The Urban Jungle

Wow, I knew that this city was big but until one drives here one does not realize that it turns into a monster of traffic and can actually swallow you up into the abyss of lostness.  The map book, which they call the "Guia Roji" is only about 250 pages long with an index of thousands of street names in which a lot of them are named the same.  If you miss a turn it could take you miles into the wrong direction before you can figure out where or how to turn around and figure out where you are again.  And such was the case for what happened to me.  The first Friday night we were here, two teammates of us, Rick and Pablo, myself and my mom, who came down to visit, decided to adventure out to Home Depot at 7:00pm...the time is important to note...On our way to pick up Rick, which was only about 15 min. away, we got lost.  An hour later, because of traffic and getting lost, we picked up Rick.  Ok, so it was now 8:20, plenty of time to get to our destination.  We approached  this all important spot where we had a decision to make, left or right.  I was driving and could hear nothing but Left, no right, no left, no right, so I took the loudest left/right and went right.....Wrong way.  We were so close, we could actually see the parking lot...but after an hour of not finding the parking lot again and driving through a frightening neighborhood we decided to head home at 9:40 pm not ever arriving at our destination.  (Home Depot is only about 25 to 30 minutes away)

This story just proves to you that we need your prayers even as we drive here.  Pray for safety in traffic and if we get lost in a bad neighborhood and pray for patience as we sit in traffic and resist the temptation to participate in the horn honking competition to move ahead a foot or two.