The road to hell

I looked at the map doubtfully. It was the same free map they had given me the day before in the tourism office, and outside the city limits I had no idea which road was which. "Are you sure we won't get lost?", I asked Yesenia, the woman who was convincing us to take the tour. She assured me it was straight forward. "And are there a lot of hills? I'm horrible at biking up hill" The logical side of my mind told me that her answer, "it's almost all downhill and flat" couldn't quite be true since we were in the Andes mountains and we were biking a loop. But, despite my hesitation, the lovely weather and mountains called to me, so my sister Rebecca and I mounted our bikes and headed out of Villa de Leyva.

Four blocks and then left, I recited to myself, but then, avoiding potholes, I lost track. Not sure if I'd missed the turn or not, I stopped and asked some young guys working on a 4x4. "You can get there either way", they told me. "But take the unpaved road. It's nicer, there's not as much traffic, and you can't get lost."

Seeing as I'd managed to get lost within 5 blocks of setting off, I still wasn't convinced, but I figured even if we didn't find "infiernito" (little hell), the ancient Muisca obervatory we were looking for, we would still enjoy a bike through the countryside.

It was beautiful. I resisted calling out "are we on the road to hell?" to the locals we passed, but some helpful signs soon assured me that we were.

Infiernito was idyllic. The name was apparently given by the Muisca to the area to scare the Spanish conquerors away from their sacred ground. A stone observation calendar, phallic statues, and an underground tomb looked out on this scene.

Leaving infiernito, we continued down the road to the next stops on our map, hoping we were where we thought we were and turned the right direction when we got to the main road. The day was pleasantly warm, and the hill to the fossil museum was steep, so we stopped for sodas at a roadside stand.

A giant kronosaurus fossil, a tiny museum with hand lettered signs, and vendors without change waited for us at the top of the hill. We left our bikes against the wall and went inside.

It was drizzling when we left, in search of our last destination, "pozos azules". Something in the water makes this series of lakes a beautiful turquoise blue.

Tired, mud-splattered, and very content, we worked our way back up the hill to the road and down the road into Villa de Leyva. On an ever-so-slightly-uphill-you-could-almost-call-it-flat stretch of road, I biked slowly along, worn out by the day and wishing I could blame my lack of stamina on not being adjusted to the altitude. A little girl, probably about 9, zipped past me on her bike. She casually took her hands of the handle bars and then stuck them in her pockets. "show-off" I thought to myself, then realized that it didn't really matter.

We left our bikes back where we'd rented them from, headed back to our hostel for our things, and boarded the bus back to Bogota.

A rainy Sunday

A rainy Sunday morning, 6am and I'm wide awake. It's a good thing though, I told a friend I'd bring dessert to a picnic Sunday afternoon, and now I have time to bake before church. Of course, the only thing I have in the house is flour which won't get me very far.

I head out into the quiet streets at 7. One lone car drives past, spraying water from the small lake that's accumulated from the night's rain. The corner store opens late on Sundays, but it doesn't matter, the bakery should sell everything I need.

I buy a stick of butter, a dozen eggs for baking and breakfast, a small bag of sugar, and chocolate bars for making hot chocolate, the closest thing to baking chocolate I've found. I buy 8 hot rolls just out of the oven, and a sweet donut-like creation with arequipe inside.

Back at home, as I mix my brownie batter, I pray they'll come out well- between a lack of real measuring cups, a gas oven with no temperature settings, and high altitude, baking is hit and miss for me here. The fact that I halved the sugar since the chocolate was pre-sweetened doesn't make me any more confident in the consistency.

The brownies are out now, cooling on the counter. They look to be a little different than normal, but nothing like my failed coffee cake from last weekend. Now I'm enjoying a quiet cup of tea before heading to a new church I'm trying out that's just around the corner.

Gone

Today, the boys left. We went to church together, came home to eat together, enjoyed a lazy Sunday afternoon, they even talked us all into playing Monopoly. But there was a heaviness for all of us. The echo of the word "last" in every little moment we enjoyed.

Their mom came around 4. We didn't know what to say to her, she didn't know what to say to us. She wants them to live with her again; they love their mom and should be with her. But it was hard to see them go. They cried to say good bye. I cried too. So little of their situation has changed, I'm afraid the circumstances that brought them to our door the first time will just be repeated. Hopefully this week they'll start attending a small Christian school which will be much better spiritually and academically than the public school they were attending. That at least is one comfort to me. But my heart aches for them, so small and vulnerable. I can't be there for them every day now, showering them with love, teaching, disciplining, laughing. . . But, I can keep praying. And I could never be the answer for them, all I could ever do was point them to the answer. And Jesus goes with them. They don't need me. They do need him.

So, I pray. Pray that the seeds that have been planted in their hearts take root and bear fruit. Pray that their mom follows through with the changes she has verbally committed too. Pray that they would continue to be loved and guided as they go through these years when they really need someone to be there for them.