Random adventures in the Sacred Valley and Cusco

Hola! I have been living in Cusco for over 3 months, meaning I am just a little over halfway through my volunteer program. Time flies when you´re having fun. When a place becomes like a home away from home, you create daily routines, and not-so-exciting weekend plans, mostly consisting of being a couch potato and watching the lastest DVDs bought off the street and going to the same favorite bars. Needless to say, I won´t bore you with my mundane life. I love living in Peru, but it´s not an exotic adventure every day, so written details won´t really be necessary. Instead, enjoy these pictures. These are the random things I have been up to for the last month and a half.

We helped Mallory and Elise move their English school to a new building in Urubamba. 

Housemates trip to the ruins in Pisac

Jared got stuck in the Incan tunnel

Went to the zoo in Cusco. This is a Sun bear.

I think this is a condor.

I think this is an Ocelot.

The ruins at Chinchero

We even moved our WHOLE hospital! Here´s the old.

Here´s the temporary new!

Celebrating Valentine´s day with the kiddos.

Check out our new and very clean Leukemia unit!

Look who´s on remission and came back to visit 

Sneak peak: next blog, I´ll have a travel adventure to tell you.

Maximo Nivel Health Campaign

A couple weeks ago, we participated in Maximo Nivel´s health campaign, organized by our volunteer doctor, Dra. Mildred. Also with us, were 14 pre-med undergrad students from LeHigh College in Pennsylvania. This health campaign involved going to rural towns and impoverished Cusco neighborhoods to set up a clinic and conduct full-body assessments, and provide meds or referrals to local Peruvians without health insurance.

On the first day of our health campaign, we took a bus to the small town of Ancahuasi in the Sacred Valley, about an hour away from our headquarters in Cusco. We set up the clinic behind the town hall. Since Shelby and I were the only registered nurses in our volunteer group, Dra. Mildred assigned us to teach and help our pre-med volunteers with assessments. To cater to the amount of people we were going to be seeing, Dra. Mildred had us divide a full-body assessment into 9 stations: 1. height and weight, 2. pulse and respirations 3. temperature, 4. blood pressure, 5 & 6 eyes, ears, nose, throat, 7. lungs, 8. abdomen, 9. extremities (arms and legs). Since a basic full-body assessment is not taught during pre-med undergraduate education, Shelby and I almost felt like chickens running around with our heads chopped off to help our fellow volunteers get accustomed to their stations, and to act as translators, as well. After a little while they got the hang of their jobs. Shelby and I continued to translate and answer questions and act as second opinions to any abnormalities seen or heard. It was refreshing to know that we still know our stuff and were able to explain the pathophysiology behind disease processes. Thank you, Univeristy of Portland.

Dra. Mildred

The most exciting part of the day for me was getting to assist Dra. Mildred clean and redress a burn wound on a little girl´s arm. I´m weird and really like treating wounds. The gnarlier the better. We gave her mother more medical supplies and taught her how to continue changing her dressings at home. On that first day we saw approximately 150-200 patients. We arrived back in Cusco at about 8pm and I was tuckered out.

On day 2 we travelled even further into the Sacred Valley, for a little over 2 hours, to the even smaller town of Limatambo. The drive was long and snaked through the mountains, but the town and its view of the valley was absolutely beautiful. We set up clinic in the town´s theater. It reminded me of my elementary school´s multi-purpose room. That day we were expecting to attend to over 300 patients. Having had one full day´s experience with their body assessment stations, our pre-med volunteers were ready to work and seemed more confident. Again, Shelby and I acted as translators and helped any station that needed help. For example, if one station was getting backed up, we´d help them with their assessments to keep the people traffic flowing. The most interesting cases I saw that day were: an elderly man with ascites from alcohol-related liver cirrhosis and congestive heart failure and kidney disease, and a woman with a massive abdominal aortic aneurysm -I could feel its pulse through her abdomen. Most of the patients we saw had arthritic pain and the common cold. After seeing 305 patients, we got back to Cusco that night at 9pm, even more exhausted than the day before. It felt good to be exhausted from working hard, though.

Day 3 was a more relaxing day. We went to one of Cusco´s many neighborhood clinics, aka Centro de Salud. This one was the Centro de Salud Santiago. Our mission for that day was nutrition education to mothers and their children. We made educational posters to show mothers what they should feed their children from the ages of 0-5 months, 6-8 months, 9-11 months, 1-2 yrs, and 3-5 yrs. Additionally, we cooked these foods to show them examples and have them and their children try samples.

