The Challenges of Attempting to do Science in South America

I have been in Peru since the end of June and this country never ceases to amaze me: the people are extremely helpful, friendly and giving, the scenery is breathtaking, the food is a gastronomic delight, and overall, living here has been a super-fantastic experience in almost every way. Its been great to get out on my "own" and pick up my professional and personal life and move it all to Peru for 6 months. But attempting to do science here has been a constant struggle.....

I thought I should document some of the struggle - I'm sure my boss will have a hard time understanding why it is so difficult to make progress here, and my colleagues from back home might find it interesting to hear about the daily things Peruvians overcome just to TRY to acquire scientific data here. So here goes!

Supplies: UGH. I mailed 8 boxes of supplies from the US. We used a shipping system through the US Navy who have a base here in Lima. It was supposed to be easier and more reliable, and honestly I expected it to be quick-ish. Well, one box made it after a month....but the other 7 boxes did not make it to my lab for another 4 months. Apparently they were being held "hostage" until everyone was sure who/what/where/when/why I would be doing. Bureaucracy, its fun. While they were being held, I returned to America and smuggled in replacement supplies since for a long time I had no idea if I would ever get my original materials, but lo and behold, a week after returning to Lima with suitcases full of tubes and pipette tips, my boxes were released and now I have tons of scientific supplies in my room at home because there is NO room in my lab. Yes, there are boxes of tubes, plates, and tips all over my bedroom.

It is either expensive, difficult, or impossible to get many things here. Some plastics are easy-ish (plates, tips, tubes), but we had a 3 month fiasco trying to order sterile media filters. And one item like that can bring a project to a screeching halt - we couldn't filter our powdered media or PBS (and you can't get the liquid) so we couldn't start our experiments on time.

Other things, like fetal bovine serum are AMAZINGLY expensive, even by American standards. They pay up to 3 times the US price. An antibodies and other "hazardous" products are expensive AND require special shipping permissions, making it nearly impossible to acquire them at all.


IRBs: My experience with ethics committees and IRBs was relatively tame, but so many people have HUGE issues getting their studies approved. Mine was already in the process of being approved at UCSD and here in Peru before I left the states, but it still took almost a month and a half after I got here to have it all rubber stamped and fully ok'd. But there are researchers here trying to set up studies from scratch in 3 or 4 hospitals that go thorough 6 month long struggles attempting to get studies approved before the can even BEGIN to start.


Space: If you take into consideration the average lab, like mine, we have about 5ish feet per person of personal lab bench space. The lab I work in here is much different! For each 5 feet of lab space there are about 3-4 people sharing a bench. That means you are constantly bumping people, asking to share equipment, and are generally elbow-to-elbow with someone the ENTIRE work day. No jamming alone to tunes on your iPod, no quiet time pipetting, just constant chatter and people in your professional and personal space bubble all day long. I usually love it, but some days you just need to get things done quickly and with concentration, and that is difficult here!

Coming in on the weekends: A pretty difficult thing to accomplish. Saturdays are do-able, you are able to get into the lab, but Sundays are really hard. You have to get special permission in advance, get paperwork signed, and it's a big deal. While this might seem nice overall, it makes doing science tricky.


Letters with stamps: Everything in Peru is documented with paperwork, and everyone that fills out said paperwork has a stamp. If you don't collect the right stamps in the right order, your stacks of papers are meaningless. This is true everywhere, from retails store to the university.

For example, if you walk into a local pharmacy, the Peruvian equivalent of a CVS or a Walgreens, you walk up to the counter and ask for what you need - all the merchandise is usually far out of reach behind the counter. Let's say you want sunscreen. If they have 10 varieties of sunscreen, you have to stand there and ask about each one, what SPF each is, how much it costs, is it waterproof, etc. Then you decide, and you get a piece of paper with the name of the product and the price. You then take the ticket to the cashier, and pay for your desired product....and you get a stamp. Once you get a stamp, you take the paper to a whole new person, who may or may not fetch you the product you intended to purchase. It takes at least 3 face-to-face, talking interactions to buy ONE product in a small store. The more products, the bigger the store, the more complicated every purchase becomes.
It is a similar process for all paperwork. Someone needs to be paid, someone has to approve everything, and you must have a rubber stamped piece of paper to prove it all. It's mind boggling!

Management: As I said before, I work with some very intelligent and amazingly nice Peruvian scientists, and it has been a privilege to be able to just barge in and use their space and attempt to do science, but it has been tough at some points die to the management style here. It's hard because the main bosses, the Principal Investigators (PIs) who's names are on the grant, are usually far away and in America. This means they show up every once in a while and get updates, but the rest of the time they manage the labs via half-English/half-Spanish e-mail exchanges and subordinates, which is a tricky thing to do. This means a lot gets lost in translation, and the rest is up to the people on the ground here.

Equipment: My main headache causer so far. I had two mini-mental breakdowns due to a refrigerator and a -80 degree freezer. The fridge had been cleaned out, but when it was plugged back in, it was plugged into an outlet with the wrong voltage (they use 220 volts down here, but also have a few 120 volt outlets to accommodate American equipment).....that meant that even though the light in the fridge lit up, the motor wasn't running. In fact, the fridge actually heated up to about 90 degrees (Fahrenheit) and $10,000 worth of my supplies (which i kinda-sorta smuggles into the country) sat in it overnight.

