our awesome guide and some persistence, we finally were able to get a non-tourist boat to convey us to the end of the lake after our trek.  In the morning when we found out, I was inside the refugio and I could literally hear one of the girls in our group let out a shriek of excitement outside. It turned out that I was very glad that we did not have to give up that part of the trip.  The glacier trekking was amazing.  One of my favorite parts, was a deep blue pool  that we stopped at, complete with three waterfalls.  It was spectacular.  Besides the beautiful scenery, at that point we also got to try our hand at ice climbing!

Now I am sitting in the airport on my way home, and am reflecting on my experiences.  Patagonia was probably on of the best ways I could have ended my trip. It was breath taking and gave me the space to think about my trip outside of the context of Lima.  As I have been thinking, I have been realizing how much God as blessed me these past 4 and half months.  I have gone through some lonely times, I have seen some spectacular sights, and I learned a lot about myself and this world that I live in, yet through it all the most important thing that I have seen is that God was with me every step of the way.  At no point did he need me, but He always loved me.  In fact in many ways, my plans didn't work out according to the way I had thought that they would in my head, but rather the things God had planned for me He did in His timing and His way.  It was almost as if He were saying to me "Nathan, I am the planner and I have everything in control.  My plans will be fulfilled with or without you, so all you have to be concerned with is being faithful and obedient in the situations I have placed you."  My hope is that, if there is nothing else, that I can take that with me from this experience.  I have seen His faithfulness and now is the time to use what I have learned and put it into practice in my daily life.  I will post one more time once I reach San Diego.  I hope that this blog has helped you guys get a small taste of my experiences abroad.

Plane, Taxi, Combi, Schoolbus?

So these last two days have been filled with interesting travel stories.  It is not so much about what I saw, as much as it was about how I got there.  It all started when Jason and I tried to find a combi that would take us from Puno to Juliaca to get to the airport on Friday morning.  We had decided that we wanted to see the Chulpas (ancient Incan funerary towers which lie between the two cities), and so our plan was to take a combi to the halfway point, take a collective taxi to the Chulpas, stop and see the Chulpas quickly enough to to take some pictures and see some surrounding scenery, take another collective taxi back to the main road where we would hail another combi to take us to Juliaca, and then take one final taxi to the airport from the bus stop. A lot of taxi/combi hopping, right?  Definitely true, but we are young and ambitious with our time.

A mesa in the middle of an Andean lake

So back to the story.  At the beginning of the day, Jason and I asked for directions to the combi stop from the hostel, and were given right directions to the wrong set of combis. That was the first of the delays, but it wasn´t so bad because we found a bus that was going to Juliaca and climbed aboard.  What we didn´t realize; however, is that this bus would stop every block until we got out of Puno to get more passengers. Let´s just say we have had faster.  After that, we got to our next stop and the Chulpas without any problem, but once at the Chulpas we realized that we only had 20 minutes that we could spend there. Due to our time crunch we asked the taxi driver if he could wait for us because the taxis in the area can be sporadic. He agreed to our surprise and we quickly headed up the hill toward the ruins. Along the way, we ran into a group of school children who saw us and got excited to see "gringos." If you travel to Peru and happen to have blonde hair or blue eyes, it is important to know that you will be seen as a novelty almost everywhere.  Anyway, after the school children ran into us, we decided it was time to head back to our cab, but lo and behold, the cab driver was gone and thus we had no ride.  At this point we began to get nervous because we still weren´t near Juliaca and our departure time was coming closer and closer.  After a few minutes of discussing our options, Jason and I  finally decided to ask the school bus driver of the school group if we could hitch a ride with them.  He said yes, and there was my first and probably what is going to be my strangest hitch hiking experience.  I mean, how many people can say they have hitch hiked in a Peruvian school bus in the Andes?  I feel like that is as strange as they come.  From that point on we got to the main highway fine, but then ran into our next snag: no combi that we hailed would pick us up.  After about 6 passed us, we decided that we should start walking to the checkpoint a half mile away, and it was then that a combi pulled over and picked up a local family behind us. We turned around and made large gestures to hail the driver, and luckily this time it worked.  We were on our way.  When we arrived in Juliaca, we got off the combi and tried to do what we thought was going to be the easiest part of our trip: hail a taxi.  In Lima this is no problem because taxis are everywhere and often times try to hail you with their car horns, but in Juliaca it was a different story.  Every taxi either passed us by or told us that they had already recieved a call to pick someone else up.  Around this time is was 11:40 am and our flight was at 12:35 pm. We found ourselves rideless and running against the clock.  Out of desperation, I asked a random woman from the street if she knew where we could pick up a cab, and to my surprise she actually offered to stand with us and hail one for us.  So there we were, two American college students standing with a Peruvian woman and her child trying to hail a cab. It was a sight for sure.  Unfortunately it didn´t work, but we did find a combi, shortly after, that was going to the airport.  We said goodbye to our new found friend and scrambled on.  The time was now 11:50, the flight was leaving at 12:35, and the combi driver told us that it would take 20 minutes to get to the airport.  Wow did we cut it close!  But somehow we made it and were able to breath a sigh of relief on the plane.  That seems like there were plenty of issues for one day on its own, but the adventure didn´t stop there.  One last surprise waiting for us. When I got off the plane I forgot my jacket and a permanent water bottle in a white bag on the plane, and security wouldn´t let me go back and grab it.  Instead they told me that I would have to pick it up the next day. That was a big problem for me because I had my flight to Chile at 6:45 pm that night and needed that water bottle for patagonia.  Jason waited with me for a while, as we tried to get it resolved, but I finally told him to go because he had a test that afternoon and I didn´t want him to be late.  Two hours later I finally got my stuff back due to the hard work of one of the airport employees.
It was one crazy day!  Even with all the chaos, there was one thing that became clear to me: God must have definitely been looking out for us. We had a lot of snags, but we also had a lot of "luck" between well timed people in the right places and random good samaritans. It was just one of those moments, where you look back and you just marvel at the good things that were provided.

