After 9 hours of driving (including stopping for lunch) we arrived in Bucaramanga at the chapel building where Marcia VanderLaan and the Emmaus office staff met us with a cold supper--the perfect end of a beautiful day's drive.
The Jojoa family and we stayed in a room upstairs in the church building and Jim and Judy Mayer stayed at Marcia's apartment. On Sunday Jim F. spoke at the chapel we were living in and Jim M. spoke at another assembly. We walked downtown for 40 minutes and found a restaurant and then 40 minutes back. While Jim F. met with the Emmaus office staff in the afternoon, I conked out on our upstairs bed. Later the young people came over and made us a typical soup of the region with an egg for each person carefully dropped into it to stay whole. They also made Santanderian arepas--almost as big as tortillas, but a little thicker made of corn flour. These are to break apart and put in the soup and they looked aghast at us when we salted them and ate them! (Santander is the department Bucaramanga is in.)
Monday we drove an hour and a half back to the Valley of Chicamocha where a national park has been opened. It's not like American national parks, although there is great beauty to see, it also has man made attractions like a 2000 ft. zip line over a small valley which Samuel and Rosana enjoyed. While we were all seeing the sights, Judy went apartment hunting with Marcia who had to move out of her apartment by the end of the month. They found one and she applied for it and got it! Tuesday we visited a couple of little towns nearby and spent the afternoon at a sports park. Those who had swimsuits enjoyed the pool. In the evening another family had us over for "onces" -- an evening snack of arepa, cheese and hot chocolate.
Wedneseday we drove back over the road to Tunja where we got Rosana on a bus bound for Bogota. She went to a friend's house and the next day to a young people's camp out another valley from Bogota. We continued on to Villa de Leyva for a five day camp with the Suba and Pepe Sierra congregations. More thumbnails ...
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