Claire Mapplebeck

Mappers

Claire Mapplebeck

Hellooo friends, family and anyone else that wants to have a nosy at what I'm doing whilst I'm out of the country for the next couple of months...!

I'm travelling to Peru on the 5th of June for 2 months for my medical elective with two of my good friends Rohan and Sarah.
Our basic plan is to fly into Lima on the 5th and then fly straight on to Cusco. Whilst in Cusco I will be taking spanish lessons, doing the Inca trail and working in the paediatric department of the local hospital.

After Cusco I'm going to travel south towards Puno, Lake Titicaca and Arequipa where we are hoping to see the Colca Canyon (twice the size of the grand canyon!). Then we intend to travel up the west coast stopping off in Nazca, Ica and Pisco to see the sand dunes and try our hand at sand boarding, before returning back to Lima.

From Lima we are flying up to the Amazon Jungle, Iquitos. Here we are going to spend the next 5 days seeing the sights (i intend to be wearing my bikini and lying in a hammock on a boat thats gently meandering down the amazon...) before yet again returning to Lima where we have 2 nights in the capital before our eventual return to the UK.

I'm hoping to be able to update this blog with messages and pictures whenever I can whilst away to keep people up to date (particularly you mum and dad!) and I also thought it would be nice to have a written account of all our adventures to read when we get home.

Will see everyone on our return 😊

Lots of love and hugs
Claire xx

Too busy to write.... Inca trail, clubbing, surgery and a massive amount of food!

South America » Peru » Cusco » Cusco July 12th 2011

Mappers

Hola!! So i´ve been totally rubbish at writing on here recently but life in cusco has been so busy i´ve struggled to find time to use a computer for more than 10 minutes! Where to start... I probably should mention something about the inca trail in the snow! We started the inca trail on the 30th of june with a 6am pick up from the hostel and from here on a coach to ollantaytambo which is pretty close to the start of the trail. When we arrived in ollantaytambo we were told by our guide (freddie) that there was very unusual weather predicted for the 4 days and that we should buy additional waterproof clothing before leaving. We hadn´t seen even a drop of rain in the 3 weeks we´d been in cusco then so were ... read more

Que Pasa!

South America » Peru » Cusco » Cusco June 23rd 2011

Mappers

Hola mis amigos! Had great luck with placement this morning... Sarah and I went in for 8am with great intentions of watching all of the operations that we're on this morning, but when we got there the doctors told us that there wouldnt be any scheduled for today or tomorrow because of the festival of light that is tomorrow! So it looks like we're having a 4 day weekend, whoop! I was on the paediatric department last week but decided to swap to surgery this week because they are very protective of the children and there wasn't much for me to do except watch and try to understand the very fast spanish of the ward round. There was some weird and wonderful stuff on the paediatric ward like malaria, TB and a very unusual cardiac anomaly. ... read more

Hablo un poco de español...

South America » Peru » Cusco » Cusco » Cusco June 9th 2011

Mappers

¡Hola! We finally started spanish lessons this morning after a nice 3 days off to aclimatise and explore. 4 hours of speaking spanish made me realise quite how much i´ve forgotten in 6 years... We stumbled upon a festival in the plaza de armas this evening which was a perfect opportunity to practice our new phrases with the locals, especially the cutest 5 year old peruvian girl who wanted to sing ´head, shoulders, knees and toes´with us! There is a festival in town literally every night through june with the locals dancing and playing music in their traditional dress as they are celebrating 100 years of machu picchu this month. The festival lead up to a huge festival on the 24th of june, which all the locals (and us!) are getting very excited about. We weren´t ... read more

Made it to Cuzco!

South America » Peru » Cusco » Cusco » Cusco June 7th 2011

Mappers

After 4 flights and 36 hours of travelling we finally made it to Cuzco yesterday :D Was a smooth journey apart from the flight from Lima to Cuzco, where we experienced quite a lot of turbulence. We were enthusiastically met at the airport by a Peruvian woman called Mercedes who said she´d be our ´mum´for the next 6 weeks. Where were staying is basic but has everything we need and even has its own sun terrace where we can take in the amazing scenary (and sunshine!) Cuzco has so far been amazing apart from a little bit of altitude sickness but we all seem to be getting over it quite quickly. The weather is very sunny and warm during the day but quickly turns freezing in the evening, think we´ll definitely be needing our alpacha jumpers ... read more

Getting ready to go!

Europe » United Kingdom » England » South Yorkshire » Sheffield May 24th 2011

Paddington ready for his adventure home

Mappers

12 days to go! With not many days left to go and with the rest of this week of placement and a week of lectures still to go, not forgetting the 6 evenings out planned between now and then, I'm suddenly realising that I better get a move on with getting packed! Apart from couple of little things I think I have everything I need (i've accepted that there's always going to be something i forget!) so now its just the question of fitting everything on my list into my rucksack. Fingers crossed I haven't been over-ambitious with my planning! ... read more

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