Nacho Libre

I have been waiting for a few weeks to share the following news. I wanted to make sure things developed enough so that I didn't blow smoke about nothing while pursuing a few things. A few weeks ago we had some of the upper leadership of the MAF world here in Shell to visit. During a lunch meeting with one of the guys, who is our regional manager, he asked us if we were up for a "change," meaning...moving.

The program in Oaxaca, Mexico is needing some help badly right now, and that is where we were asked to consider moving, and that is exactly what we are doing....considering it. Today, I bought tickets to visit Oaxaca (pronounced wa-ha-ca) at the end of next week to get a lot of questions answered, see the program firsthand, and see what life is like in Oaxaca.

Now, for an explanation of the title...for those of you who have seen the movie "Nacho Libre" you have seen the city of Oaxaca. While the places MAF-Mexico serves are vastly different than the city of Oaxaca, the city itself it very "typically" Mexican.

Anyway, in a few weeks, after my scouting trip December 7-13, we will make our decision to stay in Ecuador, or move to Mexico. Please join us in prayer about this as there are pro's and con's to this move, as well as staying in Ecuador.

Los Andes

It has been a crazy week to say the least. The main reason we haven't shared much about it is because our Internet has been down. Thankfully it seems to be up and running again for the time being. Over Thanksgiving, we, as an MAF staff, went on a retreat in an Andean town called Salcedo. It was a great time. Here are some of the pictures from it...

Los Ilanizas at sunset. We came out of the fog just in time to see the sun setting on these two extinct volcanoes.

On our way to Quilotoa crater (see below) we drove through numerous Quechua Indian villages. Becca and I have always loved the way the cheeks of so many Quechua's turn so rosy red due to the cold and chapping effect of the high altitude Andean wind.


Quilotoa crater is an extinct volcano that obviously blew it's top a long time ago. Like most pictures, this doesn't do it justice in terms of scale. If you look carefully on the bottom center edge (click the picture to enlarge), you will see some paddle boats the size of compact cars. The crater itself is over 2 miles across. It was a fun side trip to Quilotoa, and seeing it as well was a blessing with all the bad weather we had.

Stay tuned for more big news...

You lookin' at me...?

Last weekend we traveled up the road into the Andes and went to the Baños Zoo. All zoos we have been to outside of the USA have been drastically different from something you might see in the States, but it is still fun, especially to see Brooklyn's reaction to things.

This jaguar was a little sleepy when we first approached his cage. But, after a well placed rock (try that in the States) he promptly arose and looked at the famous "Lariat Rock Chucker" (that is another story). We also saw mountain lions, monkeys, many different sized rodents and a Galapagos Tortoise, all for $2.

From the logbook...late afternoon dash

After waiting almost all day for the weather to break, we finally got our chance around 3pm. I had a short flight with only 2 stops, so I took my time and took some pictures in Cumai and shot some video as well. Maybe in the future I will post another short video. I landed in Cumai with almost 800 pounds of school books, and then flew 2 minutes to Chapintza to drop off a school supervisor. From there it was a 20 minute flight back to Shell. I always like these short flights on a late Friday afternoon. It is an easy transition from there into the weekend.

Another oops...

Last Friday Iberia Airlines, the national airline of Spain, had an oops in Quito with one of their Airbus 340's. It is a common story. They landed way to long and way too fast, and thus went off the end of the runway where the airplane still sits until it is cut apart. Thankfully nobody was hurt. The weather conditions at the time of the accident were very marginal as well, which I am sure had something to do with the pilot's poor decision making.

Before and after

Some of you may remember this post. Well, unfortunately this pilot and plane had another mishap on Tuesday. Praise the Lord all were okay, although 2 of the 4 passengers were admitted to the hospital. They later were discharged pretty banged up, but otherwise okay. The plane crashed due to being overweight and encountering "a bad wind" on takeoff.

More snakes

Yesterday, while in the community of Makuma I had a while to wait while my doctor passenger attended to some local patients before heading to Nunkui with me. One of the missionaries that lives there in Makuma is very passionate about all things crawly, especially snakes. He was just brought the one you see below the day before by some nearby villagers. The snake was beautifully green and yellow. We took him into the nearby grass to get some pictures, where he got a little agitated (that was the plan) and puffed up and got into his defensive strike position. Unfortunately, I had my camera on black and white setting, which is undoable, thus making the brilliantly colored snake two tone. Oops!

Fluid Dynamics

Di-hydrogen oxide (water) is a weird thing. With all the water in Ecuador, there are obviously a lot of rivers and streams. Due to their rapid elevation loss over a short period of time, most of the rivers take on a very muddy appearance until they are much farther downstream, almost to the Peruvian border some 100-120 miles away. I have noticed while flying over the plethora of waterways in the jungle the interesting way some of the streams and rivers merge. While I cannot explain all the details about their merging, two bodies of water carrying different sediments etc, alters their density, thus their ability to mix easily. Therefore in the picture below two rivers basically comprised of the same elements are "repelling" each other until much farther downstream where they mix and become the same color.

Bagre anyone?

In keeping with my unexpected animal theme as of late, here is another creature found in the hangar earlier this week. This is a jungle catfish, probably in the 25-30 pound range. They get immensely bigger, as this is only a small one. It was flown out with one of our pilots as a gift to someone in the hangar.

"Kumeer dad, a big bad bug..."

That was Brooklyn's frantic exclamation after finding this lizard on the front porch. We caught it and pet it a little while before letting it go whereupon I took it's photo.

They're a stampedin'

Recently we noticed a few caterpillars in our lime tree. Now, when the sun is out and warming the tree well, a whole herd of caterpillars arrives to congregate and warm themselves. I am close to eradicating them so they don't damage my tree, but I want to wait a little longer to see what they change into, if they do so of course. With that many caterpillars in one place you should see the pile of you know what below them. It looks like a mini cow corral.