Patagonia sky

Now I am in Patagonia, and it is amazing.  It is actually a lot like Alaska here, and because it is summer, the sun doesn´t set till 11:30 pm!  We had a lot of rain today, but the countryside is none the less beautiful. Unlike Alaska; however, it is not all mountainous.  There is  a good portion of it that is rolling hills filled with pastures and forests.  Tomorrow I head out into the wilderness with a trekking group and won´t be back until Thursday.  I am pretty sure that I won´t have internet, so I will see when I can update you guys next.  Until then!

LakeTiticaca

Today was the day that Jason and I went to tour Lake Titicaca, which is on the border of Bolivia and Peru.  There iare a couple of things that you should know before I continue with this post.  First, Lake Titicaca is the highest navegable lake in the world (meaning that it is used for shipping products and has port cities) at a whopping 12,500 feet.  It is also the legendary birth place of the original Inca, and it contains just under a hundred floating islands made by the indigenous people.  All in all a pretty cool place!

Needless to say I was pretty excited to finally get to see it, but then some wrenches were thrown into the mix.  Last night when I went to bed, I was feeling pretty drained and thought it was just being tired from the amount of walking we had done that day, combined with the high altitude, but when I woke up in the middle of the night with a throbbing headache, weakness, more cold than usual, a fast heart beat, and nausea, I realized that I was suffering not from your general, run of the mill fatigue, but high altitude sickness (known here as soroche).  I tried sleeping it off because the next morning at 6:45 am, Jason and I had already paid for our tour on the lake and I would only be able to get half of the cost back if I couldn´t go.  6:00 am rolled around and still didn´t feel better.  I knew from my years of backpacking experience that once you have high altitude sickness the last thing you want to do is try to "push through it" because that can make it way worse!  So I told Jason to have fun and take lots of pictures for me, while I holed up in bed with a jacket and tea by my side.  I was pretty bummed, but more importantly I just wanted to feel better.  Around 11:30 am I finally decided that I was done with my bed and made my way down stairs with a book to sit in the lobby and get some tea.  Although it doesn´t sound like things were going very well for me, it was actually at that point that I had one of my highlights of the day.

The book I had brought down with me is called Crazy Love by Francis Chan.  I had read it once before, but I wanted to take more time to really think about it in depth.  So I started reading, doubtful of whether it would last very long, because reading is one of those things that is the last thing someone wants to do when there sick.  At least its that way for me. Anyway, the premise of the book is how God´s love for us is crazy, and that we should live our lives in response to that lavishing love that He shows each of us.  This time when I started reading, I rediscovered some very powerful points that I know I am prone to forget. Francis Chan started off the chapter with a quote from the Gospel of Matthew chapter 13 verse 44.  Here is what it said:

"The kindom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.  When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field."