Mothers and their children learning about proper nutrition

Malnutrition is a big problem in Peru. It doesn´t help that global demand of quinoa, a native staple here since pre-Inka times, has driven its prices through the roof (it currently costs more than chicken), and now the poor can´t afford to buy it. I don´t even want to get started on the domino effect it causes on the agriculture of other foods commonly eaten by Peruvians. Like in many countries, it is generally cheaper for the poor to eat junk food. Malnutrition-related anemia is rampant among the impoverished children here. The community clinics are adamant about preventing and correcting malnutrition and anemia. The foods we cooked as samples were affordable and easy to prepare. Although it may not sound appetizing here is what we cooked to battle against malnutrition, and particularly anemia for children 1 year old and older: pureed chicken liver scrambled with eggs, green onions, and chopped carrots, deep fried as an iron and protein packed omelette. Note: limeade, simply made with water and 4 limes and a little sugar, is especially important to drink when eating liver in order to help your body absorb the iron.

Trying out our nutritious food samples

On our fourth day, we drove to the outskirts of Cusco, near the airport, to set up a clinic. This is the only neighborhood in Cusco that does not have a government-run Centro de Salud. They didn´t even have a building big enough to host the clinic. We literally moved the furniture out of a family´s living room and used it for our lung and abodmen assessments and pharmacy/doctor consultation. We set up a long tent just outside for the first 6 assessment stations. Neighboring families donated their tables and chairs to our cause. It was quite literally a community effort. Since our space was so minimal, we combined some of the body assessment stations together to avoid unnecessary people traffic through and between the tent and living room. Thankfully, we had another registered nurse from England, and 3 nursing students join our volunteer group. Their skills noticeably helped the flow of the clinic. We attended to 110 patients that day.

The week of the health campaign was busy, but incredibly refreshing to get to work hard to help people who don´t have any sort of health care. Dra. Mildred is absolutely amazing. She organized the week with the people of each town/neighborhood. Apparently Maximo Nivel hosts 3 of these health campaigns per year. Hopefully I will still be around for the next one.

Feliz Navidad!

First and foremost, I want to thank the readers who donated money to help us buy our leukemia kids their Christmas presents from ¨Papa Noel¨! Since I want you to see the smiles on their faces when they opened their presents, I have posted the pictures from that happy day.

Trying to hold on to all of his presents at once

Our jugadores de futbol

Teddy Bear hug

Cars and Man-dolls (aka action figures)

Smile :)

Group shot

My soccer players again

Every year at Christmas when I´m away from home, I get terribly homesick. For the last two years I have had to work during Christmas, so I had become accustomed to working my 12 hour night shifts and sleeping through the holiday. However, this year was different because I was awake and didn´t miss Christmas, and it was one I will never forget. As homesick and emo as I was during the days leading up to Dec. 25, I actually enjoyed this Christmas and found the spirit of the season with my leukemia kids and fellow volunteers.

On Christmas Eve, I went to my hospital and spent time drawing Papa Noel with my kids and watching Christmas movies. In the afternoon, our organization, Maximo Nivel, was hosting a big Christmas dinner for their 3 orphanages. We spent the afternoon at the orphanage with these kids setting up for the dinner and decorating, and, of course, preparing/cooking the grand dinner.

Santa getting ready at the orphange

¨Papa Noel¨handing out presents at the orphanage

That night, a couple friends and I went out to dinner, overlooking the incredibly crowded Plaza de Armas. Christmas in Cusco is a huge fiesta. Local Peruvians from out of town flock to the Plaza. It´s a very interesting Christmas tradition: the impoverished locals from the hills come into town and set up their markets selling anything and everything they can on the 24th and the 25th, and at night they sleep on the sidewalk bundled up together. For many here, Christmas is the time when they can make the most money, and take what they earn back up to their small villages in the hills to get by for they next few months.

By midnight, the Christmas market was cleared away, and everyone returned to shoot off fireworks. It was really pretty, but it also felt like, what I can only imagine to be, a war zone. Firecrackers rocketing up pretty close, or spinning on the ground, and all coming from every direction. We hurried home and shot off a couple fireworks from our roof. Merry Christmas!

