Arrival in Tarapoto, Peru

We arrived in Tarapoto today July 2. We are staying on the 7th floor of the Hotel Nilas no elevator. The weather here is warmer than in Lima. The flight was about 1 hour and 20 minutes the guide book says that it is a 24 hour bus ride!

When we arrived in Lima we discovered that 7 of our bags had stayed in Miami. After hours of filling out forms we were finally able to leave for the airport about midnight local time which is Eastern Standard Time (no daylight savings time). The bags would arrive in the morning on the 4AM flight It was about a 40 minutes ride into Lima with no traffic. There are hotels near the airport at least not that an American would stay at. The hotel was nice the beds were nice.

The flight that we were to take to Tarapoto was to leave at 7:15 but while at the airport last night we found out that it would be delayed until 9:00 the was good news because now we would not have to get up until 5:30.

The weather was cloudy when we got up and it was still dark. We had a continently breakfast with 3 kinds of fresh juices (melon, mango, and some other fruit) rolls, jelly and cheese.

It was raining on the way to the airport. We drove a bit of the Pan-American Highway down the coast saw some surfers the waves were probably 4 to 5 feet very close in to shore.

The flight to Tarapoto went with out incident. We arrived at the hotel about noon. Took our bags to the room then it was time for lunch. We had navy beans and rice, salad, cauliflower, and fried plantains. It was very good. We then rode up to the site of the church we are building. Picture attached is of the church site the other picture is also in Limas. It is about a 20 to 30 minute bus ride to Limas from Tarapoto. Lots of rice fields along the way.

Tomorrow we are taking a bus trip the Blue Lagoon it’s about 3 hours away. Steve says we will be crossing a river on a pontoon bridge.

I’ll send a picture later.

Bye for now

Dan, Rhonda and Sam