"I'm writing this from my truck, at 2 AM in the morning, while perched two hundred feet down from the highway on the side of a cliff in the middle of the Bolivian Andes Mountains. I know my life gets crazy sometimes, but I'm pretty sure I never expected to write those words!"
Those were the first sentences of a blog post I wrote while waiting for a tow truck to come haul my butt (and my truck's) back up onto the main road...which we'd left rather unexpectedly about eight hours earlier. "Perched" and "cliff" were probably a bit of an exaggeration, but for sure I wasn't sitting where any normal thinking sane person would want to park their truck.
So what happened exactly? Well...
We've had a couple of Canadian gringo boys interning with us for the past four months. Since their time here was winding up, we thought we'd do a road trip up to Cochabamba and then on to La Paz. It would be an opportunity for the guys to see a bit of Bolivia and experience a part of the culture here that they hadn't seen yet. My friend Amy joined us in Coch for the La Paz part of the trip, and Yimy (one of the guys from the house) went along as well to help with the driving. He'd never been out of Santa Cruz before, so I was excited to show him a bit more of his country.
On our way to Cochabamba, I noticed that the breaks were a bit tough and difficult to push down. They felt like when you have air in your brake-lines. While we were in Cochabamba we went to a mechanic to get them checked out. He bled the brakes (to get rid of any air) and told us he thought they were fine. They seemed okay, so we continued on with our trip. There was one moment in La Paz when I felt like they had gotten stiff and difficult to push, but then they were fine again. I just figured I'd get them checked out in Santa Cruz when we got home.
After a very entertaining and enjoyable few days in La Paz (we even went out to Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world) we headed back to Cochabamba on Friday afternoon. The first half of the trip is about as straight and flat a highway as you can get outside of Saskatchewan. Then you begin to descend down through the mountains into Cochabamba for the last few hours.
Yimy was driving and doing fine. He's a good driver. The rest of us were reading and dozing and mostly just relaxing. Yimy came up on a wide curve, behind a big truck. The truck was slowing more quickly than Yimy realized at first (we were starting down a long, fairly steep hill) and so he braked more quickly. Suddenly there was a pop and the brake pedal went right to the floor. The truck lurched and the brakes failed.
Yimy swung out around the truck and started pumping the breaks. Had there been no other traffic we would have been fine, but just as we swung out, there was another car right there in the oncoming lane. We clipped the oncoming car's front end and Yimy lost control of the truck. The next thing we knew, we were going over the edge.
Now you need to understand something here. We were in the Andes Mountains. They're big. I mean...really, REALLY big! They make most mountains in North America look like foothills. To give you an idea, the highest mountain in the Canadian Rockies is Mount Robson at 3954 metres. When we had our accident we were well over 4000 metres. So...yea...high...
Another thing, most places along this highway are pretty much straight up on one side and straight down on the other. So when we went over the edge, we had no idea what was coming. It turned out not to be straight down (obviously or I wouldn't be writing this), but it was pretty darn close enough. Steep enough that it was difficult in places to climb back up and when they eventually hauled the truck out, it was hanging with it's back tires in midair for part of the trip up.
Yimy had the foresight to just keep the truck aimed straight down the mountain. If he'd tried at any time to steer to one side or the other, we'd have rolled. At one point we ploughed through a pile of big rocks, so they all started rolling down the hill with us. There were also a couple of moments where we were not only pointed downhill at a fairly steep angle, we were also tipping to one side. Michael, who was in the back seat, said that when he looked out his window all he could see was ground.
Eventually we came to a grinding halt and we all started yelling at the same time, "We're okay! We're okay!" Even now, as I write that I feel myself get a bit emotional. It's really amazing to me how God protected us. Every single person who saw the truck couldn't believe it when we said we all walked away from it. Even the big, gruff Bolivian police officer who was there said, "Wow, that's a miracle..."
Right away I went around to the driver's side to see how Yimy was. He started to get out of the truck, but then he kind of stumbled and started to go down. So I grabbed him and sat him back down in the driver's seat. He started to shake and cry, so I just prayed with him and kept telling him over and over that it was fine and we were all okay.
