La Selva

We have been on a six-day trip to the eastern part of Ecuador. It is part of the upper reaches of the Amazon River basin. We stayed in the town of Shell near Puyo at the hostel near the Church of the Nazarene. It is being run by the pastor's wife and another young couple. It was clean and neat, but has just recently been taken over by the church. It needs some work. We did some painting and cleaned the exterior wood with Diesel fuel to protect it from termites.

On Tuesday, we took a long hike into the forest to see a waterfall and some of the group went swimming in the pool at the base of the waterfall. Stephen enjoyed sitting in the water and throwing rocks. It was a difficult hike, but we had great guides who helped Stephen navigate the steep sections in the trail. After the hike, they served us lunch of fresh fish. It was excellent. After lunch, we had a short ride down the river in dugout canoes. I was so tired that I could hardly sit on the stool to eat my hamburger that night. I lay down for a hour or so before taking my shower. That night, I slept very well.

Wednesday, we were flown over to the Huaorani Indian village for the morning. They had a short service with a few songs and a testimony from one of the tribe members who was part of the party that killed the five missionary men in 1956. He spoke in Huaorani which was then translated into Spanish and finally into English. We had prayer together and then walked over to a structure which was covered with palm leaves. There were tables on each side and and open area in the middle. Some of the Indians did a dance for about ten minutes. It was fun to watch them as they sang and danced almost like a train circling through the large shelter and out into the open.

If you don't know the story, try to find the movie "End of the Spear" or read the wikipedia articles on "Operation Auca."

We flew back to Shell in time for lunch and then went up river for the white water rafting. At the last minute, I decided that I was not comfortable to take Stephen in the raft, so he and I stayed with Lucy and one of the guides. Dave did go and had a great time. Everyone was soaked to the bone and exhausted.

This morning, the wife of a current Mission Aviation Fellowship pilot gave us a look inside the house of Nate Saint, the missionary pilot who was killed in 1956. The house was also a guest house for visiting missionaries and was used as a sort of hospital to care for sick and injured tribal members, so it is quite large. It is riddled with termites, so we did not walk around inside very far, but did see the kitchen and radio room. It is right across the street from the airport.

On our way back to Quito, at another spectacular waterfall, we took an open cable car ride across the river. This time, Dave watched. It was quite thrilling, and Stephen's hat blew off. It was good that Lucy caught it.

We arrived home a little before 5:00 and everyone was very tired. I still need to do some work on my journal for Monday. I don't want to put it off because we may be spending a lot of time in the office.

We wanted to get this posted tonight. We'll try to fill in more details soon. Look for pictures on Flickr also.