Crazy, Wonderful, Unexpected Adventure

As mentioned in our previous post, we did in fact end up going on a trip with our friends, Yuneth and Ramiro.  It was going to be the weekend after Easter, but because some other plans changed, we decided to go over Easter weekend.  With less than a week to prepare, what were we thinking?!

Ramiro and Yuneth were making most of the arrangements, from getting our train tickets to finding a place to stay.  It ended up that since Santiago is a pretty small town, there weren't many options for places to stay.  What we were left with was staying at Ramiro's aunt and uncle's place, camping out in their spare front room with no furniture.  Yuneth asked Carl if I was going to be okay with this camping thing. I was kind of wondering how it all worked but I reasoned, if it's good enough for our friends, it's good enough for us.

We left on Wednesday afternoon on the train with all our sleeping bags, air mattresses, clothes, towels, snacks, water, toilet paper.  There were 6 adults and 6 kids since Silas and Isaac, two volunteers living with Yuneth and Ramiro were coming along as well.  (Then Yuneth's Mom joined us a day later).

It started off a bit rocky.

There was a problem with Isaac's visa and he almost got apprehended by the police and threatened with being shipped out of the country.  He was pretty shook up by the whole ordeal but Yuneth got in there and gave the police an earful to explain the situation.

We had a fun time relaxing on the slow moving train.  Except for the traumatizing zombie movie playing, the trip was pretty uneventful.  I don't get why here they show such awful movies on the buses and trains....The rocking lulled Elena to sleep which was really nice and the kids played in the aisle, ate snacks, read books.  A bunch of us adults caught up on sleep.

We arrived in Robore at about 2 a.m. on Thursday morning.  Our kids were pretty groggy.  We were hoping to all pile into a trufi that could take us the 30 minutes or so to Santiago, but he only had room for Ramiro and Lucas, me, Elena, and Asha.  So off we went and he was planning to turn around and pick up the rest on the next trip.

When we arrived, I was so pleased to find out that instead of us needing to set up a tent off the house, Ramiro's uncle had asked the people who had booked rooms in his guesthouse to kindly find other accommodations so that there would be room for us all.  When Ramiro showed me to our room (with a bathroom off it too!) I blurted out, "Ooooo...there are beds!"

The rest of the crew was eventually picked up by the trufi and didn't get in until almost 3:30.  We were all so beat.  The next morning we slept until about 10:30 before enjoying a nice relaxing breakfast with Tio Juan and Tia Florita.

For lunch, we headed to a local pension and enjoyed lots of food.  We had planned to leave all the kids, minus Elena, and head off for a hike up to the lookout point outside of town.  At 2 p.m. a neighbour girl came by to watch the 5 kids and we 6 adults plus the baby headed down the road, making our way to the lookout overseeing the Tucavaca Valley.

It took about 2 hours to make our way to the top, but it was worth it!  We first had the stroller until the road ended and the trail began, and then soon realized we'd have to ditch it in the bush and carry the baby up.  Of course, I forgot my cuddly wrap, so I just held her in arms.  Once we reached the top, we took pictures and rested.

Ramiro, Silas, and Isaac wanted to go up to one more lookout point at the top of the hill, but Carl, Yuneth, and I decided not to.  We parked ourselves in the shade and drank terere. 

About 15 minutes later, we heard Ramiro yelling what we thought was him getting our attention so we would take a picture of them at the top.  We yelled back that we couldn't see him.  He yelled again, this time he seemed a lot closer, when suddenly he burst through the bushes screaming, "I've been bitten by a snake!"

We tried not to panic as he ripped off his shoes and socks to expose the bite mark.  Thankfully, only one fang penetrated the runner into his foot, while the other got stuck in the rubber shoe bottom.  Carl quickly got out his pocket knife, threw it to Yuneth and she sliced into the bite to get out the venom.  I turned away with Elena because I have a hard time with blood.  Isaac ran down from the hill right behind Ramiro (although super traumatized that a snake would bite him too) and made his way rapidly to the road, praying that he'd encounter a truck or something to get Ramiro to medical attention.

Praise God, Isaac flagged down a truck on the first turn and they happened to have a serum in their backpacks that would buy Ramiro precious time.  This was an answer to our prayers since we had only met one motorcycle on the road on the whole hike up to the hills.  Silas, Carl, Elena and I went down the hill and made our way back to town as quickly as we could on foot.

By the time he got to the doctor, Ramiro couldn't really feel his legs or arms and was having trouble seeing.  He got two antivenin shots that were able to reduce the symptoms and by evening, he was feeling a bit better.  We figured out that the snake that bit him was from this family of snakes, most likely a Fer-de-Lance, but called by the locals Yopero Jobobo.  It's a snake that instead of just biting and fleeing, will actually come back to bite again.  It's ornery and aggressive.