On Christmas day, I woke up early to go to one of the many Catholic churches to attend Christmas mass. I didn´t understand much, as it was naturally in Spanish, but I totally missed the memo about bringing a baby Jesus to mass and getting it blessed by the priest. By the time I figured holy communion was about to happen, every family lined up to get their baby Jesuses blessed. It took forever. Then I went to my hospital and visited my kids for a couple hours. The rest of the day was spent with my lovely house mates, eating, drinking, and watching Christmas movies. We saved the best for last: It´s a Wonderful Life.

Ciao

In the Jungle, the Manu Jungle

Hola! I survived my last crazy trip of 2012. After the Jungle Trek, I apparently couldn´t get enough of the jungle. I guess I caught jungle fever. Last weekend my University of Portland crew and I spent 4 days in Manu National Park. It is basically Peru´s Amazon jungle. In fact, it lies right next to the Amazon jungle. Our tour guide was pretty badass. He was born and raised in the jungle, and he had incredible senses! His sense of smell, hearing, and vision were so acute! Jungle senses.

Day 1: Road trip from Cusco to Manu
        We left Cusco at dawn and drove for about 14 hours. Fortunately we made a couple stops along the way. We first stopped at some ancient, pre-Incan ruins, which looked like gnome-sized houses. They were actually tombs built by an indigenous tribe where they buried their dead in fetal-position (they left the world the way the entered it) and with their treasures. During the Incan Empire, the Incans respectfully closed the tombs. When the Spaniards invaded, they opened them and stole the treasure. Next, we stopped at a historically colonial town, called Paucartambo and shared a round of Chicha (Incan beer made of corn). Finally we arrived at the entrance to Manu National Park... and on we drove through precariously narrow, winding roads through the jungle. It took us so long because we had to stop and wait for the landslides to get cleared off the road. We spent the night in the village of Pilcopata.

                                                   Joe as a pre-Incan mummy

Day 2: Riverboating through el Rio de Madre de Dios
        Before getting dropped off at the port, we stopped at a small animal reserve where rescued jungle animals are rehabilitated. We met Anita, the spider-monkey (I don´t know why its name is Anita, when it was obviously male), a squirrel monkey, a capybara (aka giant rodent), a wild pig, something that looked like a raccoon, a couple macaws, and a SLOTH!

A capybara and me. I like this little guy, and he seems to like me. Must be because of my tribal facepaint, indicating that I´m a single lady.

Anita the spider-monkey running away from the little squirrel-monkey

A sloth!



        At the port, we picked up our trusty rainboots (Thank God they actually had my size!) and boarded the riverboat in el Rio de Madre de Dios, which eventually connects to the Amazon River. We were told we would get to go swimming in the river when the sun came out. We were also warned not to urinate in the river because there is a tiny fish, called Candira, that follows the trail of your urine and swims up your urethra and causes all sorts of problems. Noted. So the boat pulled over by a tiny beach and we jumped out. Our guide and our cook donned life vests, but didn´t hand any to us. Then they proceeded to jump back into the river, riding the current, and told us to follow them. I hate swimming in open water. All my friends jumped in the river, and I freaked out and jumped back in the boat. Fortunately, Mallory yelled at me to jump in and reassured me that the water was shallow. I´m so thankful she did that because the water was, in fact, fine and it was so much fun! The boat had turned around and stopped ahead of us downstream. The current was pretty strong so it was interesting when we all had to come short of crashing into the boat and hold on for dear life as we crawled back into it. Next, w stopped at a stretch of black sand beach where our guides showed us how to make black mud. We lathered ourselves with it so that our bodies were completely black. Naturally it turned into a sloppy mud-slinging war. We laid out in the sun for 10 minutes to let the mud dry and washed it off in the river. Mudbath, jungle style. After the water activities, we docked at our lodge, which we had to hike up a steep, muddy trail to get to from the river. There was good reason why we picked up rainboots for each of us.