When I discovered it, I was heartbroken (Read: crying, mumbling incoherent Spanish at my poor labmates, etc). Not only were the supplies insanely expensive, but they were extremely difficult to get to Peru, since every refrigerated item has to be hand carried on ice on a plane by a scientist coming from America. Luckily, when we called the supplier they assured us the supplies would be alright even after heating....but who knows.

A second major and ongoing fiasco is a -80 degree (Celsius) freezer with a broken door latch. All my human blood samples that I collect from patients go into this freezer, but the latch that keeps the door securely shut is broken, and ice formed around the seal in the door. One Saturday morning I came in and discovered a huge puddle collecting under the unit and freaked out. All my samples that were supposed to strictly be kept frozen were sitting in puddles of cool water inside the freezer (along with many other people's samples). In the US, we would have it fixed or replaced immediately, but getting maintenance done here is hard, and getting a ginormous and expensive replacement freezer is next definitely impossible, especially on short notice.

I have definitely learned a lot from this experience, and I have a newfound appreciation for how spoiled I am at home doing science in a shiny new lab in the USA!

Huanchaco

This weekend was another infamous holiday in Peru, so a few friends and I decided to hit the north of the country and head to Trujillo and Huanchaco, cities on the beach about 13 hours (by bus) north of Lima.

The hostel's pet turtle

The Crew :)

Fanny, Dan Karlin, Dan Pastorius, Josh and I grabbed tickets on a comfy overnight bus, packed our bags, and got psyched for a few days of awesome Peruvian seafood, surfing and ruins. We decided to stay in a hostel right on the beach. We had big plans to visit ruins, see the city of Trujillo, and enjoy some Peruvian culture.

Fanny being serenaded

We arrived at the beach early in the morning after a LONG bus ride up the coast of Peru. Our hostel was awesome, it was two buildings, the first with a huge courtyard full of hammocks, complete with a resident tortoise :) We dumped our bags and went to find breakfast. The town was compact and fun - tons of restaurants and bars and cute shops full of touristy jewelry.

Caballitos de totora

We decided that we wanted to take some surfing lessons in the afternoon, so we found a little shop with some enthusiastic teachers, and headed back to the hostel to get our suits.  We showed up for the lesson and were led to the "other store" where they had all the wetsuits and boards...which was clearly just a crash pad for 20-something Peruvian surf bums. But we suited up in our mismatched wetsuits, booties with holes in the toes, and huge foam boards and headed out to the waves.

Sunset

On the beach, the "instructors" gave us a brief lesson on land (paddle, jump, pray!) and before we knew it we were out in the waves. The water wasn't as freezing as it was in Lima, and we had a fun hour or so being pushed into the waves by the instructors. But our foam boards were soon waterlogged and heavy, and my girly arms got pretty tired, so we didn't last very long after our teachers floated off at the end of the allotted lesson time. But it was so warm and sunny, and the water was great, and we sat on the beach and watched the men fish and surf in their traditional reed boats (caballitos de totora or "little reed horsies" :). 

Jammin' Josh

Street food!

We watched the amazing sunset, ate some fantastic ceviche, and lounged in the hammocks of our hostel drinking the local beers. We caught wind of a "Reggae Party" happening at one of the (only) bars in town, so once it was late enough, Josh, Pastorius and I headed out to see what a Peruvian beach reggae party would be like.

We severely underestimated how late the "party" would begin, and ended up being some of the first people to show up at the bar...but we had fun and eventually the party picked up speed.

But the band was pretty bad, and Josh was complaining that he could totally outdo the guitar player - so at some point when they were taking a break between songs I gushed to the lead singer about how my friend LOVED them so much and would be so psyched if he could play a song with them :) My Spanish flattery and charm being much improved since my early days in Peru, this worked like a charm, and in no time Josh was on stage improv jamming with the band! He rocked it!

Outdoor sleeping...

We got some street food (skewers of mostly unidentifiable meat - but what you could identify, you mostly didn't want to...chicken hearts, anticuchos (beef heart), regular grilled chicken, and random other treats), and headed back to the hostel. But what we didn't realize is that there was a strict curfew and we had been locked out! But the boys came to the rescue and scaled a wall using the vines growing on it as a ladder and made it over the outer wall and into the outdoor courtyard to unlock the door.

Peruvian hairless dog (ew!)

For some reason, we then decided it would be a great idea to sleep in the hammocks in the courtyard...so we grabbed all out pillows and blankets, and "camped" in the hammocks outside our rooms :) 

I was rudely awakened by other tourists giggling at us, and upon further inspection, realized I was the only one left in the hammocks. Apparently the boys got cold and left me swinging in the breeze alone!

Chan Chan

But we had a super relaxing day and did almost nothing but eat, lounge, shop and soak up the chill Peruvian beach vibe. We were all surprisingly totally in love with the little city of Huanchaco, and were having too much fun being tourists but not looking at ruins, museums, art or anything in the guide book!

