7/8/10
Thursday after lunch we went to the bus terminal to take a bus to Santa Maria, for what we thought would be an easy weekend trip. We arrived at the station a little after 3:00 but found out that the next bus to Santa Maria didn’t leave until ‘’7:30.” We spent the next few hours at internet cafes watching American TV online. Around 7:00 we went to a small restaurant for dinner, which cost only 3 soles for a soup and an entrée. We arrived at the bus station just before 7:30 and went to the terminal to board the bus. We didn’t end up boarding until after 8:00, and we didn’t leave the terminal until 9:00. As soon as we pulled out of the terminal our bus was stopped by the police and officers boarded to check ID’s. The officers gave Kenzie a hard time for not having any form of ID, and even gave me some attitude for having a photocopy. For the rest of the passengers officers checked ID’s and radioed names to the police dept, we found out later they were looking for ‘delinquencias.’ After the 30 minute ID check, we finally began our journey to Santa Maria. Thirty or so minutes later, just as we left Cusco, a police van pulled up in front of us and signaled the bus to pull over. Another ID check. This one took a little longer, and some passengers said that it looked like we were going to have to go back to Cusco. The bus actually turned around and drove a little bit down the road to a gas station, where almost half the passengers on the bus had to get off. We weren’t exactly sure what was going on, but this ID check took another 30 minutes or so and someone said there was a problem with the driver’s insurance. When we finally got on the road again we cruised along for an hour or so before we turned off the main road into what looked like a field, but was actually the start of a long bumpy and windy road. I fell asleep for a while and woke up to a worried Kenzie. I looked out the window and saw a cliff, and out the other window were signs warning for falling rocks. After a while longer we were in the clouds, and we could no longer see the cliff… not sure how the driver could see the road. After a million or so hours later, we arrived at another police checkpoint in Santa Maria.
We got off the bus and hopped in a taxi that would take us to Santa Teresa. A police officer checked with the taxi driver to see how much he was charging us to make sure he wasn’t ripping us off for being gringos. We thought we might get some sleep in our private taxi to Santa Teresa, but 2 more people got into the back seat with us, one more hopped in the front, and a fourth got into the trunk. At one time there were 2 roads to Santa Teresa, but flooding in the wet season had washed out the faster road so we were forced to take a bumpy, windy 2-hour car ride to the town. We arrived at 5:30 am and went to find a hostel. Our guide-book said there was a nice hostel a short walk from town, but when we asked the taxi driver where it was he told us it “left down the river.” Not sure what he meant, we walked down the road to a different hostel. We later found out that the other hostel did literally leave down the river, during the wet season. We banged on the door of a hostel for a few minutes and eventually the owner came down and gave us a room.
7/9/10
After a 4-hour nap we ate some breakfast and headed to Cola de Mono, the highest zip line in South America. The girl who served us breakfast asked if we wanted her to call us a Taxi to the zip-line, and seemed very excited about it. A taxi showed up a few minutes later (we were thinking maybe he was her brother) and took us down a little jungle road through a bunch of coffee plants to the zip-line. When we got there, a Peruvian girl came out to pay the taxi for us while we went to talk to the guides. The guide who met us said his name was Ben and that he was from Virginia. This made it really easy to talk to him (in English) and figure out what the deal was with the zip-line. He said that he had come through last year and did the zip-line. While he was staying there, he got to know the owner pretty well and ended up keeping in contact with him when he went back to the US. When Ben was looking to do some more traveling abroad, the owner said he was looking for some help with the zip-line. He had been there for about 10 weeks when we were there, and said he’d be staying until around December. After waiting a little while to see if other people were going to show up, we went with Ben, another Peruvian guide Christian, and their local friend Abel to the zip-line. We had about a 15 minute hike up to the first platform (which was easier than would have been in Cuzco since we were at a lower altitude). Elijah sneakily asked me to go first (apparently he’s afraid of ‘dying from high places’), so after Ben explained to us all the safety measures, I followed him across the first line. After not quite making it the whole way, I had to turn around and pull myself the last few feet to the landing before taking out my camera to catch Elijah coming across.
After the first line we got a bit more comfortable with it and started making it all the way across without needing to pull ourselves. Between two of the lines, we had to do a bit of climbing up a ‘ferrata’, some metal rungs in the rock face (while hooked in to a cable so we wouldn’t fall). By the 4th line I was ready to go upside-down while crossing. It’s interesting to see mountains upside-down. I also got to take a video while crossing the 3rd one, which you will be able to see to relive the excitement. While Christian and I were waiting on the 6th platform, he asked if I wanted to do ‘superman’. I wasn’t quite sure what this entailed, but it sounded like fun. When Ben got to the platform he said I would need to put my harness on backwards. They attached my safety wire to Christians harness, and the part that moves along the cable to the cable. When we were ready, I was able to go across the last wire like ‘superman’ and look at the trees from a ‘birds-eye-perspective’ (like you see it when you fly in your dreams). Very cool.