      At 4:30 pm with boots on and torches (flashlights) ready, we started our jungle night hike. Our guide was sporting boardshorts, a wifebeater, and rainboots, and was armed with a machete lol. It wasn´t dark when we started, and we were lucky enough to see a whole family of Wooly Monkeys in the tree tops before the sun set and they went to bed. The hike was hard. It was very muddy and steep and we hiked straight up and then straight down. Our guide also showed us all kinds of plants and insects. He pointed out the giant Bullet Ant, whose bite causes you pain for 24 hours! We also saw a scorpion spider! Yes, it looks exactly like its name. Scary. The hike down was pretty trecherous because it was dark and rainy. We eventually made it back to the lodge and celebrated our survival with dinner. That night was the first time I slept in a mosquito net.

Day 3: 2nd Jungle hike and the Lake
       We were supposed to wake up at 4:30 am, but our activities are determined by environmental conditions. I have never been so grateful to wake up to the sound of pouring rain against our tin roof in the middle of the night. We got to sleep in until about 7:30 am! We boarded our boat and crossed the river to hike a much easier trail. We checked out a botanical garden and saw some medical plants. One tree bled blood-red sap when you cut into it. The sap is applied onto cuts and abrasions to help heal your skin. A lot of plants and fruits are aphrodisiacs in the jungle. On our hike we drank medical water out of a bamboo-like tree branch. We also saw 2 giant cedar trees. Their roots fan out and naturally make a perfect bathroom stall, not that I used it as a bathroom. It was tempting, but the possibility of snakes living in there killed that idea. With all sorts of trees fallen over on the trail, we successfully managed to get a little lost. Don´t worry we found our way without losing much time.
      Later in the afternoon, we went on our second night hike. We crossed the river in our boat again, and walked through some reeds to hike a flat, but marshy, trail. We stopped at an animal sanctuary lake where we split our group into two rafts. I´m talking Pinocchio and Gippetto style rafts from the Disney movie. We slowly meandered through the reedy lake looking for animals. We mostly saw these birds, whose name I forgot, that are related to turkeys (but can actually fly up into trees) and ferment their food when they digest, emanating a distinct smell. We were looking for capybaras (they have webbed feet for swimming!) and caimans (related to alligators and crocodiles). It got dark by the time we turned our rafts around and our torches weren´t very bright, but we were able to see a capybara swimming across the lake ahead of us... well I mean we saw its water ripples and splashes trailing behind it. We also saw red eyes of a caiman in the dark water. After the lake, we hiked over to a dark lagoon where a caiman was sitting. We could see its red eyes in the water, but not its body. Our guide told me that caiman can be 1.5 to 8 meters long from head to tail. We had no idea how big that caiman was. We threw sticks at it to try to make it move so we could see better, but thankfully it remained still as a rock. Ya...we were basically antagonizing an alligator.
       After getting bored with the caiman we hiked the trail back the way we came. I previously mentioned that this was a very marshy trail. There were parts where we had to walk over logs across the water, and parts where we had to wade through boot-high water. During the 2 hours or so while we were hiking and floating in the lake, the river rose by about 3 feet! What was boot-high water at the beginning, was now waist high water that we had to wade through. Then, where there was no river before, now there was a river with a current that we had to forge! Thank goodness for Joe, he literally had my back while I was using my best form of body mechanics against the current to cross, and our guide grabbed my arm and pulled me the rest of the way to shore. Our guys were at the end of the line to cross. The current was so strong, our last guy lost his balance and nearly fell in. All the guys quickly linked arms to pull each other to safety. The only thing I could think of crossing that piece of river was, ¨This current is going to sweep me away into the lagoon with the caiman that we were just throwing sticks at 20 minutes ago.¨
      Our water issues were not over yet. We came to the last stretch of water we needed to cross, and our boatman was waiting just on the other side of the reeds. But of course, the water had risen too deep to wade through. So, our guide started yelling, ¨Frederico! No puedo pasar! Ven aqui!¨, across the reeds. Thank goodness for jungle men and their jungle senses. Frederico actually HEARD us yelling! He maneuvered the boat to the water where we were stuck...but then he got stuck because of a tree. So, our guide busted out his machete and carved a new path for us  through the reeds so we could get to our boat. We made it! Now, we just had to drive the boat in the dark, with no light, against the current back to the lodge without capsizing. We celebrated our survival (again) with dinner and muchas cervezas.
        I was so ready to crash in bed, but of course, the adventure was not over yet. Shelby found a giant cockroach in our room. She was gesturing that it was as big as her hand, and of course, I didn´t believe her. We set ourselves up in cockroach killing positions, she had the can of cockroach-killer spray, and I was ready to pull back the shirts and jackets hanging on the wall behind which the not-so-little bugger was hiding. I pulled a shirt back...nothing. We decided to switch roles, now I had the can. Shelby pulled back another shirt...nothing. She pulled back Helena´s jacket...nothing...oh wait THERE! It was camouflaged against the wall. It was literally the length of the palm of my hand. Shelby was exaggerating a little bit, but nonetheless, it was ginormous! We hosed it down as it continued to do its pre-death scurry towards Helena´s bed. We hosed it down so more. It finally stopped moving and I kicked it out of our room. Of course, this was all done maturely and quietly... not. Good thing our walls were paper-thin. I thought the cockroaches in my house in Texas were big. Nope. Sorry Texas, everything is bigger in the jungle.