On our last day, we decided to actually visit Trujillo, the city we originally were aiming to explore. We first stopped off at Chan Chan, which is famous for being the largest adobe city in the ancient world. We paid our money, skipped the high-pressure option for a guide, and wandered through the adobe maze. It was mostly eroded, with only small sections that had been "restored" to anything resembling the intricate patterns our guidebook claimed used to cover the walls of the city.

It didn't take long before we were all slightly bored, and we eventually headed into town for dinner. We had no real goals for sightseeing, so we stuck to the main plaza and a few side streets and found an Italian restaurant.

We ate and reminisced, but eventually we had to catch our overnight bus back to Lima :(

It was a really fun long weekend, and we were all happy and relaxed after all the sunshine, surfing, shopping, ceviche and local beer!

Fun differences between the US and Peru

After traveling to the USA a few weekends ago, I thought I would write about some of the things I found interesting and some differences I noticed between America and Peru - don't get me wrong, there are a lot of differences, but some are just more striking or life impacting than others. Peru friends: let me know if you have any to add! :)



Things I can't seem to find in Lima (which I actually seem to miss):
-Bud Light
-Chocolate chips (there is one brand of chocolate "flavored" chips, and they are bad and expensive)
-Books in English that don't suck
-Peanut butter that doesn't cost $8 or suck
-Cool Whip (via Dan Pastorius)

Random American things I can get easily in Lima:
-Snickers, M&Ms
-Kraft Mac n' Cheese
-Kraft Singles
-Reddi Whip
-Lay's Potato Chips
-Miller Genuine Draft (ew)
-Boone's Farm
-Jim Beam and Jack Daniels
-Free ATMs!! I can use an International bank named ScotiaBank and get money out without a fee. 

Things that are still odd/annoying to me about South America:
-The elastic and ever-changing concept of "on time" and time in general. "I'll be there in 15 minutes" might mean: a) 15-20 minutes, b) 2 hours, or c) "I had no intention of actually showing up, but I am trying to be polite and not tell you that." (or the converse, d) you walk into a meeting 30 seconds late and everyone is already there and stares at you...its mind-boggling)

-No toilet seats on the toilets (why!?!). Just the porcelain. And usually no toilet paper. And you throw the paper in the trash can. That's right, ALL paper goes into a trash can next to the toilet....this one might scare off a few Americans.

-Blatant disregard for anything even resembling traffic laws (like lanes, passing, or right of way) BESIDES wearing your seat belt (but only in the front seat....safety first?). This lack of rules also applies to any line as well (like to get on a bus, purchase something, etc)

-Complete lack of any emission laws - so much pollution! When I come home and wash my face, the water runs black :(

-Triple carbs at every meal (rice, potatoes/fries and bread....plus juice and dessert sometimes)

-Complete lack of heating...you just wear all your layers inside, too.

-Serious cat-calling: whistles, noises, kissy faces, whispers, shouts...you name it, I've ignored it.

-Never carrying a purse with valuables: Sometimes I carry a bag with a book or other little stuff, but my money/keys/cell phone are always in my pockets.

-Sub-par showers. Usually no pressure, sometimes only lukewarm water, and sometimes you get electrocuted from the electric water heaters in the shower head.

-Hanging my laundry to dry: Thought it would grow on me, but my jeans never fit right and some of my shirts get all stretched out. Grr. However, getting laundry done for you is super cheap :)

-CENTIMOS: Ugh. 1 centimo = 1/100th of a Peruvian sol = .0035 AMERICAN CENTS = worthless!!!! They are these stupid little coins that are ONLY given out and accepted at MAJOR grocery stores. Otherwise people must use them to level out shaky tables or something, because they serve no real purpose. And they feel like they are made out of plastic.

-Napkins: Peruvians like to fold their napkins or cut them into super small pieces. For example, if they are going to place a napkin under your drink at a bar, you will get a 1-ply square that is just smaller than your glass. And all napkins are about 50% smaller and thinner than their American counterparts.

Things that are amazingly better/cheaper here:
-FRUIT!!!! Cherimoya, maracuya, grenadilla, papaya, camu camu, I could go on forever.

-Aji! Amazing condiment made of peppers...like hot sauce but SO MUCH BETTER. Ugh, I am going to miss it...it has completely converted me to a spicy-foods-at-every-meal-even-breakfast person.

-Triple carbs at every meal - its blessing and a curse, but so yummy! (rice, potatoes/fries and bread....plus juice and dessert sometimes)

-Public transit: while I have a love-hate relationship with combis (mini-buses), its nice to never have to drive anywhere and get across town for 30 cents.

-Giant beers that you buy and share with everyone at your table (and you aren't allowed to say no when a Peruvian offers you some).

-Ceviche: raw fish marinated in lime juice, spices and heaven. Nuff said.

-"Sours": like Pisco sours, or maracuya (passion fruit) sours. Drinks made with pisco, fruit, sugar and just enough egg white to put a layer of foam on top after its blended or shaken.

-Long-distance luxury bus travel: So awesome! Nothing like Greyhound, and there are so many companies to choose from! And if you do an overnight bus, you magically wake up in a new city.

