Al fin del mundo- the end of the world....

I might be at the end of the world- I mean- I'm out here in Las Galeras, Samana....the farthest northwest point in the DR.   It's sorta untouched as far as the tourist industry is concerned.  I mean- there ARE tourists here but definitely not like in the rest of the country.   There's a lot of beach, a lot of palm trees, a lot of mosquitos, and a lot of downtime.    More on that in a minute.

Here was lunch.  Yum.  I don't know which one we ate but it rocked.

I spent a couple days in El Cercado last week which of course is always a little bit like heaven for me.  Other than the fab time with my family there, I was able to travel with Angel, the health promoter of the Child Nutrition Program, to do some home visits with the families.  It always humbles me to see where some of our kiddies live and how their parents provide for them.   Dirt floors, one bed for 10 people, no running water,  unreliable power.  It's unbelievable.  And yet they greet us with grins and show Angel the milk that they have left and vow to show up for their appointments and start dressing their little naked kids.   And he reminds them to put shoes on the kids, and clean the floors, and wash the baby bottles with clean water, and keep clothing on the children, and show him how they prepare the milk.  It's good.  It's a great program and I love to see how it works.   It gets me all fired up.  And I LOVE cruising in the campos, in the middle of the stunning mountains and vistas and beautiful gente.   I'm learning....poco a poco.

And now, back to the downtime.  It's OUR downtime, which is to say that I'm here in Las Galeras with Dan and Kari and this is our refuel time before the craziness ensues.   And it's beautiful beyond words.  We are all working a little here too, writing, prepping information for the new Solid Rock website (including the medical handbook YAY) and preparing ourselves for the programs and the upcoming teams.   I mentioned before that Kari and I had talked about being healthy.   Being healthy in every way.   It's hard to work on each other, on relationships, quiet time, devotions, prayer, exercise, etc. when we have teams and so we are trying to focus on those things NOW and then set priorities to REMAIN healthy.   I'm reading a lot of stuff right now- but I'm in the midst of One Thousand Gifts which is kicking my butt about gratitude and wonder.   We discussed WONDER yesterday in our morning devotions- how we want to search and wallow in WONDER and then Kari and I experienced it in the coolest of means.  It's so neat how God takes these words of His (and our prayers sometimes!) and then crushes us with them in a good way.    We decided to hike to a beach here that is supposedly kinda hard to reach.   I say kinda because Kari and I left preparing to hike maybe 2-3 miles and four hours later....we reached our destination.   I think we probably hiked more like 10-12 miles (ummm we missed our turnoff clearly) and we descended cliffs (I'm serious!) and plunged through tropical jungles and made friends with donkeys and dodged mudholes and huge centipedes and even ended up on the top of a mountain at one point overlooking the sea below and we were full of WONDER.   It was fantastic and when we finally burst out of the foliage and arrived at the aforementioned semi-deserted beach.... we found some new friends with a boat who kindly returned us to our town 10 minutes away.   But not until we walked and swam and collected some shells and had the Dominicans in stitches when they heard how we had arrived... "we would NEVER try to walk here!".    In her infinite wisdom Kari had packed 3 granola bars which were our lunch for the day and we fortunately had enough water to get us there.    It was an epic 7-8 hour adventure that I am so grateful to have had, even though my legs are ACHING today and I feel like I've run a marathon.

So we will sit here and stare at the water and watch movies and swim and write and play dominos and plan and pray the Lord's prayer together (seriously, when was the last time you have prayed the Lord's prayer with friends?  It's the COOLEST!) and talk about how sweet it is to have this time together.   I'm more enchanted with this island and the folks here than I ever have been.   I love to hear the spanish tumbling out of their mouths and mine...the music blasting, the waves crashing, the dogs barking, the tires squealing, the motos blowing out exhaust all over me.   I love laughing with Dan about our fantasy baseball teams (WHY can't I beat him!) and running with Kari in the mornings along the sea and sitting with Jesus looking out at this view and thinking He's got to be happy with this place.

And we've kinda acquired another dog.   Dan and Kari have Diego, the faithful beagle.  And now Diego has Genny From the Block, a street dog who is enamored with all of us (but mostly him).   Genny is a tough gal,  sassy, fierce, and clearly a horrible influence on our dear innocent Diego, but her floppy ears and scornful grin have won us all over and we keep discussing whether we think we could get her to San Juan or not.    She sleeps in the plastic chair outside of our room and waits for us every morning.    When we drove to another beach several miles away, she ran next to our truck the entire time, refusing to let the party continue without her.    Her loyalty inspires me as she sticks to my side when I walk to town, barking at any moto near me and attacking the tail of every horse that passes. She is fearless.    I might cry when we drive away without her.  Sigh.    She's the rebellious kid that you just love anyway.

Anyhoo- off I will go...I've got some more editing to do.   But I'll stick some pictures below of the adventures of Nik and Kari, in search of WONDER.   And we found it.  :)  And it's all around me (and you!).  Still.

So this pic (above) is us setting sail...we had already come a few miles and were thinking we were well on our way.   It was about 10,000 degrees and I was soaked through already.

Kari ready to scale yet ANOTHER big hill!  Holy cow- where is our horse?

Sweating profusely!  But guarding the water...just in case!

Instead of arriving at the sea, we arrived at the top of a mountain at a lookout.  Where some guy informed us of how to get to the beach (or sooooo we thoughtttttttt- thanks for nothing Felipe!).  

We ended up shimmying DOWN a cliff.  Kari is a fearless leader and I only grabbed a cactus one time on my way down.   I told the Dominicans that we came down "como chivos", like goats!

I love adventure!  (but i was a wee bit scared of the descent too!- how did Felipe not mention this in his sketchy directions?)

This is at the bottom looking up.  We came down that cliff (somehow!)...but we were nowhere NEAR the beach.  Hmmmmm......

Here I am, still in the jungle!

After about five more miles of questionable (at best!) trail- we burst out of the jungle and we were HERE.  Joy!  Wonder!  Palm trees! And even a guy with a boat!

Kari found some awesome shells.  

It was sooooooo beautiful!  And sooooo worth every minute of hiking!

The view as we pulled away.

7 hours of fun, hiking, laughing, seeking wonder!  YAYYYYYY!   We are taking Dan back with us next time....but we might not take the long way around.  :)