LEX

i found jesus at the top of a mountain

yesterday we climbed a mountain. mt. isabela is behind the MAK house, and yesterday we decided to climb her.

we set out around 9am, just walking into the woods behind the house. we came to some swanky neighborhood we never knew existed and then slowly but surely came to the foot of mt. isabela. we met a haitian guy named Pidro who was kind enough to lead us the whole way.

so we hiked and we hiked and we hiked. we saw a lot of amazing things which you will be able to see on shutterfly in the near future. when we were nearing the top, pidro took us off the beaten path. in fact, i don't think many people ever go this way. we did some free climbing (we were practically rock climbing without ropes) up one stretch and after fearing for my life we came to the most beautiful view of the city and the atlantic ocean. we reached the top at around 12:30. we could have made it in 20 minutes on the cable car, but this was so much more worth it. at the top is a restaurant, gift shop and park. there's also a big statue of Jesus. yes, we climbed a mountain and found jesus.

after eating lunch and resting in the cool breeze and taking in the magnificent view, we began our decent. pidro took us a different way down, saying the way we came up isn't the safest route. so after once again tackling the free climb on our decent, we took our different route. thinking we should get down more quickly than we went up, i began wondering why weren't home at around 3:00 or so. "casi llegamos" is what pidro kept telling me. yeah, we're almost there - on dominican time. so after we descended for a while, we began walking a pretty level path. apparently we were walking around the mountain. about another hour later we come to a fence which pidro proceeds to jump over. at this point i'm a little worried he doesn't know where we are. but we following him over the fence and into the VALLEY of this mountain. on the other side of the mountain we discover our drunken mountain man, from whom we have to ask permission to go through his gate. at this point i was convinced we were lost. but we proceeded through the valley, and thankfully ended up back in a populated area. yet we continued walking through this populated area for probably an hour.

we were pretty sure that we were NOT going to end up back in the neighborhood where we started. at this point we were very tired and did not want to walk across town back to the neighborhood. so we walked and we walked and grew more and more tired with every step. suddenly holly yells, "oh my gosh!" we all thought something was wrong, but she proceeded to say, "this is the back way to the neighborhood!" i've walked this back way many times, so i definitely know what it looks like. no, this is not the backway, i would recognize it. she was convinced. i walked a few more steps, took a second look and discovered that, sure enough, i was on the opposite side of the entrance to the back way to our neighborhood (that entrance you get to from the Alexia sign that leads you through the ranch behind the MAK house). the Lord certainly was watching over us, for at the end of our all day hike, we practically end up at our doorstep.

all in all, our hike lasted from about 9am to 6pm. before we left, drew estimated our hike as no less than 4 hours. can't say he was wrong!

there are many other stories of incredible things that happened on this day long hike up mt. isabela. but i cannot do them justice on a blog. we can all tell you about it when we get back to austin in 2 months. don't forget to ask barrett about his little tumble.

posted by Alexia & Jeffrey @ 2:12 PM