Although I had heard it many times before, that verse struck me.  Do I seek Jesus and his life plans for me like that?  Am I willing to set everything else aside for Him? I continued reading, meditating on those questions, which I absolutely wanted to say yes to, because I know that God´s plans and life with Jesus at the wheel is so much better than my way, but I had to look at my life and see if my actions backed that up.  The chapter then continued to talk more in depth about how Jesus isn´t looking for halfhearted people to follow Him, but rather people who are willing to go all in. A couple of other verses jumped out at me later:

Luke 9:23
"The he said to them all: 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.'"

Matthew 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me,'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."

Its not that Francis Chan was saying that we are saved by doing good things, we aren´t, but these Bible verses do show that God is looking for people who are serious about Him.  We all fail, that is to be sure, but the difference is that we get back up and keep following Him even after failure.  This last semester, I definitely found myself taking my own route over God´s.  They weren´t necessarily all in "bad" things either... such as Netflix, but I knew that I was prioritizing things in a way that didn´t always have God as number one. I never cease to be amazed how God is so good at grabbing our attention in unexpected ways.  So basically what I found today was that God used my high altitude sickness to get my attention, and as weird as it sounds I am thankful that.  Later in the day, my altitude sickness got a lot better, and I was actually able to make it out the floating islands (such an awesome experience). Thus in the end I still got to do most of what I had been looking forward to doing, it was just in a different order than I though. So anyway, that was a big thing that happened to me today and just wanted to share with you guy

Tomorrow I am heading out to Chile and will have very limited internet access, but will post again when I get the chance.  Till next time!

The End of the Semester

So here I have come, to the end of the semester and the times of goodbyes to the world that I have come to know so intimately.  It is crazy to think about how long and how short 4.5 months can seem at the same time.  Because of the countless farewell events, and thank you letters  to people who have made big impacts on  my time here, I have been doing some more reflection about my experience.  I feel like in a lot of ways Lima was everything I had hoped.  It was a chance to meet a new culture, be immersed in Spanish, travel, find amazing friends, and most importantly discover about myself.  The last one is the benefit that I have focused on the most, and I am really interested to see what happens as I return to the US and see face to face the changes that living abroad has made on me.  Coming to Lima, I got the chance to step out of my regular routine of life and see myself outside of the context of the "next thing" or the oh so come refrain that everything is "crazy busy."  Now I am looking to see the same thing happen, but instead of getting the chance to see myself in a context outside of my home, I am getting the chance to see how I have changed and grown through this experience.  Despite all of the successes I have seen in my time here, I also learned a lot from my expectations for myself that turned out as failures.  One of those to write for this blog every week, while I was here... which obviously did not happen. Or another more serious one was the way I saw myself getting involved in a church community and acting through faith.  This part especially was an interesting aspect for me, as I saw a lot of my expectations for how that would look fail in one way or another.  What I did find; however, was that God is always faithful and will use someone in ways that they least expect, if only they are willing.  He also taught me that my life isn´t about my plans, but ultimately His (something I feel like we all struggle with at some level).  And so while, I feel that Lima was different than my plans in some ways, I am definitely thankful for the opportunity to have gotten to live here.

On a different note:
There is a lot that I have neglected to tell you all over the past month in this blog and it would take too long to rehash a months worth of abroad life, so I won´t do that.   What I have decided; however, is that for this last week and half of this journal, I am going to try to be more faithful to document my post semester travels. Right now I am in Puno on Lake Titicaca.  I arrived today, and am travelling with Jason (you guys have heard of him in other, earlier posts).  Tomorrow we are going on the tour on the floating islands.  More info on that later so keep looking for the next post!  I promise it will be soon.

Off the Coast of Lima

This last week, I got the opportunity to go with Jason and his host family on a island cruise off the coast of Callao, the port city of Lima.  Jason had mentioned it to me the week before, and two days before my host dad (who happens to be really good friends with Jason's host dad)  asked me if I was interested in going.  I didn't have anything else going on and thought that it would be a cool opportunity to explore a new part of the city that I hadn't seen, so I said yes.  I had no idea how much of a highlight that trip would turn out to be.  I was supposed to meet up with Jason and his family at their house after church and then we would drive to Callao - about a 30 minute drive from where we live.  During church I then get a text message from Jason telling me that I needed to give him my passport number so that I could go on the excursion.  Giving out passport numbers is a common occurrence here as Peruvian law requires vendors of tourism and housing accommodations to have that information on file for foreigners. Although it meant I would have to make a detour and go back to my house before I met up with the others, I thought no problem.  Then just as church ended, I received a phone call from my host dad who told me that I had to get them my passport number right then or otherwise I might not be able to go!  Talk about stressful. I made a quick stop to take out some money from the ATM, and booked it back to my house to grab my passport.  It turned out that it wasn't as big of a deal as we thought, and I made it in plenty of time to Jason's house, but it was interesting snag for reasons you will find out later.