Day 4: Canopy walk and the roadtrip back to Cusco
        We said goodbye to the lodge and enjoyed a beautiful morning boat ride back to the port... until a wave splashed us in our only dry clothes. I knew I should have hidden under my poncho from the start! I was worried about the road conditions and landslides since it rained all weekend. We were lucky. I think we were only stalled twice or thrice. Granted, I was passed out from Drammamine, so I could have missed a couple. We stopped at a canopy walk in the Cloud Forest, near the entrance to the park. It was a nice little walk. We saw a small snake. We got to cross 2 suspension bridges above the valley. Don´t worry they were so sturdy that only 4 people could cross at a time. It was a nice little break from sitting in the bus. We made it to Cusco that night safe and sound.

No more crazy adventures for me until rainy season ends. I hope you all have a Feliz Navidad! Shelby and I are playing Santa Clause for our 5 patients at the leukemia ward we currently work at. We asked them what they wanted from Santa earlier this week. If any readers would like to help us buy their presents, any donation would be much appreciated. My PayPal account is under cpadilla.nalagan@gmail.com. (mark your donation as a ¨gift¨so you´re not charged a fee). Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

Machu Picchu: jungle trek to cloud city

Hola! Last weekend I embarked on my long-awaited and anticipated Jungle Trek trip to Machu Picchu. My volunteer-mates, Cate and Duncan, and I left last Friday morning for our 4 day, 3 night adventure-packed trip.

Day 1: Cusco to Santa Maria
Mountain biking- Our tour group took a little road trip in our van with  mountain bikes on the roof about 2 hours outside of Cusco. As the bicycling fan that I am, and having been deprived of bicycling for a month (ya, ya, first-world problems, I know), I was looking most forward to riding a bicycle, even a mountain bike. We got geared up with padding, gloves and helments, and behold: rain and fog. The first 10 minutes of riding our sketchy mountain bikes downhill a winding road through the mountains in the pouring rain was pretty miserable, I´m not going to lie. I was honestly a bit scared because it was raining and we were sharing the road with cars and trucks with no bike lanes. All but for of us in our tour group gave up the mountain biking and got back in the van to tail us while the 4 of us hard-core ladies continued to snake downhill the mountain pass through the pouring rain. I am so glad I endured the rain because I ended up having a lot of fun racing big rigs for 2 hours downhill. I might have to take up mountain biking when I get back to the states. When I start making money again, a new road bike might have to wait while I get a mountain bike first. After the mountain bike ride, we got back in our van and rode on to the little town of Santa Maria.
River Rafting- After lunch and getting settled in our hostel, I went river rafting for the first time in my life! We joined up with another tour group and were given a very brief briefing by our rafting guides on how to raft and what to do if we get thrown out of the raft. We even had a little pond to practice our new instructions in. According to our guides, the rafting ¨level¨was a 3-4. However, from my friends who have rafted here in Peru before, they say that the Peruvian rating system is different than in America. For example a Peruvian 3 felt like an American 1.5. I have nothing to compare to but I had a great time and felt like we had a few good runs with some waves and whirlpools and rocks.

Day 2: Santa Maria to Santa Teresa
I have 7 words to summarize this day: 8 hours of hiking through mountainous jungle. It was a beautiful hike. Thank goodness the elevation was lower than in Cusco, because my breathing was back to normal during this trek. In Cusco I can´t breathe after running for only 25 minutes because of its elevation, and probably the pollution as well.We literally hiked up and down the mountains through jungle and also through part of the original Inka Trail. There were several moments when I thought I was going to die. Parts of the Inka Trail were 2-2.5 ft wide trail with rocky mountain on your right side, and sheer cliffdrop to your left. Then we had to cross the river over a janky rope-wood bridge, only to cross it again on a cable car. This was not a cable car like the ones they have in San Francisco. This was a cart with half-foot tall side rails, similar to the overhead carts in the mines in one of the Indiana Jones movies, connected to basically a zipline cable over the river. A man on the other side would then pull you in the cart across the river.