Random things I just find odd:
-When constructing a building, they leave the rebar sticking out of the top floor, like they might add another level on at any moment. All the buildings have this eerie, unfinished look.

-Stray dogs, they are everywhere!!

-Greeting people: when you walk into a room, you MUST greet everyone that is in the room personally, usually with a kiss. Even at work, even your boss.

I'm sure I will be able to add to this before I'm done here, but this list was a start!

Ciao!
Kristyn

Fin de Semana Larga!

Hola,

I bleed for science

Well, since Taylor left I have settled into my new place (although the commute is KILLER - at least 1 to 1.5 hours each way) and attempted to begin a regular lab schedule. The only problem is my supplies still haven't arrived and the project has been slow to get rolling. I did all my test runs this week on myself! That's right...someone in the lab who has drawn blood "once or twice before" stuck me, and I was "Patient 0." It was actually sort of fun to test my protocol on myself, and I think we worked out all the kinks and are ready for real patient sample next week!

Pisco and wine!

In the meantime, we had a long weekend for yet another Peruvian holiday. Of course I wanted to take advantage, and I planned a trip for myself and about 13 other Gringos that just arrived in Lima on various scholarships. We ended up going to Ica (I had already been there - wine tasting and sand dunes!) and to a small town called Lunahuana to go white water rafting.

We left at 6:30am on Saturday morning, but for some reason decided that since it was so early, the best idea would be to stay out all night the night before the bus, and go straight to the bus from the clubs....clearly this logic might leave something to be desired (like sleep!) but I embraced the plan and around midnight we headed out to a bar in Barranco.

Tacama vineyard

We stayed until after 4am, and the guys got odd looking hamburgers from a cart in the street on the way home. I had a bite, and they tasted delicious...but I still can't bring myself to eat red meat from a stand at 4am. We grabbed our backpacks, got to the bus station, and all promptly passed out for the 4 hour drive to Ica.

Some of The Gringo Crew

When we arrived, it turns out one of the guys packs didn't make it onto the bus, so we waited around for a Peruvian "15 minutes"....15 minutes coming from a Peruvian means anything from 20 minutes to about 2 hours. Then its "un ratito," which means "just a sec" or "maybe some time tomorrow if you're lucky." So we waited for about an hour and his bag did miraculously arrive. We dumped our stuff at our hotel and headed out for a wine tour.

The boys dancing on stage

Since I had already been to Ica (during the Peruvian Independence Week), we negotiated a great tour of 3 wineries and transportation for all 10 of us for only 20 Peruvian Soles per person (about $7 for a whole afternoon of wine touring!). We had lunch at the first bodega, and then hit two more. It was a relaxing and fun afternoon, and by around 6pm we were all pretty tired. We agreed to a long nap back at the hotel and all crashed for a couple of hours before dinner.

Pisco...

After the nap and a late dinner in Ica, we headed out to clubs near the oasis and the dunes...Well, I guess I should say "THE club," because there is only one decent bar in the whole tiny place. We danced and had a few drinks, and around 3:00am a few in the group headed home. Since I didn't climb the dunes last time I was here, I thought it would be a great idea to hike up the dune in the dark and watch the sun rise from the peak. 3 other gringos (Dan, Josh and Mary) were actually foolish enough to come with me ;)

Climbing the dune

Knowing we might get thirsty on our long hike up the dune, we purchased a bottle of pisco at the bar and began our little quest. We sadly underestimated the grade of the dune and spent the next HOUR on our hands and knees crawling up the dune! Armed with our bottle of fortification, we crawled on, and made it to the top...but we also underestimated the number of hours it would be before sunrise and we arrived about 2 hours too soon. Dan entertained us with borderline terrible jokes, and we sat at the peak as the sky gradually lightened.

We watched the sun rise over the misty valley and the oasis come into view. It was a beautiful morning, but we were all tired and quite sandy, so we began or trek down the dune. We discovered that if your ran down the dune while taking huge strides, you could bound down like a moon walker! However, we also quickly discovered that one false step meant that you would end up tumbling head-over-heels in the seemingly soft sand.

I volunteered to gingerly walk down the sand mountain after carefully storing everyone's camera in my ziploc bag and watched my friends careen down the steep slope (some more gracefully than others). We all made it down the hill with our limbs intact, and grabbed a cab back to Ica. Since it was only about 7am, we had a difficult time finding an open establishment for breakfast. But our taxi driver was sympathetic enough and drove us around in circles until we found a restaurant. We had tamales and juice and walked back to our hotel and went to sleep at about 9am.

We were rudely awakened by our alarms at 11 am, got dressed, and checked out of the hotel. The other 6 gringos had gone sandboarding, so we wandered the super small town of Ica in search of a massage. We found none, save for the world's creepiest Turkish bath house, which would "only massage women today. Men tomorrow." We never found a legitimate massage place, so we had some lunch, grabbed some ice cream, and sat in the plaza like all the other Peruvians. The mean security guard blew his whistle at us when we tried to sit in the grass (apparently that's not allowed in a park?) so we crashed on a bench and waited for our friends.

