I'm home now!

Greetings from the USA. Iguazú for debriefing was the most amazing experence ever!

First, we finished off the week amazingly. At the last minute, when we were saying good-byes, one of our team actually brought someone to Christ! That was such an amazing testament to God's will and God's time!

During our last week in La Plata, we had many different activities. First, on Monday night after our last English Club, we had an Asado, which is a big feast in Argentina where they cook 13kg of meat (all from the cow). It was SO crazy. Being as picky as I am and still sick, I decided not to eat but nothing beats seeing my friends try Blood Sausage (which, a few people seemed to like but others hated). It was a really cool experience.

Tuesday night was a Despedida for us at the Sede de Vida Estudiantil. Basically, a despedida is a big goodbye party where everyone we had met came to say their goodbyes. It was so crazy to see so many people in one place.... to think it was all the seeds we spread! I really hope the fruit grows from those people.

The best/saddest was seeing/saying goodbye to Rocio! She told me how she was glad I shared with her and she had accepted Christ. It was really a sad moment to say goodbye and I hope someday I can visit her or she can come to the USA and visit us!

Wednesday was our last day in La Plata and we had a team dinner at this reallllly fancy steakhouse. Which was cool, except I still wasn't feeling up to par so it wasn't as fun as it could've been. But, thats life and I still enjoyed our last day together as a team. Afterwards we went down to the center of town, to the cathedral where we went our first day in La Plata and took some team pictures of the cathedral in the dark and us jumping off the giant platform in the center.

Thursday morning, at the ripe 'ol time of 5:45AM we met to leave La Plata. We took a bus to Buenos Aires,where we dropped off our luggage and met the BA team. Then, we all headed to the airport to fly to Iguazú Falls.

Iguazú was probably the most beautiful place I have EVER seen. They are the largest natural waterfalls in the world. We stayed at the Sheraton Hotel inside the national park, which was amazing. From our balcony in the lobby we had a view of the falls, which was breathtaking.

The first day we took a short hike to Garganta del Diablo, or the devil's throat as they are known. Those were probably the biggest, most powerful falls I have EVER SEEN. Niagra Falls seems like a stream compared to these. Breathtaking.

The next day we did 2 hikes through the rainforrest - the first was called the upper circuit, which took us to the higher up points on the falls deep within the rainforrest. Then, we did the lower circuit which takes you up-close-and-personal with the falls.

The coolest was on the lower circuit you can go over to San Martin Island and hike there as well, or sit on the beach on these huge rocks and marvel at the waterfalls. While my group hiked on up, I just sat on the rocks and looked at the falls. Then, I got adventurous and walked a bit out into the water, which was cool.

Finally, the best was the boat ride under the waterfalls. Unlike Maid of the Mist in Niagra Falls, you actually go underneath two different waterfalls. Its insane! Of course I was a tourist and bought the DVD of the park which included us on the boat ride underneath ;) Thats America's Funniest Home Videos material right there.

The temperature in Iguazú was amazing as well. Being closer to the equator (which I didn't think about when I ran around in my swim suit all day without sunscreen!), it was really nice there.. probably about 75 or 80 degrees. Wearing my swim suit, when I had been wearing my jacket and sweatpants for 6 weeks was a breath of fresh air. However, the only day I got to fully enjoy that was the day of our hikes and boat tour, but at least it was warm those days when we were freezing cold and wet!!

The wildlife at Iguazú is also amazing. There are many different types of birds, caterpillars, and butterflies. There are also things called coaties, which are a mix it seems between a racoon and anteater in appearance. They also had a habit of jumping on the table and stealing people's sandwiches, which happened to a few people in our group.

The coolest experience with wildlife was our last day there. The whole trip we had seen this sign on our balcony window warning up to keep it locked because Monkeys could enter. We thought, yea right, we haven't seen any monkeys. Well, the last day half our group when ziplining and repelling while others of us decided to go shopping in the park. Needless to say, as we were walking back from shopping all the sudden we heard something in the jungle beside us. As we looked up, we saw about 15 to 20 monkeys swinging through the trees. It was SO AWESOME! I was like 10 feet from real-live-monkeys in their natural habitat. So awesome. We got to see them for probably about 30 minutes, as well as running and getting the other people in our group at the hotel to come look at them!

Sadly though, we only got 2 1/2 days in Iguazú before we had to fly back to BA. We spent a night and a day in BA and got to see some more of the city. Our hotel there grossedme out and I swear there was something biting me, although I could not find any evidence of bed bugs. DISGUSTING! We on the La Plata team don't know how the BA team survived in that hotel! haha We missed our Hotel del Sol!

Our flight back was, well, interesting to say the least. As we go to check in, we find out our flight has been delayed 5 hours. So, instead of leaving at 9 something, we left after 2am. So United fed us a free dinner in the airport restaurant (way better than plane food!) and was very accomodating about rescheduling connecting flights (including one girl who wasn't even flying United and they moved all her flights to theirs). We ended up all missing our flights - theirs to Greensboro and mine to Charleston. In fact, we didn't get into Washington, DC until 11:15AM, when we were all supposedto be at our final destinations by 9:30AM. OH and they failed to notify our parents about that too... luckily I had a calling card with a few minutes left to call my parents and tell them I would be in Charleston around 1:30PM, hopefully. When they put me on the 12:30 flight to Charleston, there was only a 50% chance I was going to make the flight. Well, somehow, totally a God thing, they decided to let me go on through customs and not scan my bag, so I made my flight within 5 minutes. Talk about God watching out for me! Had I missed my flight, I was stuck in the DC airport until 530PM when the next flight left! When I arrived in Charleston I was greeted by my parents and my sister and then we went to baggage claim to discover only 1 of my bags made that flight, so we had to file a lost bag report and finally around 8PM that bag made it to my house. So crazy!

But, now I am home and beginning "real life" again with my internship and going to the Delta Omicron convention on the 16th in Cincinnati, which should be amazing!

If anyone would like to view my photos from the trip, you can check them out at:
My Photos on SnapFish

Also, if anyone would like to see the letter I sent my supporters about the things I learned, please view it at:
My Website