Iquitos

So. I am a poor blog keeper and an even poorer journalist. I have very much failed at logging my trip here. I've been in Peru for 5 weeks now, and have done two posts, one of which wasn't even about Peru.

Needless to say I've got some catching up to do.

Lucky for me, I've somewhat kept a journal of most of my thoughts while I've been doing some traveling. And now, moving in chronological order, VAMOS.

EXCURSION NUMBER 1: Iquitos

Iquitos is the main city in the Peruvian provence of Loreto. Loreto is the biggest provence in Peru, and, if I'm not mistaken, it accounts for nearly 1/3 of the state's landmass. Peru has four main "types" of regions. Sierra (mountains), selva (jungle), costa (coast...I bet you got that one), and desierto (desert).

Iquitos is jungle, and where we headed, it was jungle in rawest form. We landed in Iquitos, you can't get there by bus/boat/train/llama, only by plane. We began a two hour bus ride to the Marañón River, where we hopped on a boat and rode down stream for another hour. 


Marañón means cashew.

main area

We arrived at the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve, and we stayed at a hotel that looked like one those places that they go on the last night of The Bachelor. It was exotic and and beautiful. There wasn't any kind of wi-fi or cell phone signal, and they only had electricity from 6pm-10pm each night. 

When the lights would go out each night it was a very new kind of dark. A darker dark than I have ever experienced, out in the remote jungle wilderness. All we had were wind up flashlights and candles sticks if we needed to make a midnight sprint to the bathroom. The vocal bats hanging from our palm-thatched roof were our lullabies each night, accompanied by frogs, cicadas  and of course, monkeys. There was a light sheet on top of my bed, that stuck to me in the humid jungle air, and a mosquito net canopy that I curled up underneath.

It. Was. Awesome. 

I felt like one of those scientists in Jurassic Park, or a jungle missionary, or a 21 year old from Dallas, Texas with an insatiable desire for adventure sleeping in the middle of the Peruvian jungle for a whole weekend. 

bedroom at night

Not to sound like "that girl who's traveled before..." but this was like my 5th or 6th time in a jungle like this. This one was the largest though. When I was in the rainforest in Costa Rica I was just so in awe of our Creator, and He reminded me of Himself again. Jungles are big. I mean. They're jungles. You know the phrase, "It's a jungle out there"? I don't think that that phrase became a thing because jungles are orderly, predictable, and easy to navigate. They're the opposite of all of those things.

God knows the jungle. But like KNOWS it though. In Spanish, there are 2 verbs for "to know" conocer, which means to be familiar with something, usually used in relation to people, places, programs, ect, and saber, which means to know for certain, usually used with facts, circumstances, ect.
God doesn't conoce the jungle, God sabe the jungle, just like he sabe all of us. 

Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows. (Luke 12:7)

He knows, us, down to the very number of hairs on our head. (For me, this is extra mind boggling.) God knows the squirrel monkeys on the trees, bullet ants crawling across the leaves, even the hallucinogenic mushrooms found on the ground, down to the last fuzz covered fiber...and still, STILL, God KNOWS us, and truly, deeply, loves us and cares for us. Our God is big. Bigger than the Amazon, bigger than who we are, even bigger than the potential that we have to be. Being smack dab in the middle of all of that jungle beauty and thinking about how big His love for me was at the same time was often more than my spirit could take. So as I sat in the back seat of that Amazon River boat I continued to let my mind wander. 

Some times I just gotta take that thing off of its leash so that it can relieve itself.

I started thinking about people. My favorite! Being on the rivers and in the jungle I saw more people that I expected to. Most of whom were indigenous and had lived in villages along the river for their whole lives. The indigenous people are very habitual. They have many rituals and beliefs that are accepted as fact from birth and are engrained into who they are from day one. 

One thing that I learned out there was that the indigenous people and the Christians were often at odds. Christianity and indigenous beliefs would often divide families, and in doing so would divide whole tribes and societies. Now, Jesus said that this would happen. He even encouraged his followers to abandon their mothers and fathers to follow him, but in this instance I feel like so much has been taken out of context.

little jungle village

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." 
Matthew 10:34-39

Christianity is not a call for man to close their minds, but instead is literally the exact opposite of that. To follow Christ and to believe in a Supreme Creator is a call to open the mind up to the infinite possibilities of an omnipresent Father that is infinite in every sense. He is infinitely big, infinitely present, infinitely loving...INFINITE. As in never ever stopping, no beginning no end, so present, but so distant and so forever in so many different directions! 

a church in a village

The same God that gave the western world medicine is the same God that gave the indigenous natural remedies, and the knowledge of what to do with their surroundings. These indigenous people are not at odds with the Creator or the Christ. They are just as dependent on them as the Christians. For life, remedies, well being, salvation.

It is beautiful to me as a Christian  as someone who desires deeply to know the creator of the world and better understand His care, to see how truly He cares for all of his people, even those in the thick of the Peruvian jungle. 

So peace bringing to see my God be my God whether He is recognized or not. Praise God that He is not ashamed of Himself! It is my prayer that I will continue to be unashamedly His.