Who doesn't like Crack?

They eventually finished, but 4 of them decided they wanted to go to Paracas (to see the penguins), but I had my heart set on river rafting, so 6 of us hopped a bus to a town called Canete. It was an easy ride, and we arrived, grabbed a cab, and all 6 of us jammed in with our bags for the 40 minute drive to the town called Lunahuana. I had picked the town because it was supposed to be surrounded by vineyards with a river running through it for white water rafting...and it was only 2.5 hours from Lima! We arrived in the dark and couldn't see the river, and also had some trouble finding the hostel.

Our prison cell

After calling and stopping every person on the street, we found the place - but we were told we had "no reservations." Just so you know what I went through to secure reservations, I'll tell you that I called over 27 hotels in this small town, and FINALLY found this place which claimed they had space for 10 people!! But when we arrived he gave us the run around about having to "call and confirm the day before" and blah, blah, blah....and that they had no rooms for us. Knowing that every other hotel was dull (because I had called them all!!) I demanded that he figure it out. He thought for a while, wandered around in circles, and then brought me over to what I can only imagine was a storage closet. In the closet there were mattresses piled - he said he would try to make up 2 rooms for us in this "unfinished area," (read: construction site and storage closet). I knew it was better than the alternative of sleeping in the street, so I agreed. He tried to charge us triple the original price (for us to sleep in closets!!) but I talked him back down to the original price of 15 soles per person (about $5.50) and we left to get dinner and let him prepare the rooms.

Our prison cell bathroom

We had a tasty pizza dinner and laughed about the hostel. Luckily everyone thought it was hilarious, and we were all glad that we were only 6 people, not the original and impossible 10 people, because it never would have worked! We ate and had a beer, and even though we were all exhausted from our extreme lack of sleep, we decided to hop a cab into town to see the plaza. We got to the plaza, tried in vain to find an ATM, and attempted to get a drink. We ordered, waited for about 30 minutes, and then gave up when the waitress told us "one minute" for the 5th time.

We headed back to our dungeons/prison cells hoping to find 6 beds. We found 5 "bed like" items, shockingly had hot running water, and decided to ignore how odd the whole situation was and try to get sleep. My bed was rock solid, but I got a few hours....

The Rafting Crew

We woke up on Monday and were finally able to see our surroundings! We were in a valley between rocky hills, and it honestly looked a lot like Southern California. Barren and brown, but here, there was a river running through the valley! We checked out of the hostel as fast as possible, and started aimlessly wandering down the one road in town hoping to find breakfast or a cab that would take us somewhere. We were amazingly picked up by a combi (mini bus) and taken almost directly to the rafting place. We accidentally over shot the location, but after a few calls and a bit more wandering (a very common theme here in South America...I end up wandering a lot) we found it. And they even had a restaurant! We ordered lots of lomo saltados (beef sauteed with peppers, tomatoes, onions and french fries over rice) and waited for 4 more friends who were supposed to arrive from Lima to go rafting with us.

They arrived miraculously on time and we all ate breakfast, put on tons of sunscreen and bug spray (tiny mosquitoes everywhere!!!) and then suited up for rafting. We all piled into the back of a truck wearing all our gear, and were taken up river. After carrying the boats down to the water we were given a quick lesson and jumped in! The water was low since we were in the middle of the dry season, but we still had a lot of fun. We were divided into 2 boats, so we tried to race each other. Every time one raft would take the lead they would inevitably get stuck on a giant rock and the other team would pass....only to get stuck on the next rock! But it was fun, and in the middle of the trip the guides had us get out, swim around, and jump off rocks and float down the river. The water was surprisingly warm, and it was fun to float in the water!

After my raft won, we went back to the rafting office. They had a campground with a pavilion, hammocks, a huge lawn, and a rock climbing wall, and in our indecisiveness we ended up just lounging around soaking up the sun for the entire afternoon instead of going to visit wineries or anything. It was super relaxing, and we bought snacks and a couple beers from the teeny shop down the road and laid in the lawn for hours.

When we were all sufficiently eaten alive by the mosquitoes, tired of chips and crackers, and ready to return back to gloomy Lima, we hopped back into a combi and returned to the bus station. It was a mad house (the last evening of a holiday weekend, everyone was headed back to Lima) and we were split up, but we all safely got on buses headed back to Lima. We got back into dark, dreary Lima and I grabbed a quick bite to eat with two of the guys who live near my neighborhood.

Overall, it was a fun trip, and I want to go back to Lunahuana and lounge in the sun and explore the vineyards some day!

My pictures from the weekend: http://kristynspictures.shutterfly.com/6717

Until the next mini-adventure,
~Kristyn

WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE!

Hey everyone!

After a bit of drama (4 hour flight delay), Taylor finally made it to Lima! He got in at 4am on Monday morning (Aug 2). We had a short day in Lima: he helped me move my suitcases out of Gringo House 1 and into my new place, then after a quick lunch we went right back to the airport and flew to the Amazon.

