The team Returns recap week 1

Global Support’s trip to Peru.

And so it comes to be that I have returned from another foray into the lives of the marginalized and poverty stricken in Peru. It is an unjust world in which injustice is a way of life. It is inflicted upon so many and they in turn perpetuate it by inflicting it on others, unthinking, unknowing that there is a different way, a better way to live.

On August 24th 5 of us returned from a two week trip to Peru. This is the first in a two part series of an accounting of that trip.

From the onset this trip looked very different from the ones in the past. On the heals of a fundraising campaign launched late last spring in which Global Support raised funds to buy a large van so that the children, volunteer teams and building materials could be delivered to the Children’s Center just outside Iquitos, we left on August 10th. It had become clear to us that the transportation issue had become a hurdle to the forward progress of the development of that center.

The $2,000 that we raised soon became the $10,000 that was needed and so it was that the first week of our two week trip involved the purchase and delivery of that vehicle. The challenging part of this seemingly easy task is that there are no decent vehicles worth buying in Iquitos because there are no roads through the Amazon jungle there requiring all new vehicles to the area to be brought in by barge up the Amazon river.. So, with that said, the adventure of buying the truck in Lima, driving it over the Andes to the end of the road in Pucalpa and on to Iquitos begins.

The trip itself took three days and three nights passing through four climate zones. From Lima the road looked like a beautiful new two lane highway giving us a sense that is wouldn’t be much different than traveling in the states…We quickly learned differently… Within several hours of leaving Lima we had reach altitudes of over 15,000 feet with snow capped peaks and barren landscape indicating we were far above the point in which any vegetation could exist. As it began to grow dark we realized we needed to stop, far short of our projected destination at a lower altitude, but in the wonderful village of Junin, located at a mere 13,800 feet above sea level. With our heads swelling from the altitude and the temperatures dipping into the low 30’s we found a small hotel for the night. All suffering from altitude sickness and the freezing cold we welcomed the warmth of the heavy Alpaca wool blankets on us and tried to sleep.

Waking to stunning blue skies and even colder temperatures the truck wouldn’t start giving us ample time to explore the market and town. In retrospect and despite the altitude sickness and temperatures we had a wonderful time here experiencing a beautiful and colorful aspect of Peruvian culture that seemed relatively untouched by the outside world.


Getting a late start we raced down the mountain to try and get below 10,000 feet in order to reduce the effects of the altitude on all of us. Passing countless shacks along the narrow edge of what now was a deteriorating dusty, pot hole ridden road I wondered what life was like for these families. With little more than a few feet between the back of their houses and the edge of the mountain they sat on their front porches, with their children, dogs and chickens, watching, as huge clouds of dust billowed by with each passing truck. Words can not describe the dirt, filth and poverty that we witnessed , but neither can it describe the beauty of the high mountain jungle nor the friendly helpful people we met along the way. As the weather grew hotter and more humid it became obvious we were coming down into the Amazon River basin and sea level. The headaches were gone and we could once again breathe deep. A dip into a river along the way was the ultimate payoff for an arduous journey that was more like the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland than we could have ever imagined.

We arrived late one night risking the constant threat of banditos and police blockades rather than spending another night on the road.. The road just ended in the city of Pucalpa, a port city like so many others in the world filled with the hustle and bustle of a transient commerce. The port resembled an ant colony, filled with ants busy loading up barges by hand, each of them carrying loads that seemingly far exceeded their own body weight. No fancy cranes, no loading docks here, just a couple of planks of wood and the Land Cruiser was driven onto the barge for it’s journey up the Amazon to Iquitos. We took a taxi back to our hotel, packed up and headed to the airport for our one hour flight. As it turns out we beat the truck to Iquitos by 7 days.