After working up an appetite, we went back to the base camp to eat a
delicious lunch. On our way back, we walked through a little complex where Christian’s uncle and cousins were washing coffee beans from their coffee farms we were zip-lining over (see pictures). Lunch turned out to be quinoa with beef (which was good, so they say), and I had an egg sandwich. The salad we had was supplied with some delicious ‘Limón and salt’ dressing. The limon here is actually Lime, and much better than those we get in the US. Then we went back to the hotel for a HOT shower and a nap before meeting up with Ben and Abel after dinner to go to the local hot springs. A woman from Holland had showed up and came with Ben and Abel to hang out. We also met up with some German girls and an Irish guy who looked like they might be friendly (they were). We all packed into a taxi and asked it to take us to the hot springs, which used to be a high-class resort (see google images- Cocalmayo). The floods early this spring also took this ‘down the river’ with the hostel we read about in the book. However, some locals had put sand bags down so that the pool would begin to form again. It was warm, and big enough to sit in so we hung out here for a while before heading back. Both of the German girls were biochemists, so we did some science-nerd talking. One of the Germans turned 26 at midnight, so we went to a local restaurant for some drinks and garlic bread.
Earlier while we were waiting for Ben, Elijah struck up some conversation with our Hotel owner. He explained the best ways to get to Quillabamba the following day, and walked him to the bus station to reserve our seats on the 6AM bus. We left the following morning bright and early to Quillabamba.
7/10/10
After a very bumpy, twisty, and shaky ride to Quillabamba, we got off the bus and paid. I (Kenzie) sat down on the street, not feeling so good, and after a quick puke we got up and walked away towards the hotel. When we got to the one suggested in the book, they didn’t have any rooms available until 1 PM, so we went a little farther to find a different one. After brushing my teeth and napping, we woke up to take on the day. I was still not feeling well, and beginning to feel achy. We went to get some lunch and walked down a nice walkway with a lot of cool animal sculptures (sorry, we forgot the camera). We stopped at the tourist office to get some information about the local water falls and jungle attractions. Still not feeling so good, we went back to nap and shower before dinner. At the pizza place we went to, we started talking with the owner who told us they had another store in Cuzco. We asked what street it was on, and figured out that we had actually been there a few weeks ago. Apparently her father works at that one. We went back to the hotel and found ‘Independence Day’ in English, with Spanish subtitles, on our TV.
7/11/10
The next morning for breakfast, we went back to the same place we had a cheap lunch the previous day. I had ‘arroz a la cubana’ (an over-easy egg on rice with fried plantains) with fresh Papaya juice, and Elijah had something with steak, rice, and beans. 10 soles total (3.30). We decided to first go to the Pacchac water-falls (the ones closest to Quillabamba on the map). After hiring a moto-taxi to take us there, we stopped on the side of the road and he told us to walk up the path and the water-fall would be there. Not so easy.
After hiking for about an hour we came across a house in the middle of the jungle. Two girls came out and after asking how to get to the waterfall they told us to walk up to the next house and ask the little boy to take us. As we approached the next house we were welcomed by the little boy and he took us back to meet his mom and sister. His mom brought us out stools and told us to sit and then quickly brought out some lemonade-type drink. We chatted the girl who was about 18 years old for a little while, and she told us the waterfall was another hour or so hike uphill. We wanted to get back to town for a 1:00 ish bus so we decided we wouldn’t make the hike. The girl then asked if we wanted her to take us to a closer waterfall. We gladly accepted her offer and she guided us through the jungle for 15 minutes until we arrived at a smaller, but still pretty, waterfall. We hung out and took a few pictures then she walked us back to the road. After saying thanks and goodbye we started walking down the road and eventually waved down a bus that took us back to town. We made our way to the bus station (a few houses with people screaming ‘’CUSCO’’ out in front) and booked our trip home.