When we finally made it to Callao we boarded the boat that would take us around the Palomino Islands and headed to our first destination.  Although I live next to the beach, I don't normally go down the cliffs to get to it very often (mostly because I don't want to climb up the cliffs again and the water is cold this time of year).  When we disembarked from the dock, I remembered how much I love the ocean.  There is something about the salt air, majestic swell of waves, and sound of sea that just makes me love it!
On our way I was staring into the water when I suddenly saw a red mass whisk past our boat, followed by an orange and a white one.  They were huge, ranging from the size of a duffel bag to a full grown man.  I quickly realized that they were jelly fish.  I had to agree with the assessment of the Spanish name "malagua" as it means "bad water" and I certainly lost all desire to go swimming when I saw them.  I mean, they were cool, but just from the boat. I think they would lose their "coolness" up close in the water.


The first island that we stopped at was a preserve for sea lions.  It was incredible.  We were told by our guide that there were over 9000 sea lions on the island.  They covered it like ants.  Another interesting fact I learned was that the Spanish name for sea lion is "lobo del mar" or wolf of the sea.  Its really interesting to learn the names of animals in other languages because it gives you a sense of how they view them.  After we left the island we made our way to our next stop which was an island with penguins.  It was cool to get to see this as penguins only exist in a few select habitats of the world.  To top of the day, we got see a beautiful Lima sunset.  It was a rare treat and absolutely stunning.  All in all the to trip the ocean that day was definite highlight of my time in Lima.

So earlier in the post I mentioned that my passport issues turned out to be a snag for me later, and now as promised I will tell you why.  The following day, I was coming home from school and decided to stop to buy some groceries. I didn't have any cash on me so I decided that I would just pay for it with my bank card.  That's when I realized that I didn't have the card and that I had left it in the ATM in the rush to get my passport!  Luckily I was able to use my credit card, but my heart sank at the thought of my lost bank card.  It was too late to do anything that day, so I just went home slightly depressed and hoping that someone wasn't having the time of their lives on my tab.  The next day I went to a local branch to cancel my card and get a new one, but they told me that I could only have my card replaced at the branch it was issued (45 min. away).  I was not excited about that, so I decided to go talk to the bank where I originally lost the card.  When I got there, I explained my situation and asked the watchman at the door who I needed to see.  He directed me to sit in front of an empty desk and told me to wait.  I was there for about ten minutes and was beginning to think that I had been forgotten, when finally one of the clerks saw me and called me over.  To my surprise he opened up a drawer in his desk, and pulled out my card; the card I had lost two days before!  I was so excited that he had it and that it wasn't stolen.  That was a huge blessing from God and it made my day.

So that is what I have for y'all for now.  Hopefully I will be posting on here again soon as I have a  trip to El Carmen this weekend.  ¡Hasta luego!

Lima Life Top 10

Over the past two weeks, I haven't been very active about posting on my blog, and most of my previous posts have been about the trips I have gone or insights I have had, so this post I decided to dedicate to telling you all about some of my favorite things about Lima.  A sort of top ten, but this one doesn't have any particular order.  So here we go...

1.  The Malecon.  It is this breathtaking set of cliffs, covered by ivy, overlooking the ocean here in Miraflores, perfect for walking, running, or just hanging out with friends.  I can't believe how blessed I am to be able to live in just a short walking distance of this gem.

 2.  My host family.  I love that I have gotten the chance to live with and get to know these guys.  Whether it is long talks in the kitchen with my host dad or talking about sports games with my host brothers, I love having a family to come back to at the end of the day.  Also a special shout out to Neri, she is the women who works as a house keeper at our condo.  Although she is not pictured below, she has been a great source of encouragement and I have been lucky to have her around.

3.  The combis.  This is a love/ hate relationship at its finest.  Hate because I am always too big for the seats and my knees will forever feel scrunched with the seat in front of me.  Love because although the system is chaotic, it makes it super affordable and easy to get from place to another.

