Some recent photos

Life is good. Cusco is underwater/flooded. Cross your fingers that my parents will be able to go there in three weeks. I've been working like crazy on a few more manuscripts and revising the other two that we submitted while working three days at INCOR. Seth's parents are in town visiting and we had a very nice dinner with them last night and their Illinois alumni tour group with a special treat - traditional Peruvian dancing from the various regions in Peru. It was very entertaining!



Observing an open heart surgery in the OR at INCOR (above).
Below is the Hospital Almenara where I am on rotation/observing in the National Heart Institute (aka INCOR).

Seth and I had dinner with his parents and were entertained throughout the meal by a traditional Peruvian dance show.

Seth dancing with the little Peruvian

Seth's parents, Kim and Bob, and I with the dancers at the Country Club Hotel in Lima.

Huancachina

A dune buggie flying up and down and over and around the dunes near Huacachina


Family
It was so good to see my brother, Dan, and my sister, Anne, when they came to visit me in Peru last week. They had an amazing trip and have their photos here:
We hung out in San Isidro and Miraflores, explored El Centro, and took them out to a fun bar with lots of my friends here in Barranco.

Saturday we headed down to the oasis Huacachina in the Ica district with my friend Romina to go sandboarding. Five hours later - after stopping for every Tom, Dick, and Harry (or I suppose it was more like ever Juan, Luis, and Jesus) even if it was two blocks from the bus station - we made it to Ica.

Sandboarding
For anyone who hasn't been sandboarding before sandboarding is your warm weather equivalent of snowboarding, yet somehow very different. Wearing shorts and a t-shirt with sunglasses and riding a dune buggie to the top of the hill is a bit different than my usual experiences snowboarding. Having done much snowboarding, I feel confident saying that that experience has very little to do with your success rate getting down sand dunes while your feet are tied to a heavy piece of wood by velcro. My first run I tried to turn and fell, hard, on my tailbone. I am still feel it over a week later. My brother was the most successful (I think he used a whole chunk of wax though) and the rest of us decided to opt for the skeleton style sledding approach by the last dune. Back at the Oasis we waiting in line for an hour for pretty bad pizza and then retreated to the Bob Marley lounge in the hostel we hung out until early in the AM.






The good, the bad, and the ugly.
*Good: getting airborne on the buggy going over a few hills
*Bad: my brother nearly puking from motion sickness and the car breaking down/wheel stopped working on our buggy - Yes, Mom, it was very safe...
*Ugly: The 11 year old kid wiped out and got knocked out flying down the last dune and tumbled 20+ feet before landing limpless in the sand. Needless to say we all started running to help and I quickly realized my medical Spanish is not nearly good enough to function as a doctora.

Farewell dinner
We had plans to go to get antechucos (cow hearts) from the street vendor in San Isidro but luckily for my sister our plans failed as they (and most other stores) are closed on Sunday. We opted for greasy sandwiches instead, sorry Dan - you'll have to come back.
Overall it was a great trip and fun to see my family who I hadn't seen in over 6 months!
Photos of us at the Circuito del Aguas in Lima



Seth and I in the most beautiful mall, Larcomar, that overlooks the Pacific Ocean

Ringing in the New Year, carioca style!

Katie on Sugarloaf overlooking the 2.8-mile long Copacabana beach


Seth and I met at the Rio de Janeiro airport on my birthday and we welcomed with the customary two-cheek kisses and delicious Portuguese style feijoada (homemade stew of beans with beef and pork meats and yummy farofa) by the de Oliviera family in Ipanema. We quickly changed into our swim suits and t-shirts since the heat and humidity was almost unbearable. Fernando, a good friend of Seth's from Macalester, and his wife Lesile arrived shortly after us, and it was a full house at the de Oliveira.

Sushi dinner with the de Oliveira family (Alex, Cesar, Fernando and Gilsa) in the Jardin Botanico neighborhood.

Despite the heavy rainfall and mud slides in parts of Rio, we explored Rio de Janeiro over the next few days with our friends. They took us hiking from the Botanical Gardens to the Corcovado, explored the Museo do Arte Moderne, ate cod balls at a famous Portugese bar at the bottom of the tiled stairs in Lapa, ate pastries at Cafeteria Colombiano and last, but not least, partied like real Carioca's from a penthouse apartment overlooking Copacabana beach for New Year's.

View of Ipanema on the hike

Monkey chilling in the tree on our hike

When we got to the Corcovado the clouds had moved in an we could hardly even see the "Cristo Redentor," Christ the Redeemer - and couldn't see the 360 degree view of Rio. The statue was first built in 1931, and went through major renovations in 2000, after nearly 70 years of wind and weather damage. It stands an amazing 100 feet (38 meters) tall, and his arms are outstretched to welcome everyone into the fold, or possibly to brag about a fish he once caught that was THIS big.

New Year's 2010
It will be very very difficult to top the delicious Caipirinha's (fresh drink made by mashing fruit and mixing with cachaça or vodka), catered food, 15 minutes of fireworks shot off from eight barges anchored in the bay, with over 2 million people dressed in white enjoying the music on the beach, a great DJ and dancing til 6am. It was incredible! (Seth will upload more photos from this night.)

Beaches
Typical view (if you know what I mean) of Copacabana beach

We didn't make it to the beach until the new year when we nursed our hang over with fresh coconuts on the beach, sleeping under an umbrella and swam in the waves. Everyone walks around the city's tiled sidewalks in swim suits and sarongs, men only wearing shorts or whitey-tighty looking swim suits (see above photo), and everyone wears Havaiana's, the trendy Brazil flip-flops, or are barefoot. The sun was hot on Copacabana and in the afternoon walked to meet our friends on Ipanema beach. The next day we drove for a few hours (mostly stuck in Rio's HORRIFIC traffic) and stopped to surf at Barra beach - 28 miles of white sand with HUGE waves to play in.

We were invited to dinner at Fernando's brother's apartment with his family and Alex's wife's family. The best part of this trip was being welcomed into local Cariocan's homes. Dinner lasted until 3am and even Alex's father-in-law who was 72 years old and a retired pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon stayed up.

Our last day, Seth and I went to take the cable car to Pao do Azucar, the famous Sugarloaf, for another 360 degree view of Rio. The long line was definitely worth the wait as we saw the tiny Mico monkeys and had great views of the Guanabara Bay and Copacabana beach.



We miss you Rio... just kidding, we're back!
We woke up early to get to the airport only to get booted off (semi-voluntarily) in exchange for a generous voucher and few nights at a 5-star hotel overlooking Copacabana beach, all meals included, ocean view, and a rooftop pool. We had to buy more sunscreen but that was about it. Then we did the same thing on the Wednesday flight but flew to Porto Alegre, the 11th largest city in Brazil in the southernmost state of Brazil (next to Uruguay and Argentina) so I could get to work on Friday at INCOR. I did feel a little bad abandoning my brother and sister who were coming to Peru to visit me the next day but I had arranged for my amazing friend, Miranda, who had keys and was crashing at my place anyway, to greeth them before they headed to Machu Picchu, Puno, and Arequipa the next day. I can't wait to see them next week when we are all in Lima again!

Lima, Peru
Back in Lima, it's cloudy and gray. The locals say it's because of "El Nino". Checking the weather updates from the Northern Hemisphere makes me thankful that I am in the Southern Hemisphere despite the rain. Seth is going to start Spanish classes on Monday. I just submitted two articles: one to Diabetes Care and the other to Atherosclerosis. I'm working three days a week at INCOR where I get to practice my Spanish, see lots of heart problems and feel V/VI murmurs and learn from the amazing doctors and residents from Peru.