We survived the Inca Trail. It was amazing. I don´t have the time to write about it just yet or to upload photos, but I will. The train from Aguas Calientes leaves in an hour for Cuzco. Lisa and I fly to Lima tomorrow and then catch our red eye back to the states friday night. We should be back in MN saturday evening after a nice long layover in Atlanta. Once at home with cable internet I will upload the rest of the pictures and write about the last week of my stay here in Peru. 9 weeks flew by. [View Full Entry]

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Here are more pictures of lake titicaca the Bolivian side, border crossing and Copacabana. [View Full Entry]

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Here are the pictures I promised from the first part of our excersion to Lake Titicaca, the peruvian side. [View Full Entry]

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There are few words that can accuratly describe the jungle, but I will do my best. To start off with its hot. Not only is it ridiculously hot, it is also unbearably humid. The entire day from sunrise to sunset you spend sweating, you are always sweating. We arrived in Puerto Maldonado around 11 am where we met our guides and ditched most of our luggage before the hour bus ride with no air conditioning to the river town Inferno or Hell town. (side note: The town was settled by people immigrating from the highlands. They found the weather so unbearable [View Full Entry]

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Another cold cloudy day in Lima. I don´t think I have seen the sky once since I have been here, only clouds. We did quite a bit of exploring the city yesterday and came to the conclusion that Lima has the feel of a Euopean city despite the fog and areas of extreme poverty. A guided tour of the city brought us around central Lima and Mira Flores. We began at El parque de amor or the park of love which was created in the image of the park in Barcelona. It was beautiful on top of a cliff overlooking the [View Full Entry]

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After quite sometime I´m back. Sorry everyone. Between the site being down and traveling I haven´t had much time to update. There are some entrys that have been lost and I will try to recover them someday when I have time, probably back in the states. As for now I am in Lima, the grand city of Lima. Ok, actually its not that grand at all. The city is always over cast and filled with smog and the traffic is unbelievable. With this out of the way though its not really a bad city, just large and loud. We arrived here [View Full Entry]

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There seems to be an abundance of barbed wire in Peru. A single wire runs around every patch of grass along the sidewalks no matter how small the patch may be. The reason for the barbed wire we are told, is to keep the dogs out of the grass. For this to be effective the wire ends up being just at calf height on a human leg and many a volunteer have fallen victim to torn pant legs. The dogs however, simply hop the wire and do their buisness. Oh Peru, when will you learn? Peruvian miscommunicaiton was at its [View Full Entry]

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Slow weeks continue here in Ayacucho. There have been strong rumors circulating through the clinics that the stikes will be over by next week. We all know better than to hope but its hard not to. There were talks in lima this past weekend and things are looking good so maybe these rumors might come true. Last week ended slowly. We went to a campaign in a neighborhood further down in the valley, unfortunatly for us there was no general doctor so there was nothing for us to do. We helped translate a poster from english to spanish for the veteranarian [View Full Entry]

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The strikes continue with no end in sight. There have been rumors this week that the strikes were going to end by today but it was only falso hope. The doctors and nurses are marching to lima tomorrow and will be gone for all of next week and independence day weekend. Emergencies will still be open so we will still go to work. My clinic has been very slow and the lab has been closed for the past few days. There is one clinic that is stil working so we are finding things to do. The nurses of Los licenciados [View Full Entry]

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Paracas might just be one of my favorite towns in Peru so far. It is extreamly small, the entire town in settled along the water front along a board walk. Unfortunatly it is also very touristy so gringos appear in every direction and the resaurants tend to cater to more american appetites. After a wonderful dinner sunday night on the boardwalk we settled into our hostal for bed. Yes, the pillow was lumpy but the bed was fine and I got a good nights sleep for the first time on the trip. We awoke early in the morning and headed [View Full Entry]

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