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.

Frogger

This morning as I arrived on my bike at the hangar I almost ran over a most peculiar creature. Turns out it was just a frog, of which species I haven't a clue. So, I put him in an ammo box until I had time later to get some photos of him. Pretty interesting huh?


I did have a flight to do today, but it was canceled early on in the morning. I am on a "have your flight canceled" streak lately. I think this is number 3 in the last 4 flying days.

Misc...

• We have our Bronco up and running again. Thursday and Friday I hung around the hangar waiting for flights to happen that never came together, so I worked on the Bronco. Long story short, I determined it was the fuel injectors that weren't working properly. This is something I don't know how to fix, so off to Puyo it went. Sure enough, 3 of my 8 injectors were plugged. Now the jungle jeep roars after having all of my injectors cleaned and re-tuned!
• Our worship team seems to be getting a little better every week at church. I was playing the guitar previously, but now we have another guitar player so I am giving the bass guitar a try. It has been a lot of fun.
• While in Cusuimi last week dropping off parts for the radio install, I saw these mushrooms growing on a dead tree stump. It doesn't take long for decay to take over in the jungle environment.

La Piña

For those of you who ever wondered how pineapple is grown, this is what is looks like just before it is picked. I had a friend in language school in Costa Rica that I could not convince that pineapples grow above ground, not below. A few years ago while driving in Panama, we drove by some HUGE farms for Dole Pineapple, and it reminded me of corn rows in Kansas, except it was pineapple. I took this picture yesterday in Bufeo after dropping off the kids for church camp.

From the logbook...feast or famine

After some quick pilot changes this morning, my flying plate suddenly got really full. I hauled a little bit of everything, and made it back to Shell at 5pm, just as a thunderstorm shut the airport down.

My first leg was to take two doctors to a military base in Montalvo. Then I went to Conambo and picked up 5 kids for a church camp sponsored by Ecuador for Christ in Bufeo. After dropping off my kids in Bufeo, I headed back to Shell to get round 2. I left Shell full of cargo and a water engineer for HCJB World Radio. We went to Makuma and dropped off 650 pounds of cargo, picked up two adults and 2 kids and then fought weather to make our way south to Acheuntza to drop off the Makuma passengers, who happen to be Shuar Bible translators. From Achuentza we flew to Cusuimi where I waited for the water engineer to gather some info for a future project. It just so happens that another pilot and other MAF staff were also in Cusuimi doing an FM radio install. They had forgotten some key parts and I brought those as well. Two hours later the water engineer and I took off for Makuma again to pick up 4 more people, all missionaries for a conference they have in Quito. From Makuma we then made my last landing , number 10, and called it a day.

Our radio install crew blasting off in Cusuimi on the way to install number two. They will be in the jungle until Thursday trying to complete 6-7 village installs before they return to Shell.

Misc...

• Not a lot happening here. We have had a rash of crummy weather, so I haven't been flying. Guess we'll see what happens tomorrow.
• Hopefully this weekend I will get our Bronco back up and running. I haven't had the time I want to dedicate to it fully. Until then we will just keep getting around "de pica" or by foot.
  
• We went on our bi-monthly grocery shopping trip this past weekend. The woman below was a fruit/snack vendor at a tourist type place we stopped at for a bathroom break. I recomend the conconut covered fried peanuts, but not the bathrooms.

La vida cuesta

So here are the reasons nothing has been posted...in one word...life. Details below...

• My car. It started running rough so I thought maybe an ignition/fuel problem. I installed a new fuel filter, and built a new ignition harness and put it on. Didn't seem to make much of a change. Things were still running rough. Long story short, my fuel pump finally went out, luckily in front of my house. We towed it to the hangar and placed it on the famous ramp of shame. Some day I will have time and put my extra pump in.
  
• My Internet. You have heard that "the dog ate my homework" right? Well, my dog ate my Internet cable. We share Internet with some co-workers. The signal is beamed over to my house and received by an antenna on my roof. My dog got hold of the cable leading from the roof down to my office and made mince cable out of it. After some failed attempts, I finally got the cable repaired and we obviously have Internet again.
• My neighbors. Remember a few posts ago when I posted a picture of our neighbors that have a bar attached to their house. Well, it has been active lately...really active. And not just at night. In fact, it is worse during the day. We cannot seam to understand why someone needs their music so loud. Luckily we have had a bit of reprieve today.
  

From the logbook...

One of my stops yesterday was into a village called Pacayacu (PAC) to drop off and education supervisor. He only needed around an hour to get his things done, so on my way back to Shell after stopping in Masaramu to pick up a patient, I landed again in PAC to get the supervisor. All of the kids were there from one of the classes and the kids of PAC are always fun and willing for a picture. I handed my camera off to one of the villagers (always an interesting and funny experience) and had her take our picture.

From the logbook...snow day

Okay, I know it doesn't snow in the jungle, but it obviously rains. When it rains so hard everything is shut down, I call those days snow days, referring to the days as a child when it snowed so much you didn't have to go to school. (I miss those) Yesterday, was one of those days. So, what did I do with myself...I found all the unpainted propeller spinners in our fleet and gave them a nice polishing. Today, I took this picture in Mashient, and yes the weather was very nice.

Playtime

Recently Shell received a new jungle gym in the town plaza. Driving home last night I snapped a quick shot with Sangay Volcano looming in the distance.