Meanwhile, Amy and the guys hiked up to see how the other driver was. He and his wife were banged up a bit too, but fortunately they were mostly fine. They were kind of grumpy at first but eventually we all calmed down and I started working on getting in touch with my insurance company and letting people know what had happened.
A couple of things that were cool (and/or funny) in the midst of the crazy...
Literally within seconds of the truck coming to a stop, Amy's cell phone was ringing with friends calling to see how we were. They didn't know what had happened, but felt like they needed to pray for us. Later I found out that a number of my friends had been burdened to pray as well.
We really were fine. Amy got a bit of a cut on her forehead where her sunglasses cut her and my back has been a bit sore...but other than that we're all completely healthy.
When we went over the part where we were angle down and sideways, Amy appropriately yelled out, "Jesus!" I'm pretty sure that's when everyone we knew started praying. =)
Fairly quickly after the accident we were laughing and joking. Even Yimy was laughing once he calmed down a bit. At around 2 AM he and I were taking funny pictures of us with the truck 'cause we were bored. Not long after the accident as Michael, Tim and I were looking at where we'd come to rest, Tim made the comment that it was a good thing God's angels had stopped the truck where it did. I just kind of laughed and said, "God's angels and the entire undercarriage of my truck." For some reason that made us laugh even harder.
During ride over the edge of the embankment, Tim dropped a straw boat on the floor of the truck that he'd bought up in La Paz. As the truck careened down the side of the mountain he bent over to pick it up 'cause "...he didn't want it to get broken..."
Eventually the police showed up and we got in contact with my insurance company. They also sent out someone to see how we were. Amy and the two gringo guys caught a bus back into Cochabamba and Yimy and I settled in to wait for the tow truck. We had a good conversation about God's protection and the importance of being in a good place with Him.
Around 2 AM the police decided to leave and take Yimy with them. They wanted his statement and to make sure he hadn't been drinking. The last I heard from anyone was that the tow truck would be there in about half an hour. I was waiting down in the truck and kind of dozing off and on. 2:30 AM came and went and there was no sign of any tow truck. When the sun eventually came up I hiked back up the hill to discover that the other car was gone and there wasn't a soul in sight. It was a bit weird. Finally around noon the tow truck was back and they started the process of hauling the truck up the hill. I only had to wait 18 hours in the middle of nowhere. Yea...that was fun...
Now it's just been the joy of dealing with the police and the insurance company and all the bureaucracy that goes along with that. It's been a tiring few days. Yimy was helping but had to go back to Santa Cruz for his classes on Wednesday. My insurance company is still trying to decide if the truck is totaled or not. It would be in Canada for sure. But....here? Maybe not. Please pray that it is.
The insurance company has also not been very fair to the guy we hit. He's been great about everything and it makes me feel bad that he's not being treated well. So already I've ended up having to pay out of my pocket close to $1000. So...that's kind of grumpy. And the one other sad thing is that on the way back to the house with all the stuff from my truck, my friend accidentally left my laptop in the taxi. It wasn't her fault...we were all tired and worn out and had a lot of stuff with us. But...no more computer either.
All in all...an interesting few days. Obviously I've been praying a lot about everything. It's important to me that I keep everything in my life in perspective. The things I own are just that...things. I don't want them to control me. What's important through all of this is, is how faithful God has been in protecting us.
Anyhow....here are a few pictures of the adventure....
I think that moment of going over the edge was the craziest, most surreal moment of my life. I was pretty calm on the ride down for the most part (it was almost like it wasn't happening...I was just riding it out). It wasn't until afterwards when I thought about it and what had happened that my stomach kind of clenched and my heart pounded a bit. But we've talked about it quite a bit and I think for the most part we're all okay now. We've all had our emotional moments since then, but God is good and any accident like this one that you can walk away from is all fine.
Once again...thanks for praying everyone! =)
Those were the first sentences of a blog post I wrote while waiting for a tow truck to come haul my butt (and my truck's) back up onto the main road...which we'd left rather unexpectedly about eight hours earlier. "Perched" and "cliff" were probably a bit of an exaggeration, but for sure I wasn't sitting where any normal thinking sane person would want to park their truck.
So what happened exactly? Well...
