Saturday:
It occurs to me that I last wrote you all from the lobby of the Hotel Panarama shortly after the long bus ride to Brazil. The trip took about 20 hours of road time in the bus, plus the short stops along the way.
One of these stops was in Missiones, Argentina to see the San Ignacio mission. This mission, built by the Jesuits for the Gauraní people is now in ruins. In it's peak time, it housed over 4,000 indigenous people. The Guaraní people were relatively accepting the Jesuit invitation, partially because the Jesuits would keep them from being taken by slave hunters. This same mission is the one that the movie "The Mission" is based on. Although sad, I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in ministry, or really, Christianity at large.
In the same town, we went to the writer Horacio Quiroga's house. This man was from Buenos Aires, but loved the jungle dearly. He was a twisted author, reminiscent of Edgar Allen Poe. He wrote deep and dark stories that paralleled his life and the life of those who once lived in the jungle. It was a disturbing place, but very interesting to see.
After our tour of the house and grounds we again loaded up on to the bus (our new home) and had another 2 and a half hours to go. It's amazing just how short 2 and a half hours is to me now.
Once we arrived in Brazil, we settled in and had some time to relax. Matt and I entertained everyone with our dramatic reading skills. No surprise there. We watched some soccer and fell asleep mostly just happy to be horizontal.
Sunday:
What a full and amazing day. We toured the bird park here on the Brazilian side and it was fascinating. There were beautiful birds of all types. Giant man-eating ones and tiny little parakeets. They were adorable. My favorites were the toucans and macaws. The birds are all kept in these giant walk through cages. Some of them are the size of a large room and some the size of gymnasiums. One of the first ones that you walk into is a big one and toucans are just flying all around you. It was very lucky that some of them came over to say hello and pose with us for a bit. They really liked Flip, my video camera.
We saw snakes, an anaconda under the water (spooky) and the man-eating bird. Then we went into the macaw cage! They told us to go in at our own risk and hide anything shiny, like rings, cameras, cell phones, sunglasses, because the macaws might decide to snatch it. We shortly found out why. They were swooping over our heads and going back and forth. They were big and beautiful but a little bit scary at the same time.
After the bird park, we stood in line for a long time to get in to see the Brazilian side of the falls. I was very excited though, because we had lunch while we were waiting and they had turkey sandwiches! I hadn't had turkey since the Miami airport, so it was quite a big deal.
Once we got in, we went straight to our boat ride up to the falls. We took a little safari van thing to a walking trail and then hiked to a waterfall and went down to the river. We got in a motor boat thing and went upstream to the falls. It was absolutely amazing to have our first view of the falls be from below. We went into the falls a little bit and got soaked (fun!!).
We hiked after that the Brazilian side of the trail. The falls are almost at the intersection of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay and the big part is directly between Brazil and Argentina. I can't even use words to paint the picture of the falls. It is extravagant, awesome, breathtaking and mostly just indescribable. There is so much force and power and water; it is absolutely overwhelming.
That night we talked about the falls and what that reminded us of in the Bible and reflected on how spiritual the experience was. I couldn't help but be marveled by the power and might and size of the falls. I thought of the Casting Crowns song "Your Love is Extravagant" and couldn't stop singing it.
That sums it up for days one and two. Stay turned in for the rest of the trip! :)
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