We traveled to Iquitos so Taylor can collect blood samples from patients infected with malaria for his research. I am his official translator (and tour booker, restaurant picker, and price negotiator :), and since work days are pretty short, we had a very relaxing time. There is so much good food….I really can't stress enough how amazing all the Peruvian cuisine has been, and the jungle has even MORE! 

There are so many fruits I have never heard of or seen, I could spend 2 weeks just wandering the markets tasting them! But on top of that there was alligator, turtle (I abstained), so many palm heart salads, fresh fish, and loads of plantains!

After arriving Monday, we spent Tuesday with our boss from UCSD touring different lab sites around the area (he was here to show some US government big wigs around, so we tagged along). We went to different labs, hospitals and the US Naval Base. Seeing the hospitals was a bit of a shock for me: there were no window or doors, no blankets on the beds, nobody wore gloves or ever washed their hands....it was amazing. But the Doctors were all so enthusiastic to help and collaborate with us Gringos, it was fantastic. They literally opened up the whole hospital for us to wander around and were so excited that more people were taking an interest in what they know is a less-than-stellar healthcare environment.

Since the boss' visit, we have just been going to lab or strolling the city during the day, and eating and drinking too much in the evenings. Our first weekend, we went to the giant market in town on Saturday then hung out with all the other gringos (there are 3 other girls from UCSD here, what a coincidence!). We went to see some live music at this huge outdoor venue. The band must have had about 30 members playing drums, horns, guitars and everything else you can imagine, and it was even complete with very scantily clad dancers. I'm talking almost NO clothing - we were surprised since most of Peru is pretty Catholic, but the Jungle is a whole other world :)

On Sunday, we got up early and had our first real Amazonian adventure. We got into a water taxi at the docks, and after a few minutes of negotiations on price (which Taylor hated), we motored 20 minutes downriver. Our driver bailed out the boat the whole time - haha! We were headed to a Butterfly Farm and Animal Orphanage. It was great! They had over 40 different species of butterflies, and around the area were tons of tame-ish monkeys. We also saw (and I got to pet!) an ocelot, a jaguar (no petting allowed, but I did make sure to ask), and a bunch of other animals they had rescued.

We spent one more week in lab. Taylor got up every morning, went to lab to wait for the patient to arrive, took part of the blood sample that had been collected, and isolated all the malaria parasites out of the blood. The whole process takes about 3-4 hours, but the longst part was always finding the patients. The Peruvian members of the lab team had to drive out to the villages outside of Iquitos and physically locate the patients...which I imagine is difficult in a village of huts without addresses on road without names. But eventually they would find the patient and bring them to the lab and afterward for the clinic to get medicines.

We went to two really cool restaurants in Iquitos during our last week there. The first was a yummy seafood place that overlooked the Amazon river. We had delicious meals full of fish, alligator, and even a mixed rice dish like paella, with all sorts of seafood in it. The other place we tried was a place called Al Frio y Al Fuego (To the cold and to the fire). It was actually a floating restaurant with a floating pool! We went one afternoon to swim and get drinks, and ended up having quite a few rounds of fruity concoctions and hanging out beside the pool, but never going in because it was overcast.

For the end of our rain forest trip we decided to go to a lodge up the Amazon for 4 days and 3 nights. After a long debate, we finally settled on a lodge and packed up a bag of long pants and long shirts and bug repellent and waved goodbye to Iquitos for a few days. We got to the docks with our guide (actually the Peruvian wife of the owner of the lodge - she was awesome and spoke flawless English) and boarded a speedboat for our 3 hour ride downriver. As soon as we got on the water we saw PINK DOLPHINS!!!

They were so cool! They are Amazonian River Dolphins, and they are PINK. The babies are grey, but the adults are this amazing rosy color. They were swimming around the area where all the fisherman had their nets out to trap fish coming from a small tributary into the main Amazon. I attempted to snap pictures, but they were FAST and completely not curious about humans or boats like ocean dolphins, so every time we saw them for the whole weekend they completely ignored our presence or swam away.

On the way, we stopped at a rum distillery. It was cool to see where they grew the sugar cane, and we got to taste all the different kinds they made. There was plain aguardiente (rum), aguardiente with molasses, with ginger, or with an infusion of 7 medicinal roots (called siete raices, or 7 roots).  They were all really good, and we bought ginger and 7 roots.

We arrived at the lodge in time for lunch, and had a delicious buffet of typical Peruvian foods (chicken, rice, plantains bread [always 3 carbs!],  salad, dessert, and super-delicious juices) and then a nap in the hammock. We meandered around the property and played with the toucan and the two macaws, and watched their falcons and caimans (like alligators). It was a cool, relaxing place, and they had rescued all the animals they had hanging around.

In the late afternoon we got back onto a motorboat and headed out to do a hike. It was cool on the water, but as soon as we stepped onto land I realized how hot and humid it still was. We did a long loop through the forest on a search for monkeys, but never found any. We DID find some leaf-cutter ants, huge trees, and a LOT of mosquitoes. By the end, we were all soaked through with sweat and ready to return home....but the guide got a little turned around and it took us an extra half hour to find the trail out!

