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| Clinic Puerto Maldonado - Pueblo Viejo |
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Arequipa
We're back in Arequipa, and I'm typing on my new laptop! I'm entertaining my Grandma, Uncle, and Mom, and we're going to dinner at my host mom's house tonight! Mom and I went out last night and today we walked around all afternoon. It's been a lot of fun. Soon we're going to Lima, Cuzco, Puno then back to Arequipa for the Arequipa medical mission--tourism!
-Catherine
-Catherine
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Puerto Maldonado
I was reminded, yesterday, why the rainforest bears that name. It rained about noon and didn't stop until we were back in the albergue. We didn't see much wildlife: couple turtles, birds, a lizard, frogs. Nothing I would call "jungle." This part is a lot like Seattle, just more humid, with bigger and nastier insects. 3/10 rating for the tour and unprepared tour agency.
So, besides the tour, the rest of the mission is... meh. The group is cool, really young and full of energy, but there's more drama than normal. Mostly we're not getting the support that the municipality promised us, and so there are budget issues. The clinics are going well, and either are really busy or really empty, and it wears on us either way.
It's very hot and humid. The bugs are HUGE. Mosquitoes, grasshoppers, beetles, etc. I don't like it at all. All sorts of nasty, biting bugs to make life miserable. Anyway, some photos to keep everyone a little happier.
So, besides the tour, the rest of the mission is... meh. The group is cool, really young and full of energy, but there's more drama than normal. Mostly we're not getting the support that the municipality promised us, and so there are budget issues. The clinics are going well, and either are really busy or really empty, and it wears on us either way.
It's very hot and humid. The bugs are HUGE. Mosquitoes, grasshoppers, beetles, etc. I don't like it at all. All sorts of nasty, biting bugs to make life miserable. Anyway, some photos to keep everyone a little happier.
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| Clinic Puerto Maldonado - Jungle Tour |
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| Clinic Puerto Maldonado - Señor de los Milagros (Days 5-7) |
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| Clinic Puerto Maldonado - El Centenario (Days 3-4) |
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| Clinic Puerto Maldonado - Centro Comunal Del Centro Poblado Menor La Joya (Days 1-2) |
Monday, May 11, 2009
Chile Photos
The album caption:
"We have spent 3 months in Peru now, and so we had to renew our visas. As such, we decided to take a quick jaunt across the border to Arica, Chile. We spent the night in Tacna on the way since we were tired and just wanted to rest. The next morning we went through the border ordeal (which includes contracting an hour-long taxi and dealing with customs) and got to Arica. It's a very nice city along the beach in Northern Chile. We saw almost everything in the two days we had there. Overally, it was very relaxing, and a nice get-away."
"We have spent 3 months in Peru now, and so we had to renew our visas. As such, we decided to take a quick jaunt across the border to Arica, Chile. We spent the night in Tacna on the way since we were tired and just wanted to rest. The next morning we went through the border ordeal (which includes contracting an hour-long taxi and dealing with customs) and got to Arica. It's a very nice city along the beach in Northern Chile. We saw almost everything in the two days we had there. Overally, it was very relaxing, and a nice get-away."
Domi's Food! YUM!
These delicious dishes are prepared by the same person who usually cooks for us on missions! - aka "Comida."
Back in Arequipa
There's a lot to catch up on now.
We're back from Chile! We had a lot of fun there, but we're going to Bolivia next.
We finally bought our tickets for Puerto Maldonado, for about the same price we've been expecting this entire time, but after hours and hours of frustration with the Lan Chile site we went into the actual physical office. This was after we got back from Colca:
Colca
We got back from our 2-week mission trip in Colca on Friday. It was cold to say the least, according to the paper we got down to (-10) degrees Celsius (14 Fahrenheit). Wow, right? This plus no internal heating anywhere in the Colca valley means we were using many, many blankets at night. The mission itself went well, but quite a few people got sick from various things, including myself. The biggest issue was altitude sickness, since we were at tweleve thousand feet in Chivay (our base camp) and 15500 feet at our highest clinic. Most people just had more trouble sleeping than normal, a few were dizzy, sick, weak, etc. The other thing that aflicted the group was some stomach issues. The worst cases were vomiting and sick in bed, the rest of us had some gurgles.
It was a pretty rough trip, with some very tough cases as well. But overall it went well, and was fun. Christian was there, and brought his dentist friend from Lima. Besides that, there were quite a few young people (Mick--Christian's girlfriend's brother, Dr. John's daughter and her boyfriend, etc). The rest of the group was fun too, and the trip as a whole was one of the funner ones I've been on.
I was almost sent home to rest on Thursday, but I fought Tania and convinced her to let me go anyway. I had a lot of fun at 15500 feet, and actually felt better there than anywhere else on the mission, I even ran up a small hill there to see the view. Catherine got burned, clinic was very informal, everyone was tired and it was a long trip back to Chivay (almost 4 hours). We had spent the last two nights in the small village of Callalli, where it was even more cold than Chivay, and the middle of nowhere. There was a bonfire, and good food, including questionable trout (that everyone blames for getting sick).
Bad news on the Arequipa front, the MMI office here was robbed while we were in Colca. They took both computers in the office among a ton of other things (including a surgicial equipment set) and nothing has been recovered yet. Hopefully they'll find some things today, if not... ugh. It's just a bad situation all around. Many many un-backedup documents have been lost.
Anyway, photos on the next post (just testing the email-posting feature of Blogspot right now), coming in a second!
-Will
We're back from Chile! We had a lot of fun there, but we're going to Bolivia next.
We finally bought our tickets for Puerto Maldonado, for about the same price we've been expecting this entire time, but after hours and hours of frustration with the Lan Chile site we went into the actual physical office. This was after we got back from Colca:
Colca
We got back from our 2-week mission trip in Colca on Friday. It was cold to say the least, according to the paper we got down to (-10) degrees Celsius (14 Fahrenheit). Wow, right? This plus no internal heating anywhere in the Colca valley means we were using many, many blankets at night. The mission itself went well, but quite a few people got sick from various things, including myself. The biggest issue was altitude sickness, since we were at tweleve thousand feet in Chivay (our base camp) and 15500 feet at our highest clinic. Most people just had more trouble sleeping than normal, a few were dizzy, sick, weak, etc. The other thing that aflicted the group was some stomach issues. The worst cases were vomiting and sick in bed, the rest of us had some gurgles.
It was a pretty rough trip, with some very tough cases as well. But overall it went well, and was fun. Christian was there, and brought his dentist friend from Lima. Besides that, there were quite a few young people (Mick--Christian's girlfriend's brother, Dr. John's daughter and her boyfriend, etc). The rest of the group was fun too, and the trip as a whole was one of the funner ones I've been on.
I was almost sent home to rest on Thursday, but I fought Tania and convinced her to let me go anyway. I had a lot of fun at 15500 feet, and actually felt better there than anywhere else on the mission, I even ran up a small hill there to see the view. Catherine got burned, clinic was very informal, everyone was tired and it was a long trip back to Chivay (almost 4 hours). We had spent the last two nights in the small village of Callalli, where it was even more cold than Chivay, and the middle of nowhere. There was a bonfire, and good food, including questionable trout (that everyone blames for getting sick).
Bad news on the Arequipa front, the MMI office here was robbed while we were in Colca. They took both computers in the office among a ton of other things (including a surgicial equipment set) and nothing has been recovered yet. Hopefully they'll find some things today, if not... ugh. It's just a bad situation all around. Many many un-backedup documents have been lost.
Anyway, photos on the next post (just testing the email-posting feature of Blogspot right now), coming in a second!
-Will
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