This is on the way to Urubamba:
The Urubamba valley:
Our hotel - the La Quinta Eco Hotel:
Our first crowded mini bus ride:
On our first day at the Lamay Clinic, we met the Mayor and two important people from the clinic. Afterwards, we had some free time, so we went for an hour long horse back ride through a village along a river. It was beautiful. It was also Hetal's first horse back ride.
Day 2: Amaru village about 90min from Urubamba. We were greeted by women that only speak Quecha with flowers. We set up the exam rooms here:
Day 3: We went to a school in Urubamba and mass treated the kids with anit-parasite medications and vitamins. We saw about 170 kids. The school is in the valley surrounded by unbelievable mountains.
Some more mountains:
Wow sounds fun, you should have brought me.
ReplyDeleteJealous. Should have brought ME (Obi and Tonks nod in agreement)
ReplyDeleteThe internet isn't good enough and we don't have the time to blog, but
ReplyDeleteI wanted to share a bit about our trip to Machu Picchu.
We arrived in the late morning on Saturday (Jenny's Bday - Happy
belated Bday!) and bought our tickets for the next day for Machu
Picchu. I then convinced two of the people in the group to join me on
a hike recommended by the Lonely Planet. One was a marathon runner
and the other runs half marathons...I walk 3 miles every week or so.
(They are in the last picture of us on the top of the mountain.) We
headed off for Putacusi mountain at about 2:30. 20min later we were
looking up at a 100ft wall face that was missing 2 ladders at the
bottom. So the first 30ft or so required scaling the wall using a
metal rope that was bolted in to the rock. Apparently this was not
the case 2 years ago when the Lonely Planet researcher was there. We
hesitated, but the marathon runner said we could do it. After getting
safely to the top, I started to get my first touch of altitude
sickness. I was dizzy and the world was starting to spin. A few more
ladders up and I was ready to give up and wait for them. They
wouldn't let me, so I kept climbing. I was exhausted, my heart was
racing, and I couldn't catch my breath. After about 2 more hours, I
reached the top first. I saw the pole signifying the top and looked
to the left and got my first view of Machu Picchu. I almost cried
from relief and from the grandiosity of it all. (That's the 2nd
picture.) We enjoyed the top, but had to head down quickly because
the sun was setting. We made it safely despite the dangerous rock
face and only had to use our lights for the last flat fifteen minutes.
The next morning we got up at 5am to catch the bus up before sunrise.
We decided not to wake up earlier and wait in line to climb the
mountain that only 400 people can do in a day. I was sore from the
hike the day before and wasn't willing to sacrifice more sleep. We
instead climbed Machu Picchu mountain which has fantastic views of the
ruins. We got about 90% of the way up before we started to feel dizzy
and decided to head down. We got down safely, but sore and
breathless. I told one of the guards that I was sore because I
climbed Putacusi the day before and he shook his head and said that it
was closed and dangerous...I sign on Putacusi telling us that would
have been nice. Good thing we all made it safely.
We spent the next hour walking around the ruins without a guide and
trying to guess what all the buildings were. Even though we didn't
know much, it was extremely impressive. They even had some kind of
running water system that trickled through the houses. After playing
with the Alpaca at the ruins, we hobbled back to the bus.
Our train ride back was really special because we had the first 2
seats which had a giant window in the front of the train, so we could
see like we were looking out of a car window. It was really neat.
It was a fantastic weekend, but I am still sore 2 days later. 2 more
days of work before we head home to sunny Cleveland, I'm going to
miss the mountains, but I'm looking forward to more oxygen in the air.
Love,
Emily