We were happy to find the boat and go back to our room, however, the lodge has no electricity or hot water (ever), but the cold shower was almost nice!! we hung around in the hammocks and even got a nice rain storm! We had a great dinner and then were told it was time for the "night hike"....I dreaded the thought of putting the giant rubber boots back on and getting all sweaty (well..more sweaty, it still wasn't cool), so we politely declined!

The next morning we got up EARLY and headed out before breakfast. Our guide packed a picnic and we explored some of the smaller waterways on a continued search for monkeys. We saw sloths and lots of birds and dolphins, but no monkeys! We had a picnic breakfast in the boat, and then took a short hike to a giant three: the ceiba tree is a GIGANTIC tree with huge buttress roots that lives in forests that are seasonally flooded. We had fun trying to climb up the HUGE vines that hung from the tree, and played Tarzan :) It wasn't quite as hot, but the mosquitoes were pretty bad, so we were excited to head back to the moving boat (and eventually the mosquito netting at the lodge).

Before returning we made a quick stop at a small local village that sold handicrafts. I could not have cared less about the necklaces...but they had A BABY SLOTH! I was mesmerized. I asked if I could hold it, and I snuggled that thing until a mean little Peruvian Grandma pried it out my hands when we had to leave. It was so cute, and I wanted to buy it instead of the bracelets or baskets they were selling, but they didn't look like they wanted to part with it either.

Since it is "dry season" the water in a lot of places was pretty low. Our boat got stuck a few times and the guide actually has to get out and push the boat free! But we got home, relaxed, had lunch, and said goodbye to the father and daughter we had been met and toured with upon our arrival. We took naps and went out in the afternoon to find more dolphins. We saw the pink dolphins and another species of small grey ones! I tried forever, but I could NOT catch them on film!

We got back to the lodge, but Taylor wasn't feeling well....he actually threw up as soon as we got off the dock. I think he scared the Peruvians, and they scurried around trying to help me make him comfortable. He spiked a bit of a fever, but felt a lot better, so I medicated him, had the Peruvians busy themselves making him chicken soup, and tried to let him rest. He couldn't really stomach dinner, but he tried and then headed back to bed. Luckily, it was quite cool out for the jungle (remember, no AC no lights, no comfort...), and he eventually fell asleep for the night with the aid of some soothing music on my iPod and a lot of me fanning him :)

I did not take this picture, but aren't they weird??

He woke up in the morning feeling fine, and after a light breakfast I headed out alone with the guides to hike around the lodge and look for monkeys again. We found some right away! I saw Pigmy Marmosets, the world's smallest monkey. We hiked for another hour and a half and came across a whole troop of saddle back tamarins. They were cool, but pretty high up in the trees, so I didn't get a decent photo. I got back to the Lodge and Taylor was doing well and napping in the hammock. We had lunch, more naps, and then decided to attempt to venture out again but to do something easy. We wanted to go find giant lily pads, so we hopped in the motorboat with the guides and set out.

I did not take this picture either, but they are so cute!

I had heard thunder rumbling during my nap, but it sounded far away...but when we got out onto the wide open space of the Amazon I could see the ENORMOUS storm cloud headed the same way we were! After a few loud strikes of lightning and thunder, the clouds opened up and POURED on us. We were instantly soaked through. We tried to get to the lily pads, but ironically the water was too low to get to the lake where they were, so we turned around and abandoned the quest. 

It was a rough journey back across the Amazon river to our side of the shore, and we were tossed around pretty well. There were tiny white caps and everything and it rained on us the whole way! We made it home without trouble though, got into warm clothes and blankets, and just hung out in the hammocks until it passed.

After a warm dinner, we were finally convinced to do the night hike since it was our last night (although we opted for the abridged version). We just wandered around the front yard of the lodge, but we saw so many cool animals!! There were poison dart frogs, humongous tree frogs, and a GINORMOUS pink-toed tarantula!! All within sight of the lodge...it was fun! Not for the faint of heart or spider haters, but fun!

We fell asleep to the sound of bats swooshing around the thatched roof - apparently they grab fruit from the trees, land on the roof, and chow down. It sounded very odd from our room.

The next day (our last day!) we woke up and went piranha fishing after breakfast. We took a quick boat ride to a village that was surrounded by lakes. We hiked to one, climbed into a very unstable feeling dugout canoe (after bailing it out of course), and carefully paddled around the lake. We found the giant lily pads (called Victoria regia), and they were cool! The were definitely big, and the undersides were purple and spiky.

We found a shady fishing spot, got out our "poles", which were sticks with string and a hook, and baited the hooks with chicken fat. After about 3 seconds of the bait being in the water Taylor pulled in a piranha!! It was small, with a red back...and it made the weirdest grunting noise once it was out of the water. We threw it back, and each went on to catch 3 or 4 small piranhas! It was fun, but hot, and we kept getting out bait stolen. Eventually, we lost 3 out of 4 hooks and had to give up: the piranhas won this time!

We returned to the lodge for the last time and had a quick shower, lunch, and had to say goodbye. I tried to say goodbye to the toucan, but apparently he was cranky, and just ended up chasing me around biting my feet for 10 minutes before I gave up! We got back into the boat and made the 3 hour ride all the way back to Iquitos.