Kenzie wasn’t feeling too well so she lay down on a bench inside the house of the people who owned the bus and I went to find some food. After eating two ice cream cones I returned to Kenzie with a third, which she wasn’t interested in. After my third ice cream I went to find the only thing Kenzie felt like eating – a lollipop. I bought a few lollipops, some bread, and some cheese puffs for the ride back to Cusco, then we watched the first half of the Holland v Spain game before heading back. The ride was faster but equally as scary as the ride to the jungle - small, windy, and at times bumpy roads. We got stopped by the police 3 times again but this time it was much faster, since they were only checking for drugs, not criminals. We got back to Cusco around 8:00 and caught a taxi home. Kenzie was still feeling bad and after letting Eli baby her for a few minutes we went to bed.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
7/1/2010
Thursday we had work as usual. Elijah spent a lot of his time in with Doris working on his Spanish since we didn’t have very many patients. Mati wasn’t in Topico, and her usual afternoon-working counterpart Bilma was there instead. Bilma, is not nearly as nice as Mati and doesn’t ever need help. Eduardo and I spent most of the day folding gauze. After work, we had a delicious lunch of pasta and the same salsa her sister made for us when we visited Eli’s father a couple weeks ago. I asked her for the recipe, and she said it was a secret recipe. She finally conceded and said she would write it down for me. We went shopping at El Mercado San Pedro after lunch to buy some stuff. On our way out, we walked by a truck that was dripping from the back. There were some men standing around in plastic purple ponchos. When we walked a bit further we saw that it was blood dripping from the truck and that it contained a bunch of cow heads, and various other animal body parts. The men with poncho’s were wearing them so that when they slug the parts over their backs they wouldn’t get covered in blood. Ew.
7/2/2010
At work today, Bilma was back. However, the first patient we had in was a woman who had a broken collar-bone. The doctor came in and showed me the x-rays, which clearly showed the collar-bone broken in two and displaced so that the two parts were not lined up. He told me it happened in a car accident. The woman entered and the doctor had her sit facing the back of a chair. He injected a pain-numbing substance into her chest where the bone was sticking out a bit in the wrong way. He asked her to put her hands on her hips, which hurt considerably (but moved the bone back into a better position). He then wrapped her arms and around/across her back with cotton, an ace bandage, and covered this with a cast (which ended up looking a bit like those weird things people use to teach ballroom form). The guy with the dog-bite also came back today. He had a bit of pus coming out of the larger bite, but the other one looked like it was healing well. Hopefully he will be doing better on Monday. We have decided to stay in Cuzco this weekend. Tomorrow is Eli’s sisters birthday, so we are going to her fathers house again to celebrate. Hopefully we will be able to hike around a bit as well (to ‘train’ for our Machu Picchu hike in two weeks). Sunday we are going to go horse-back riding around the hills and the ruins. Next weekend, to the jungle.
After teaching Elijah how to play ‘Rummy’, he taught Vale and they have been playing while I blog. She also made us some delicious fried wantan and cheese things.
7/3/2010
On Saturday, Elijah did work on his personal statement. I washed my socks by hand, and we put our jeans and shirts in the washing machine. We then left and went to the city to use some wifi to watch US television online. We also went to a bar suggested by our guide-book which had some thai food (little did they know that we are thai food experts… not quite up to our standards).
7/4/2010
Sunday we went horseback riding around the mountains near Sacsaywaman. We had a choice between paying 30 soles for small horses or 50 soles for larger horses for a 2 hour ride. We ended up bargaining him down to 75 soles for the both of us to ride larger horses and a 15 year old guide named Carlos. The ride was really pretty, and we even got to run with the horses. They weren’t especially well behaved, and Elijah’s especially didn’t want to be steered. My horse was pretty well behaved, except that he was a bit lazy and would trot quickly rather than running (a bit painful). After a long morning of riding and walking around we went out to lunch at the seafood place we took pictures of last time.
7/5/2010
Today, Elijah didn’t feel well when we woke up so he didn’t come to work. Lessons I learned at work today: 1) control your face. Patients will often look at us even if we are not doing treatments directly to try to gauge how ‘bad’ an injury is. It is best to not look shocked or surprised at the amount of blood or pain to make the experience less awful for them. 2) treat offensive patients the same as other patients. One of our older male patients today had stitches he needed taken out. While Eduardo was taking out his stitches, he asked what country I was from. After responding, he proceeded to tell me that we had a black president who was a slave from Africa. Needless to say, this didn’t go over too well with me.
After work, Elijah and I did some more clothes washing and watched a movie (bootlegged of course). After dinner, we talked with Eli about how difficult it is to get a Visa to the US, and how many Latin Americans pay 7 or 8000$ to be smuggled in through Mexico. She said that this was somewhat less common in the last year or so because our economy has been doing badly, and nobody can get work (illegal immigrants included). Elijah also just taught Vale how to play cribbage, which she won by 1 point! She was really excited to learn and told Yhomar that she finally got to learn the game we’ve been playing. Lucky for me, someone else will be able to help occupy Elijah’s need for card games.