The light at the end of the tunnel of hiking that day were the hot springs at the end of the trail. We could see them from this point at the cable car. Naturally, once we crossed the river we had to climb up a mountain first and back down to get to the hot springs. We relaxed our sore legs for a couple hours then unanimously decided as a tour group to pay to ride a van into the town of Santa Teresa where we spent the night.

Day 3: Zip-lining and more hiking from Santa Teresa to Aguas Calientes
That morning the zip-lining company picked us up and drove us to their base where we got geared up. Then we hiked up a mountain (since of course you need to start up high before you can zip-line down) and it was all downhill zip-lining from there. I've zip-lined before, but I was a little apprehensive about it this time because we had to brake ourselves...meaning we wore reinforced working gloves and had to grab hold of the zip-line while we were moving at 40 km/hr to stop ourselves. Thankfully our zip-line guides really portrayed expertise and acted very professionally. We soared through the sky from mountaintop to mountaintop over the valley and the river. It was the longest distance I have ever zip-lined. Unfortunately I don't remember the exact length of the longest line, but it was pretty long. At the end of the 4th and final zip-line, we braked at a "platform." I thought the platform was attached to a tree. Nope. It was a couple planks of wood attached to the zip-line cable. The guide at the platform then   removed my carabiners (again, I thought I was going to die), and attached it to the vertical rope on which he repelled me down back to where we started at their base.

After that adrenaline rush, we drove to a hydroelectric plant, where they harness energy from the river to power the towns, to have lunch and a little siesta. From there we commenced our hike. Compared to the previous day, it was easy breezy since we were simply walking along the railroad on flat ground. It was relatively safe, until we had to cross the river on the train bridge. I had been mostly walking on the railroad to keep myself from getting too bored walking for 3 hours, so I figured I had become accustomed to it. When we got to the bridge, our guide said, "If you have fear of heights, feel free to walk on the pedestrian side" (which was really narrow, btw). "If you're not afraid you can continue to walk on the railroad across." So I continued on with my railroad walking along with most of our group since it seemed natural at that point. Worst idea ever. As soon as I was above the river, there was a pair of rail that was about a yard apart. I have short legs. Talk about a horrible combination. I also had Duncan walking behind me so I knew I couldn't make any sudden stops or he'd run into me and we'd both fall through the rail and become one with the river below. Obviously, this was one of my biggest "I'm going to die" moments. I have never shook from fear before until that moment. Clearly, I made it across after a few yard-apart rails, but I'm never going to do that again. I'm all about the designated pedestrian lane from now on.

We eventually made it to the touristic town of Aguas Calientes; the gate to Machu Picchu. We decided to check out the hot springs there, too. They weren't as good as the previous day's, but hey it was nice to pamper ourselves a little bit. We were going to conquer Machu Picchu in the morning, after all.

Day 4: Machu Picchu
We woke up at 3:30 am. I can't even remember the last time I woke up that early. If I'm up at that time, it's most likely because I'm coming home after a night out. After a little breakfast, Duncan and I parted from our tour group, most of whom decided to take the bus up, to tackle the climb up 1,763 stairs (approximately, I counted) to get to Machu Picchu. As the title says, Machu Picchu is cloud city. There was a dense layer of fog that early in the morning so we couldn't see anything. We met with our historical tour guide at 6:30 am and he gave us a great tour of the sacred city for a couple hours. This guy really looked like an Incan Emperor (at least what I think one looks like in my head). Then we had time to hang out and explore the ruins and wait for the fog to rise so we could take awesome photos. Cate, Duncan, and I also decided to check out the Sun Gate, not realizing how far of a hike it was. It really wasn't bad, but we were exhausted and had not mentally prepared ourselves for the effort.

