Here I am overlooking a quaint valley from one of the rock walls at Machu Picchu...the storm is just blowing in that completely soaked us.
:)

A random bus stop...oh look I found my dad...

Me and the crazy labies

(Our professional lab techs Matt and Kevin)

The famous Machu Picchu

Behind it the monstrous WaynaPicchu that we hiked up...one stone stair after the other.

Me and the VW in Machu Picchu

Clinic: Episode 3

After returning to Pucallpa, we had one crazy day to pack up the whole pharmacy and travel out to Km 4 for our next medical clinic. The clinic was a pretty normal one, no extreme cases, but lots of people who needed help. In 5 days the medical team saw 811 people. Our clinic site was a small little building (quite a bit smaller than the size of an average living room)with a dirt floor. We were quite crammed – with 2 doctor rooms, two triage rooms, a registration area, pharmacy and a laboratory making it fun to perform clinic duties. Thankfully the dental team had a little house all to their own. It was fun to complete another clinic week. I love the chance to learn more medically and have the opportunity to come in contact with so many individuals and to help them. The new area is really dusty, so lots of people had respiratory problems and we ran into many who had crazy high blood pressures, one lady had shingles, one man had a huge bulge of blood vessels on his hand, some just wanted vitamins and worm meds; however, the most interesting case was a lady who had had a piece of wood stuck in her foot for over a year. Due to the dusty conditions, Doctor took her to his clinic to do the surgery, so I didn’t get to watch, but it was still a pretty crazy case. There are always interesting things that happen during clinic (including getting woken up each morning around 2 or 3 by the line forming outside waiting for medical attention) and lots of interesting people with crazy stories. But now another clinic has passed and Tuesday the travel team will be moving out to the new location. Funny thing is that our new home is named the 17 of September…so technically I can say that I will be living in the 17 of September for the next two months, it is going to be a very long eventful day…hehehehehe.

Christmas …minus the Christmas Atmosphere

Times have been flying by….the seasons should have changed, but they have not. Christmas time came and left, yet the blistering jungle heat and humidity is still the same. It was hard to get in the Christmas spirit without the cold and the snow. But the great thing about the coming of Christmas was some free time. Lucky me got the chance to travel down south with none other than my brother, dad, mom and Andrew Vizcarra. We had a crazy fun time. The first episode of our trip was eating fresh granadilla (slimy fish egg looking fruit, that is uber delicious) from my very own back yard jungle here in Pucallpa. Then we boarded a bus and headed for the colder regions of Peru. We had some crazy bus experiences, including a few pointless bus rides and ended up flying down south, rather than taking 4 days to travel there by bus. But the experiences were all dandy. My family got to see Cusco, Machu Picchu, Arequipa, and lots of random country in between. Cusco was a classic historic city with a delicious restaurant named Jack’s. Machu Picchu was better than it is hyped up to be. When we first arrived it was completely fogged over. Needless to say we were a bit bummed. But then the fog lifted and the architecture of ages past was revealed - green grassy fields, stone remains of stone houses, llamas…and tourists. We stayed in Machu Picchu all day, walking among the ruins, chasing llamas, climbing up WaynaPicchu (the big tall mountain behind Machu Picchu) for an amazing view of Peru’s most famous tourist trap. It was absolutely amazing to be seeing, touching and smelling one of the 7 wonders of the world. Andrew, Jonathan and I had a crazy adventure trying to get to Bolivia so that I could renew my visa (My parents camped out in Cusco for an extra day) To make a long story short, we crossed the border illegally at least 5 times in the process of just trying to exit Peru and enter Bolivia. Then to add to the excitement, after successfully exciting Peru and entering Bolivia, we walked back into Peru and stayed the night there, returning to Bolivia the next day to leave the country officially. Then since it was Christmas day we decided to seek out a decent Christmas meal. So we found a local street vendor. I had some sort of warm tea (it was quite cold down south), not sure what kind, but quite delicious. Some sort of tasty tea, was my Christmas dinner, which I drank while staying illegally in Peru. What a Christmas! All too soon Christmas break was over and it was time to go back to Pucallpa. Traveling around was an epic experience. I made friends with people from Spain and Argentina and other random places in the world. It was amazing to be able to talk to people in Spanish.
One of the crazy things we did during break was go to the local market and buy bread, cheese, basil and avocado and sit and eat it in the main plaza in Arequipa. Take note that this is not something that anybody does…especially not tourists. We had some people that stared at us the entire time we were eating; others who would walk by and look, only to turn around and look again and again then proceed to laugh at us. We were definitely the most entertaining thing in the square. Nobody could figure out what on earth Americans were doing sitting on the ground, eating avocado and bread. Try it sometime…it is more fun than you think…and quite delicious. (Uncle John…next time you visit a foreign country I want to see a picture of you testing this out…)