We got back, checked into our hotel, ran to lab to check email and grab our extra suitcase, when I discovered an email in broken English that said our flight for the following day had been changed from 8am to 1pm. Annoyed, I proposed we walk over to the airline's office and check on the flight. Boy am I still glad we did that! We found out the flight had been further "delayed" to 5pm, meaning we would be stuck in Iquitos all day.

Wanting to get back to Lima to show Taylor around, I asked if there were any earlier flights...of course there were not. Then I asked (at 7pm at night) if there were any more flights out TODAY. She said there was one for 7:30pm, but we didn't have time to get to the airport. I begged her to check on the flight (knowing that it HAD to be delayed, everything in South America is delayed!!) and luckily it was running 2 hours behind! We got places on the flight, went back to the hotel and grabbed our bags and had to pay for it even though we didn't stay there :(

But we made it to the airport (had to skip our last Amazonian dinner) and got onto a flight back to Lima. We arrived late at night, and went to my brand new place for the first time. I barely remembered the address, but we found everything and the impromptu emergency flight ended up being a good choice.

Since Taylor only had one full day in Lima, I wanted to show him the cool places, so we woke up late, dropped off our smelly jungle laundry and headed straight to the trendiest ceviche place I knew. We went to La Mar (http://lamarcebicheria.com/web/intro.php - they actually opened one in San Francisco!) because it was the place my lab took my my very first day in Lima. They have excellent ceviche: ceviche is a mixture of raw fish, lime juice and onions and spices. The fish is actually"cooked" in the lime juice, and although I am not the world's biggest sushi fan, I LOVE CEVICHE! Its sooooo tasty!

We had pisco sours (made of pisco, a grape brandy, lime juice, sugar, and egg white), plantain chips, ceviche and causas (little patties made of mashed potatoes topped with awesome things like crab, shrimp, etc). The meal was great, and since we had skipped dinner the night before, I was tipsy enough after one drink to totally knock over my water in the middle of the nice restaurant, haha!

After lunch we headed to El Parque del Amor (the Park of Love) which overlooks the ocean. Its a cool waterfront walkway that leads to a huge mall that is built into a cliff above the Pacific ocean. I had actually never even been there, and it was cool to explore for the first time with Taylor! We watched the paragliders, meandered around the park, and strolled through the mall. Afterward, we had pastries an coffee in Miraflores, and Taylor got to experience his first public transit ride back to my house :)

We relaxed, and in the evening headed out to a cool neighborhood called Barranco for drinks and a light dinner. We had yummy drinks at a bar that is in a huge mansion, and each room has a bar with a different theme. Post-trendy-bar, we hopped over to a restaurant for anticuchos (grilled cow heart - weird sounding, I know, but it really is good) and picarones (sweet potato donuts covered in honey). Taylor loved the donuts, but passed on the anticuchos.

We went home and got a good night's sleep to prepare for Taylor's last day :(

For Taylor's final day in Lima we decided to go explore downtown. We headed straight to the main Plaza de Armas. We had lunch at a tiny local restaurant whose claim to fame was feeding every Peruvian president in recent history and then headed to a church after a recommendation from our cab driver. He told us it would be cool, and that there were catacombs underneath the church to tour. We went, and it was pretty neat! The catacombs were creepy, but we weren't allowed to take any photos.

After lunch and exploring the main plaza for a while, we headed back to my place. We had to pick up Taylor's laundry and get him packed for his midnight flight back to California. Only problem was, when we went to pick up the laundry at 7pm, it wasn't "ready." After waiting a bit, I went back and asked again. This time, the woman fessed up and said the laundry wasn't even there, and that it wouldn't be delivered until 9pm!!! 9pm is the time Taylor should be arriving AT the airport, so after a lot of arguing in Spanish, I found out where the laundry was and decided that we should pick it up....

That was an adventure. Traffic was gridlocked, and it took us FOREVER to get to the laundry place. Once we got there the place looked CLOSED! I was so mad, and started banging on the door. Finally someone came out but claimed they didn't have our laundry, that it was back at the other place...but after a few phone calls and even more arguing (I refused to pay because we spent the value of the laundry on cabs!) we got the clothes and got into another cab. We made it home in time to shove all Taylor's clothes into his bag (we missed a bunch, haha) and get a cab to the airport.

That stressful laundry event aside, everything had been so relaxing and fun, and I was really sad to have to say goodbye again! I had cried like a baby in the Dublin airport the last time I had to say goodbye, and I wasn't looking forward to this time either. But I tried to suck it up, and ended up only shedding a few accidental tears and composing myself enough to get a safe, official cab home.

Overall it was a great 2.5 weeks, and it was so cool to see the jungle and to show someone around Lima! It was great to have Taylor here, and I keep bugging him to try to get him to come back for Thanksgiving or something, otherwise I'm afraid we don't get to see each other until the holidays.

But I'm already on to more adventures and other travels, so I'll try to keep myself busy and maybe it will be New Year's before I even know it!


Pictures from the Jungle: http://kristynspictures.shutterfly.com/6159

Hasta pronto,
~Kristyn