 4. Lali, Mama Laura, and Maria Elena.  These are the women that make the IFSA study abroad program run.  No matter what you know that they are there for you, whether it is help with figuring out school stuff, adjusting to Peruvian life, or just simply cookies and a chat.  Whenever you see one of these awesome people, you always leave smiling.  In the photo, Lali is getting into the spirit of Halloween and helping us "gringos" feel a little more home.

5.  The parks.  Featured below is Parque Kennedy, but I really love how many parks we have in Lima. They are a great place to meet up with friends, and experience the cultural side of Lima.  Whenever I get the chance I try to make sure my route includes a park because you never know what you will find. One time, I found a mime group, another it was group of elderly couples dancing to classic Limeña songs; life is full of surprises.

6.  La Lucha. This sandwich shop is amazing and delicious, but I choose this to represent food here in Peru in general.  It is delicious and cheap.  I mean,  I certainly couldn't get a three course meal and drink for $2.80 in the US!

7.  The coffee shops.  I have been able to explore the numerous cafes, like Arabica shown below, and have developed a love for the great study atmosphere and good cup of americano.  They have given me just another way to explore the city.

 8.  Chifa (aka Peruvian Chinese food).  It is a staple here with Chifa restaurants practically everywhere, you will soon fall in love with it too, after living here for a while.  It is its own unique blend of two very different cultures that always makes my taste buds thank me.

 9.  The mixture of the ancient with the modern.  Many cities can boast about having a cool mixture of the new and the old.  Their version of old is 100 to maybe a 1000 years old, but in Lima it dates back to before Christ.  This is a picture on the street just outside my house, and at the end of the street is Huaca Pucllana, the ruins of an ancient temple.  How cool is that?

 10.  Friends.  God has blessed me with some pretty cool friends here.  They each have their own distinct, cool personalities that makes me love hanging out with them so much.  I am glad to have them here on study abroad and it has been awesome to go through all of the ups, downs, and everything in between during our time here in Peru!

Anyway,  I hope that gives a little bit of the flavor of what Lima life is like that maybe my other posts haven't covered.  I just wanted to take this chance to share with you some of those "everyday thing" highlights.
1 Thessalonians 5:17-18
"Pray without ceasing, in everything gives thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."

Lima Celebrations, Intermurals, and More!

The image of El Señor de los Milagros

This past week, the big event in Lima was El Señor de los Milagros,which translated to English means Lord of Miracles.  The centerpiece of this celebration is the procession of a mural of the crucifixion.   It was incredible.  The streets of central Lima were teeming with thousands of people who came out to observe the festival.  Some estimates of the number of people who participate in the procession are in the hundreds of thousands, making the streets seem like a sea of purple robes. Through out the days of the celebration, flowers are thrown from the rooftops as the image draws near and the streets are adorned with huge banners of purple.  I ended up going to see this festival with a friend named Jason, another study abroad student.  On the morning that we were set to go, his host dad surprised us with invitations to watch the procession from the Municipal Palace of Lima with the mayor!  Apparently Jason's host dad is the mayor's brother.  Who knew?  The experience was incredible and completely unexpected.  All we could do was laugh at how fortunate we were: it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences.  Topped off with fireworks shot off from the cathedral, El Señor de los Milagros is something that I will not soon forget.  After that we headed to Barranco to meet up with the other kids from our study abroad program to celebrate a birthday with burritos.  All in all it was a very successful day.

This picture just gives you a sample of
the number of people at the procession

The next day, Saturday, I started off my day competing in long jump.  Yes I said long jump... the track event that I have not competed in since junior high!  My facultdad, the School of Social Sciences, needed volunteers to fill spots, and on Thursday asked me if I would compete.  They needed warm bodies and I had had some experience, so I decided why not?!  I was definitely not the star of the event, but it was fun.  Next week I will try my hand at competing for my facultad in swimming.  I haven't competed in that for a long time either, but I am expecting to do a lot better in that because swimming is my life during the summers when I am working as a swim instructor.  After the competition, I spent most of the afternoon volunteering at the parochial clinic where I work.  Although I don't plan on going into dentistry, I love the experience that I am getting there.  I get to have a lot of hands-on contact with patients, and the doctors go out of their way to teach me and explain what they are doing.  I feel like I am really able to be useful there, and that I am learning a lot about the Peruvian health system and patient care.  The clinic is a definite blessing.

If there is one thing I have learned while studying abroad is that life in Lima if full of the unexpected.   This week has definitely stayed true to that.  Until my next update!