We've had a couple of Canadian gringo boys interning with us for the past four months. Since their time here was winding up, we thought we'd do a road trip up to Cochabamba and then on to La Paz. It would be an opportunity for the guys to see a bit of Bolivia and experience a part of the culture here that they hadn't seen yet. My friend Amy joined us in Coch for the La Paz part of the trip, and Yimy (one of the guys from the house) went along as well to help with the driving. He'd never been out of Santa Cruz before, so I was excited to show him a bit more of his country.
On our way to Cochabamba, I noticed that the breaks were a bit tough and difficult to push down. They felt like when you have air in your brake-lines. While we were in Cochabamba we went to a mechanic to get them checked out. He bled the brakes (to get rid of any air) and told us he thought they were fine. They seemed okay, so we continued on with our trip. There was one moment in La Paz when I felt like they had gotten stiff and difficult to push, but then they were fine again. I just figured I'd get them checked out in Santa Cruz when we got home.
After a very entertaining and enjoyable few days in La Paz (we even went out to Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world) we headed back to Cochabamba on Friday afternoon. The first half of the trip is about as straight and flat a highway as you can get outside of Saskatchewan. Then you begin to descend down through the mountains into Cochabamba for the last few hours.
Yimy was driving and doing fine. He's a good driver. The rest of us were reading and dozing and mostly just relaxing. Yimy came up on a wide curve, behind a big truck. The truck was slowing more quickly than Yimy realized at first (we were starting down a long, fairly steep hill) and so he braked more quickly. Suddenly there was a pop and the brake pedal went right to the floor. The truck lurched and the brakes failed.
Yimy swung out around the truck and started pumping the breaks. Had there been no other traffic we would have been fine, but just as we swung out, there was another car right there in the oncoming lane. We clipped the oncoming car's front end and Yimy lost control of the truck. The next thing we knew, we were going over the edge.
Now you need to understand something here. We were in the Andes Mountains. They're big. I mean...really, REALLY big! They make most mountains in North America look like foothills. To give you an idea, the highest mountain in the Canadian Rockies is Mount Robson at 3954 metres. When we had our accident we were well over 4000 metres. So...yea...high...
Another thing, most places along this highway are pretty much straight up on one side and straight down on the other. So when we went over the edge, we had no idea what was coming. It turned out not to be straight down (obviously or I wouldn't be writing this), but it was pretty darn close enough. Steep enough that it was difficult in places to climb back up and when they eventually hauled the truck out, it was hanging with it's back tires in midair for part of the trip up.
Yimy had the foresight to just keep the truck aimed straight down the mountain. If he'd tried at any time to steer to one side or the other, we'd have rolled. At one point we ploughed through a pile of big rocks, so they all started rolling down the hill with us. There were also a couple of moments where we were not only pointed downhill at a fairly steep angle, we were also tipping to one side. Michael, who was in the back seat, said that when he looked out his window all he could see was ground.
Eventually we came to a grinding halt and we all started yelling at the same time, "We're okay! We're okay!" Even now, as I write that I feel myself get a bit emotional. It's really amazing to me how God protected us. Every single person who saw the truck couldn't believe it when we said we all walked away from it. Even the big, gruff Bolivian police officer who was there said, "Wow, that's a miracle..."
Right away I went around to the driver's side to see how Yimy was. He started to get out of the truck, but then he kind of stumbled and started to go down. So I grabbed him and sat him back down in the driver's seat. He started to shake and cry, so I just prayed with him and kept telling him over and over that it was fine and we were all okay.
Meanwhile, Amy and the guys hiked up to see how the other driver was. He and his wife were banged up a bit too, but fortunately they were mostly fine. They were kind of grumpy at first but eventually we all calmed down and I started working on getting in touch with my insurance company and letting people know what had happened.
A couple of things that were cool (and/or funny) in the midst of the crazy...
Literally within seconds of the truck coming to a stop, Amy's cell phone was ringing with friends calling to see how we were. They didn't know what had happened, but felt like they needed to pray for us. Later I found out that a number of my friends had been burdened to pray as well.
We really were fine. Amy got a bit of a cut on her forehead where her sunglasses cut her and my back has been a bit sore...but other than that we're all completely healthy.