The rest of our trip, Ramiro spent in bed with a hugely swollen foot and sore leg.  Oh, it was hard for Yuneth, but thankfully her mother was there to help her, Isaac and Silas were too, and we were just thankful that Ramiro was out of danger.  Praise God that the kids weren't there to witness it and that they weren't bitten.  Two fangs in a small child...I can't imagine how awful the outcome....God has his angels protecting us.

They insisted we carry on with the plans we had made, so on Friday, we headed to Aguas Calientes.  It's a shallow lake (like 6-24in) that has bubbling volcanic heat coming up from it.  It was so warm that it was too hot for Elena to dangle her feet in.  It doesn't smell like sulfur or anything, but has soft spots where you sink in up to your waist and can dangle your legs in this crevice of swirling sand and hot bubbles.  It's kind of creepy and amazing all at the same time.  We also went after lunch to a river where the water was warm, like bath water.  Carl wasn't that excited about that.  He said when it's a hot day he wants cool refreshing water.  But the rest of us had a good time!

On Saturday, Carl, Silas, and Isaac went hiking out to Los Pozas.  It's quite the hike to get up to rock formations where there are deep pools of water, carved out of the hills by a stream and waterfalls.  Now that cool water was more of Carl was hoping for.  The waterfalls were beautiful and the water heavenly to swim in.  Yuneth and I had decided that it would be utterly ridiculous to take a bunch of small children to cliffs, waterfalls, and deep pools of water.  So we stayed home and visited, walked around town, shopped for food for the evening meal.

That evening, we had the privilege of going to a concert put on by the Santiago Chorus and Orchestra.  We have a SALTer that is part of leading and directing the group, so it was really nice to see what she has been doing all year long in her term of service.  The concert was beautiful.  Our kids enjoyed it and it was amazing to hear Vivaldi in a 250 year old Catholic church in the middle of the Bolivian campo.

The next morning, Easter Sunday, was cool and rainy.  Our original plans had been that we would make our way to Robore to see more sights before heading out on the train that night.  But unfortunately, Ramiro had taken a turn for the worse on Saturday night and went to the hospital in Robore with Yuneth for more antivenin treatments.  We decided then to go to the morning service and then after head to Robore with all our things to stay with Ramiro's other relatives until our departure.

The morning service was very moving.  If you missed my Easter reflections, you can read more here. 

After the service, we went and packed up our stuff, said goodbye to Tio Juan and Tia Florita and piled into the van.  It was a bit squishy with all our stuff. "Gosh Yuneth has a lot of clothes!", exclaimed her mother.  I guess I'm not the only one who over packs!

We met up with Yuneth in Robore and she let us know that Ramiro was doing much better after having another antivenin shot.  He had already had used the only ones in Santiago, hence why they had to rush him to the nearest hospital in Robore.  Though she was relieved, you could tell Yuneth was tired.  Poor thing.  I did my best to encourage her, so we went to the market and bought some hair accessories to lift her spirits.  Shopping is always therapeutic.

We spent the day hanging out in the plaza, at their aunt and uncle's house, doing crosswords, visiting and sitting around.  Carl said with the cool rainy weather and being outside all day, it was like camping in the Whiteshell on May long weekend!

By 8 p.m. we were packing up and heading out.  Ramiro was released from the hospital and carefully eased into the taxi as we made our way to the train.  It left at 10 p.m. and lights out soon after that.  Oh, we were all so tired but thankfully there were no killer slasher movies playing so I think we slept the entire time.  Our arrival came so quickly, so it seemed, that we barely had time to get our stuff together, off the train, and quickly said goodbye to Ramiro, Yuneth and Co.  They were taking him directly to the hospital here in Santa Cruz to see a snakebite specialist.

We got home and slept.  We did a mountain of laundry and did some grocery shopping.  Oh, what an adventure with our friends.  It's a trip that I won't soon forget.

************************

As we have been home, we have been thinking of how we can help Ramiro and Yuneth out.  Thankfully, he is out of the hospital now and doing much better.  After all was said and done, he had a total of over 10 antivenin shots (he got 7 more once we got here to Santa Cruz), costing about $50 each.  Most people here only make about $15 per day in wages....That plus the hospital costs, plus the month long respite he has to take from work is going to add up to a lot for this family.

So if you would like to join us in helping them financially, leave me a comment or email me at kathyheppner(at)gmail(dot)com and I'll let you know how you can come alongside us and support them.  We'll keep you posted.