Machu Picchu was a sacred city where nobles, priests, holy people, and their farmers lived. It thrived from the 1400-1500's. When the Spanish invaded Peru, the civilians of Machu Picchu took their belongings and treasures and fled (legend says they took their gold to El Dorado). Unfortunately, there were people left behind, whose bodies were found years later upon the excavation of the city. It remained a hidden secret for a while until a couple Peruvian families rediscovered it in the 1800's and moved in. They used the same terraces to farm and the same buildings to live in. 1911 was when white men came and officially "discovered" it. American explorer, Hiram Bingham trekked through these mountains and met one of the family members that knew of Machu Picchu along the way. Bingham asked him if there were any archaeological sites from the Inkas around, and he brought Bingham to Machu Picchu, who took credit for its discovery.

Machu Picchu is a breath-taking place and highly recommend going there. I loved how the clouds were so close. It's like they're kissing the tops of the mountains and the city. After frolicking in this ancient city in the clouds, we descended down the same stairs. I was exhausted. Then we took the train back home to Cusco. The end.

Lake Titicaca (get your mind out of the gutter!)

Sorry this post is a week later than I planned on writing it. So much has been going on! Firstly, we finished up our four weeks of working at el Centro de Salud Santa Rosa. It was such a great experience working with such knowledgeable and kind doctors who are really passionate about preventative care.
Here´s a pic of us with our doctors on our last day.

This past weekend, Shelby, our fellow volunteer-mate, Duncan, and I took a trip to el Lago de Titikaka. The giant lake between Peru and Bolivia. First we took an overnight bus to Copacabana, Bolivia, pretty much to say that we had been to Copacabana and with the intention on singing Barry Manilow´s song ¨At the Copa, Copacabana.¨ Talk about a hidden treasure! Copacabana is a small town with hostels ligning the cliffside, overlooking the lake. It was so perfect and relaxing. We did a hike up the Calvaria mountain (that was tougher than hiking up to Cristo Blanco in Cusco), then enjoyed the evening in a hot tub (with a random couple) at the next-door hostel with a bottle of wine whilst overlooking the lake at twilight. So romantic lol.

 The view from the top of the Calvaria

The view from our window at our hostel room in Copacabana

Next we took the bus back across the border to Puno, Peru to get ready for our island homestay tour in Lake Titicaca. First, we took boat to the floating reed islands of Uros. The people live off of the reeds. The islands are made of reeds. Their homes and furniture and boats are made of reeds. They even eat the roots of the reeds. In total there are 80 floating islands. If there are any problems between neighbors, they can just saw off their portion of the island and either start a new island or anchor on to another floating island.

Next we took a 3 hour boat ride (a choppy boat ride) to the big island, Amantani. Here we were introduced to our host-families. Our host-mother Vincentina and host-grandmother, Francisca cooked our meals and later dressed us up in traditional clothing and taught us how to dance at the fiesta they have for the tourists at night. In the afternoon, our tour guide led us up to the temple of Pachatata (father earth). This weekend was full of hikes to get me ready for Macchu Picchu next weekend!

 Atop Pachatata (yes I´m representin´)

With Abuelita Francisca

After spending one night on la Isla de Amantani, we were off to the smaller island, Tequile. Naturally, the plaza was at the top of the island so we did another hike up there. We had lunch at a restaurant that had a great view of the lake looking towards Puno bay. We also learned about the significance of the types of hats men wear on Tequile island to show whether they are single and want to be left alone, or single and looking, or engaged, or married. A very obvious way to show your relationship status.

la Isla de Tequile

Finally we made it back to Puno and had time to kill before our 9:30pm night bus. Puno is a surprising city. At first glance, it´s just another city. According to Lonely Planet it is the Folklore capitol of Peru. It is a much smaller city than Cusco. Their ¨Gringo¨street has a lot of neat bars and restaurants. Like Copacabana, Puno has some hidden treasures of its own. On a smaller street off ¨Gringo¨street, we found an awesome restaurant bar with a delicious 3 course dinner for a great price. Unlike Cusco, Puno has a cinema! So to kill time, we watched El Origen de Guardians in spanish (and no subtitles!). It was good Spanish practice. For our last dinner in Puno, we found a restaurant off the beaten path again, called La Choza de Oscar. Great food... and lo and behold it ended up being a dinner and a show! Although there were only 3 of us there, the band and the dancers peformed with all their hearts. They danced several different folk dances with costume changes and all. We couldn´t have asked for a more perfect way to end our weekend trip.