Trip to Puno

This past Friday, my cohort and I left for Puno. The city where I’ll be working in 4 months. We had a lot of fun. The trip there and back was long, but while we were there we had a lot of fun. It was definitely worth a 4 or 5 hour drive. When we got there, it was late at night, so we just checked into the hotel and went to bed. The next day, we went out to the floating islands, then had lunch at the pastors house, and then went to a youth group that night in our future church. Sunday was kinda of a free day until about 5, so me and my partner, Nelson Guerrero, walked around the city a little. Then we had dinner, went to church, then left for Arequipa again. So now, a little bit more about the things I’ve mentioned here…

So the bus ride…. It was a 4 or 5 hour trip up to Puno. It was comfortable, but sitting anywhere for that long and not being able to move, you start to cramp. Plus, with going from around 8,000ft. to around 12,000ft. I got a headache too. But it wasn’t all bad. They had a few tv’s on the bus, with some army movie in Spanish with French subtitles haha. I ended up just trying to sleep the whole way.

We got in late at night, so our first impression of the city was at night with all the lights every where. We couldn’t really see the lake, but it gave us a good idea of how big the city actually is.  As it turned out, our hotel was luckily in the middle of town, halfway to the church and the pastor’s house, and halfway to the plaza. We found out later that Extreme might buy the hotel we stayed at as our house. It would be super cool. It’s a really nice building, we’d all have hot water, we’d all have our own bathrooms, but we’d also be able to use it as a hotel and make a little bit of money to help out Extreme, and it is a possible new location for the church there. Right now, they’re church is way to small. Please keep the hotel in prayer that the price will drop a little and that Extreme will be able to buy it. Not so that we can be comfortable, but that we would have a building with more functions to further God’s kingdom.

While we were there, we got a glimpse of where we’ll be ministering.  Some of us will go out to the floating islands and talk with the locals there. Hopefully it’ll be me and Nelson. We’d have to row out there, which would take about 30 mins, or we’d have to pay to take a boat. But I would love to be the one to go out there. I’m not a city person, and love the water. Definitely where I want to be stationed. While we were there, we got to ride on a boat made out of reeds.  I even paddled a little.

It only costs around 1,400 soles (about $450). And to make an island is free. Pretty cool I think. It might even be where I end up living after my two years haha. On the way back from the islands, we had an awesome view of Puno.

When we got back, we went up to the pastors house and ate. We went up on the roof and played some soccer, or tried haha It was really hard to breath there. Even just walking for a little you’d start to breath hard. Anyways, the have an awesome view from their roof.

The trip back to Arequipa was pretty uneventful. We left at 8pm and didn’t get back until like 3am. I’m definitely looking forward to living there. I think that’s about all that happened. Now that I have a camera I’ll try to keep putting more pictures up on every post.

Thanks for all the prayer support!