Thursday we had work as usual. Elijah spent a lot of his time in with Doris working on his Spanish since we didn’t have very many patients. Mati wasn’t in Topico, and her usual afternoon-working counterpart Bilma was there instead. Bilma, is not nearly as nice as Mati and doesn’t ever need help. Eduardo and I spent most of the day folding gauze. After work, we had a delicious lunch of pasta and the same salsa her sister made for us when we visited Eli’s father a couple weeks ago. I asked her for the recipe, and she said it was a secret recipe. She finally conceded and said she would write it down for me. We went shopping at El Mercado San Pedro after lunch to buy some stuff. On our way out, we walked by a truck that was dripping from the back. There were some men standing around in plastic purple ponchos. When we walked a bit further we saw that it was blood dripping from the truck and that it contained a bunch of cow heads, and various other animal body parts. The men with poncho’s were wearing them so that when they slug the parts over their backs they wouldn’t get covered in blood. Ew.
7/2/2010
At work today, Bilma was back. However, the first patient we had in was a woman who had a broken collar-bone. The doctor came in and showed me the x-rays, which clearly showed the collar-bone broken in two and displaced so that the two parts were not lined up. He told me it happened in a car accident. The woman entered and the doctor had her sit facing the back of a chair. He injected a pain-numbing substance into her chest where the bone was sticking out a bit in the wrong way. He asked her to put her hands on her hips, which hurt considerably (but moved the bone back into a better position). He then wrapped her arms and around/across her back with cotton, an ace bandage, and covered this with a cast (which ended up looking a bit like those weird things people use to teach ballroom form). The guy with the dog-bite also came back today. He had a bit of pus coming out of the larger bite, but the other one looked like it was healing well. Hopefully he will be doing better on Monday. We have decided to stay in Cuzco this weekend. Tomorrow is Eli’s sisters birthday, so we are going to her fathers house again to celebrate. Hopefully we will be able to hike around a bit as well (to ‘train’ for our Machu Picchu hike in two weeks). Sunday we are going to go horse-back riding around the hills and the ruins. Next weekend, to the jungle.
After teaching Elijah how to play ‘Rummy’, he taught Vale and they have been playing while I blog. She also made us some delicious fried wantan and cheese things.
7/3/2010
On Saturday, Elijah did work on his personal statement. I washed my socks by hand, and we put our jeans and shirts in the washing machine. We then left and went to the city to use some wifi to watch US television online. We also went to a bar suggested by our guide-book which had some thai food (little did they know that we are thai food experts… not quite up to our standards).
7/4/2010
Sunday we went horseback riding around the mountains near Sacsaywaman. We had a choice between paying 30 soles for small horses or 50 soles for larger horses for a 2 hour ride. We ended up bargaining him down to 75 soles for the both of us to ride larger horses and a 15 year old guide named Carlos. The ride was really pretty, and we even got to run with the horses. They weren’t especially well behaved, and Elijah’s especially didn’t want to be steered. My horse was pretty well behaved, except that he was a bit lazy and would trot quickly rather than running (a bit painful). After a long morning of riding and walking around we went out to lunch at the seafood place we took pictures of last time.
7/5/2010
Today, Elijah didn’t feel well when we woke up so he didn’t come to work. Lessons I learned at work today: 1) control your face. Patients will often look at us even if we are not doing treatments directly to try to gauge how ‘bad’ an injury is. It is best to not look shocked or surprised at the amount of blood or pain to make the experience less awful for them. 2) treat offensive patients the same as other patients. One of our older male patients today had stitches he needed taken out. While Eduardo was taking out his stitches, he asked what country I was from. After responding, he proceeded to tell me that we had a black president who was a slave from Africa. Needless to say, this didn’t go over too well with me.
After work, Elijah and I did some more clothes washing and watched a movie (bootlegged of course). After dinner, we talked with Eli about how difficult it is to get a Visa to the US, and how many Latin Americans pay 7 or 8000$ to be smuggled in through Mexico. She said that this was somewhat less common in the last year or so because our economy has been doing badly, and nobody can get work (illegal immigrants included). Elijah also just taught Vale how to play cribbage, which she won by 1 point! She was really excited to learn and told Yhomar that she finally got to learn the game we’ve been playing. Lucky for me, someone else will be able to help occupy Elijah’s need for card games.
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