More of our adventure...

This is where the warm and cold waters meet in "Paso Carreta". The other pictures are of the scenery around this area.

December 8th

December 8th is a Holiday. Many Paraguayans take Route 2 to Caacupe for religious purposes, but we decided to take the scenic Route 1 going a different direction for a family outing.

We discovered a cold creek in Escobar and a larger creek in San Roque Gonzalez at the bottom of the Cerro Acahay. The interesting feature was that two creeks, one warm water and one cold water meet.

It was a good get-a-way from the Hot city and a nice family day...

You can see Brandon, Matt and Gaby in the pictures.

Monday Falls, Ciudad del Este - Paraguay

Warm Weather!

Jeremiah 17:7-8 (New International Version) "But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit."

Summer is my favorite season. It's warm. It's beautiful. We have longer daylight hours. I enjoy creation; the sights, the sounds, the warm feeling.

But...
...yesterday (and today's forecast) was just a bit too warm! In the afternoon, my outside thermometer reached 109ºF.

Now, it's 8:30 am. I found a neat time/weather site and these are the current weather conditions...

Sunny. Warm.
Location: Asuncion / Aeropuerto
Temperature: 81 °F
Comfort level: 85 °F
Dew point: 72 °F
Barometer: 29.65 "Hg
Humidity: 74%
Visibility: 10 mi
Wind: 6 mph from 0° North

I wonder what 12:00 noon will be like? Later on today it says 96º F and comfort level like- 103º F.

Last night we turned on the airconditioner in our room about 9:30 and about an hour later the electricity went out in the whole neighborhood. It was soooooo hot and there were so many mosquitoes that all I could do was pray for electricity! (How strange...living in a country where we have two, binational-hydroelectric plants...power shortage is kind of a normal, expected thing.)
Well, back to summer; clothes dry out on the line in 10 minutes. Lettuce and watermelons are becoming some of the cheapest things to eat. Flowers brighten my day!

Iguazu Falls

Iguazu Falls...Always beautiful! Two weeks ago my kids went with a group from Canada and this past week I went with my friends from Tremont, IL and my niece...Laurel. My boys told us that it was a waste of time...there were only trickles of water. Hmmm, some trickles! I don't think that these falls could ever be "just trickles".

I have, maybe, thousands of pictures of these falls, but every time I go, I find another beautiful sight that makes one more beautiful picture.

Sunsets on the Paraguay River

Down by the Paraguay River

(pictures by Kaylie Endress)

Winter beauties...

Another Video

A New Story 6

A New Story 5

As promised, an action shot, of me with Edson.

The caretaker told us not to take our water jugs down because there was water along the side. I saw a girl filling up her water bottle and went over to see if she was really drinking it. The water was crystal-clear. We all ended up drinking from it...and no one got sick. It was cold...like from the fridge.

While we were enjoying our first sights of Salto Cristal, we ran into a couple from the USA. Mitra and her boyfriend were there. They walked and hitched-hiked 15 km to get there. She was from Hawaii and he was from Tennessee. They were taking a vacation from their work in the Peace Corps.
The water in the feet picture was knee deep. Look how clear and clean it was...just beautiful!
The last picture is of Pastor Pedro's wife, Mary and her daughter, Marilin.

A New Story 4

Enjoy these memories with us!

A New Story 3

At this point, my only motivation was the sound of waterfalls "just around the corner". Yes, I could hear it but all I could see were the rocks, vines and plants all around. By now, we were soooo sorry we didn't listen to the ranger. Those bags of food were so heavy and who wanted to eat anyway!

We scraped our bottoms sliding under vines and down the huge boulders. I was thinking of my physically-fit sister who would have been able to jump down this path in no time. Cerro Yaguarón is a sinch compared to this! I made up a million sermons in my head while I wiggled my way down reminding myself that I will reach "paradise"!

Down at the bottom, things were looking better, but we still had to cross the creek and many more rocks to reach our destiny. On the way, I was slapped with a plant that instantly burned my skin just seconds before my friend warned me of it. (Now, after three days, it turned into poison ivy type blisters and itches especially at night.) The boys started coming back to get our bags...yes, they were hungry! They kept saying, "Mom, hurry, you've got to see this...Brandon is already jumping off the falls!"

I was hurrying so fast, but my legs were trembling. The rocks were all slippery because of the wetness. Huge spider webs with huge spiders were quietly stretched across the path. My poor-bare-feet were tired and sore...and finally...we were there! We FINALLY reached the falls!

A New Story 2

Well, I kept looking around for the mountain. I wondered where this waterfalls was going to be. All I saw was flat land...little did I know...WE WERE ON THE MOUNTAIN! So we picked up all our stuff; our change of clothes, food, sandwiches, fruit, cupcakes, towels and tereré and went walking. The ranger in charged looked at us kind of funny and said, "you can't take that down there. The waterfalls and swimming area is 80 meters down". Oscar and Pastor Pedro were out of sight with Edson and half of the food, so we said, oh well, let's take it.

This was going to be FUN!

It was hot out and I was already dreaming of that cristal-clear water that was clean enough to drink, probably. I took my trusty little crocs and a skirt so I could just slip off my skirt to go diving into this wonderful, cool water falls.

The path was getting worse and I was getting worried...how WOULD we get all this stuff down there? ...okay, 80m X 3ft. is...240 feet down...down a cliff! Where was Oscar? Where was Edson? Where were the kids?

I was looking down a cliff and all I saw were rocks, sticks, 'tarzan' vines, and roots. I had bags on my back, my slippery crocs and a skirt on.

Oh no! I wasn't sure this was going to work...

My wonderful outing just went down a cliff!

A New Story!!!

Wow!!

Do I ever have a new story for you!

Yesterday we had a day off of school, yeah, right, after the 2nd week just started. The Ministry of Education organized a teacher's meeting in different zones all over the country and so, since our teachers were at meetings all day, we decided to go on a family outing.

We usually go on an outing for my birthday since it is close to the holiday March 1st, so since March 1 is on a Sunday, we weren't going to be able to go...can't miss church, you know.

We decided to go to the city, La Colmena, a place where we heard about this amazing 42 meter falls with a huge natural pool at the bottom. The falls is called Salto Cristal.

We had little information on the place and it was way back into the "JUNGLES" of Paraguay. Here are some pictures of our 2 hour ride there. There are fields of sugar cane all the way there.

More about my story tomorrow or Monday!

History of the Jesuits

The picture is ours but the info is from Encarta...

The most famous work of the Jesuit missionaries in the New World, however, was the establishment in the order's South American provinces of reductions, or village communities of native peoples under the spiritual and temporal direction of the priests. The most successful were the reductions of Paraguay. In that country for almost 200 years the Jesuits governed a communal nation of Native Americans, founding 32 villages with a total population of about 160,000; they taught the Native Americans agriculture, mechanical arts, and commerce and trained a small army for defense of the settlements.© 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.