When we went over the part where we were angle down and sideways, Amy appropriately yelled out, "Jesus!" I'm pretty sure that's when everyone we knew started praying. =)
Fairly quickly after the accident we were laughing and joking. Even Yimy was laughing once he calmed down a bit. At around 2 AM he and I were taking funny pictures of us with the truck 'cause we were bored. Not long after the accident as Michael, Tim and I were looking at where we'd come to rest, Tim made the comment that it was a good thing God's angels had stopped the truck where it did. I just kind of laughed and said, "God's angels and the entire undercarriage of my truck." For some reason that made us laugh even harder.
During ride over the edge of the embankment, Tim dropped a straw boat on the floor of the truck that he'd bought up in La Paz. As the truck careened down the side of the mountain he bent over to pick it up 'cause "...he didn't want it to get broken..."
Eventually the police showed up and we got in contact with my insurance company. They also sent out someone to see how we were. Amy and the two gringo guys caught a bus back into Cochabamba and Yimy and I settled in to wait for the tow truck. We had a good conversation about God's protection and the importance of being in a good place with Him.
Around 2 AM the police decided to leave and take Yimy with them. They wanted his statement and to make sure he hadn't been drinking. The last I heard from anyone was that the tow truck would be there in about half an hour. I was waiting down in the truck and kind of dozing off and on. 2:30 AM came and went and there was no sign of any tow truck. When the sun eventually came up I hiked back up the hill to discover that the other car was gone and there wasn't a soul in sight. It was a bit weird. Finally around noon the tow truck was back and they started the process of hauling the truck up the hill. I only had to wait 18 hours in the middle of nowhere. Yea...that was fun...
Now it's just been the joy of dealing with the police and the insurance company and all the bureaucracy that goes along with that. It's been a tiring few days. Yimy was helping but had to go back to Santa Cruz for his classes on Wednesday. My insurance company is still trying to decide if the truck is totaled or not. It would be in Canada for sure. But....here? Maybe not. Please pray that it is.
The insurance company has also not been very fair to the guy we hit. He's been great about everything and it makes me feel bad that he's not being treated well. So already I've ended up having to pay out of my pocket close to $1000. So...that's kind of grumpy. And the one other sad thing is that on the way back to the house with all the stuff from my truck, my friend accidentally left my laptop in the taxi. It wasn't her fault...we were all tired and worn out and had a lot of stuff with us. But...no more computer either.
All in all...an interesting few days. Obviously I've been praying a lot about everything. It's important to me that I keep everything in my life in perspective. The things I own are just that...things. I don't want them to control me. What's important through all of this is, is how faithful God has been in protecting us.
Anyhow....here are a few pictures of the adventure....
A few minutes after the accident...
Looking down the hill towards the truck. You can see
our tracks here. Picture don't really do this
justice on how steep it was...
The truck ended up a couple of hundred
feet down from the highway.
What we were headed for...
Where we just came from...
Some of the damage...
Another shot of the truck...
Looking up the hill from the truck...
Yimy and I waiting in the truck (in the freezing cold)
for the tow truck to arrive...
We got bored at around 2 AM...
so we decided to take some pictures.
This is Yimy's serious "I just drove down
side of a mountain" look.
"...and survived to tell about it!" look.
This is my, "Maybe they'll consider the truck totaled
and let me buy a new one!" look...
This is what we looked at all night as we sat at a 45 degree
angle inside my truck.
It was kind of a weird feeling.
I think that moment of going over the edge was the craziest, most surreal moment of my life. I was pretty calm on the ride down for the most part (it was almost like it wasn't happening...I was just riding it out). It wasn't until afterwards when I thought about it and what had happened that my stomach kind of clenched and my heart pounded a bit. But we've talked about it quite a bit and I think for the most part we're all okay now. We've all had our emotional moments since then, but God is good and any accident like this one that you can walk away from is all fine.
Once again...thanks for praying everyone! =)
3 comments:
WAY TO GO YIMY!!! Ken jeepers. I know you like comments on the ol' blog but could you go a little easier on us?! I am glad you are still alive! No need for the "picture does no justice" phrase...it looked plenty steep to me! I can't believe you guys walked away from that. Praise God!!!~ xo
Wow, Ken! SO very glad you are all okay. "Thank you Jesus!"
Exactly. =)
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