Today was the last day of clinic in Lima. We had thought about going, but the night before everyone said it ran smoothly and wasn't enough for everyone to do, so we decided not to go. Adam's dad was feeling better so he finally got to go to the clinic. Instead the four of us, plus Meropi went to Pachacamac, which is about 40km southeast of Lima. Since there were five of us we got a really nice van taxi with AC! The ruins were really cool. They are the ruins of 4 different civilizations: Lima, Huari, Ichma, and Inca. Our guide that we got was fantastic. He was very well informed and could answer all our questions. The site was really large, and a lot of it hasn't been excavated yet, so there is still ... read more

We were so tired from the day before we decided not to volunteer with the Optometry students in the morning. When we got up and were headed out to get water at the store we found one of the students had gotten sick. We took her to the store with us to get some fluids and then headed back to the hostal. Adam and his sister were walking to the room when they heard someone say "hello" in their dad's voice, but Adam thought it was a guy working there who had passed them, but then the voice said again, "Adam." It turns out that their dad had also gotten sick. We got him some fluids and left him to rest. Steve had picked out an archeology museum to go visit, Museo Nacional de Antropología Arqueología ... read more

We packed up our things and checked out at noon. We had the hotel store our bags and we set out to walk around. We were surprised to see some store's were open on Christmas. Our flight wasn't until 11pm, but Adam decided to check and see if there was an earlier flight. He found a direct flight home at 7pm (our original flight had a layover in L.A.). We discussed whether or not it would be worth paying the extra money to switch our tickets, and for about 200 NZ dollars for both of us, we were sold. We had lunch at a small park by the university and talked with the people at the front desk of our hotel to reschedule a pick up time to the airport. We got to the airport, got ... read more

Today was our first day at the backpacker's car market. It's a depressing little garage on a little street near a main one. We hung out all day with an Israeli girl and a British guy also trying to sell their vans/cars. It was a long day where no one came in except an Israeli couple the girl had found on the street and convinced to stop by. Also the British guy had someone stop by who had read an online ad. I felt depressed and anxious. That night Adam showed the van to a couple who seemed interested and said they'd get back to us the next day. ... read more

This morning we got up and we had a flat tire in the back...on the driver's side this time! Luckily this time it could be patched. It was a quick fix. We continued our drive this morning going through the Kauri forest, where we saw Tane Mahuta, New Zealand's biggest Kauri tree which is about 2500 years old. It was huge. There were other trees, but none as big and impressive. Tonight we are staying in Waiwera, right next to the ocean. We wanted to spend our last night right by the ocean. We are attempting to clean up our van (we vacuumed at a gas station) and are doing laundry of the bedding and towels. Also try to wipe things down and just generally make it look nicer. While moving laundry around in the laundry ... read more