Brazilenas

Gisele and Natalia, the friends I made in Rio last year, recently came to visit Chile with their friends Karis and Debora. First, they spent a week in another part of town, volunteering with an orphanage there. Then stayed with a friend in my neighborhood for a week, which gave me a chance to hang out with them.

I showed them around Plaza de Armas and Cerro San Cristobol, and took them out to eat a couple times. Because Portuguese is so similar to Spanish, they were able to function really well in Chile. And they could understand me if I spoke to them in Spanish. It was a blast to hang out with some people my age, especially four pretty girls from Brazil. (They got catcalled everywhere they went here.)

Of course, their stay was too short, but they’re talking about coming back sometime in the winter. I hope so – It’d be great to see them again before I head back to the States.

Bailique

The most interesting town we visited on our trip from Belém was called Bailique. It is a remote village that straddles a river and has a short, overgrown airstrip. Because the town sits on jungle swampland, all the houses are on stilts and are connected by suspended wood plank sidewalks.

When we arrived in the morning, all the boats in Bailique were grounded in empty riverbeds. When we left that afternoon, the tide had come in, and those boats were floating on about ten feet of water.

Bailique was like something out of a movie – a surreal, dreamlike neighborhood. Here are some pictures:

Marajó by plane

Last week I went to Belém, Brazil, with our photographer and videographer. We covered a story about an experimental plane used to do missions in remote jungle locations right along the equator.

This plane flew us around Marajó, the largest freshwater island in the world, just south of the Amazon. We visited the towns of Soaré, Salvaterra, Chaves, Macapá, Bailique and Breves. Along the way we met several national pastors and missionaries whose ministries are helped by the plane. We also visited some of the people blessed by those ministries.

The plane only fits four, but with our host missionary and his pilot we had five total …and all our media equipment. So we had to make two trips to each location.

With intense heat, lack of sleep, some illness and waiting for the plane, it was a pretty exhausting trip. But there were a couple really cool experiences along the way. By the way, if you ever go to that area, try the Cupuaçu ice cream – it’s incredible.