Apolo Aventuras

That's Spanish for "maybe I wouldn't recommend visiting Apolo during the rainy season."

Some of you will remember the lovely little town of Apolo that I shared with you last May, home to my dear friend and fellow veterinary missionary, Linda. Taking advantage of my time between semesters and Angelica's last little bit of summer vacation, we took a series of three buses over 36 hours to get there from Santa Cruz. In Cochabamba we picked up our CVM extern, Starke. Using 6 weeks of his last year of veterinary school, he visited Santa Cruz to see what we do, Cochabamba to work on his Spanish, and now Apolo to see how another veterinary missionary is living.

So, we showed him that not every day is full of working on animals. Some are spent finalizing the year's budget, some traveling between projects in the mud, some waiting for the farmers to show up, some following-up on the previous day's cases, some days off visiting spectacular waterfalls (see the pics on FB), some teaching externs about serving full-time in Bolivia, and others, of course, spaying and neutering the local canine population.

When we'd finally accomplished all these things, it was time to say goodbye to Ange's new playmates the Lugtigheid kiddos and sweet little Apolo once again, where life is simpler, the water and power are both likely to go out at least once if you stay a week, and ~12 people gather around the surgery, I mean kitchen table three times a day to share a meal.

So, we boarded the bus back to Santa Cruz via La Paz and Cochabamba. In the middle of the night, halfway back on our first leg to La Paz we stopped. The rains that sometimes cause landslides, and wash out roads, had this time created an impassable waterfall across our path, showering down not only voluminous water but also large threatening rocks. Our driver decided to wait till the water level receded, but the continued rains meant rising water levels, and led to a wait, without food, shelter, cellphone signal or bathrooms for 36 hours, making our supposed 12 hour trip into exactly 48 hours of balancing between dehydration and hydronephrosis.

But despite the mud stains we'll be working out of our clothes for weeks, the boots that have yet to dry out, and the 2 days and 3 nights in a row spent on a bus with an 8-year-old, Apolo will always be the place Angie learned to ride a bike, and I think in her opinion, that made every second on that bus worthwhile.