Moving

Seth on our bike ride with Chorillos and Baranco in the background before his shoes were stolen at the beach while we were sitting right next to them and he had to bike home barefoot!!


I'm moving tomorrow. I'm not moving particularly far away - the next suburb over - and I'm still in a foreign country - Peru - and as anxious I am to get my own place and not have a Peruvian roommate anymore, there is something sad about leaving. Maybe it was that when I came here not knowing any Spanish I had my roommate and neighbors who I could talk to. Maybe it was that it was the first time in over four weeks I could unpack my suitcase and hang things in a closet. Maybe it was that I could cook meals and not go out to eat for every meal (even though we go out a lot still).
What makes a place home? Is it the bed? Is it the people you live with or your neighbors? Is it going to the coffee shop nearby and getting to know the baristas? Is it being able to pronounce your street properly so that the taxistas know where to take you at 3am? Is it the fact you have your own bathroom with TP? Is it a pet or a plant? What makes your home the place you call home?
I love traveling and moving is a natural part of that experience. I find that I always call Minnesota home and only after living somewhere for at least a month or more can I call my new temporary residency "home." Once you live somewhere long enough to call it your "home" leaving that place means leaving memories (good and bad) and can be a bit emotional.
In my short life I have had many many roommates: from week long roommates at soccer camp to Boston and Macalester College roommates. I have lived with over 20 different people since high school (Kelly, Lizz, Sarah, Emmy, Mel, Laura, Sara, Bret, Sophie, Sam, Rosa, Anna, Camilo, Joey, Shannon, Eric, Mom and Dad (and Wynston), Val, Cara, Jackie, Val, Miranda, and Johnny) and after living on a couch in London to having nice apartment in Miraflores, I have called many different places home.
I am excited to move to San Isidro with a panoramic ocean view with beautiful sunsets every night. It is next to a delicious rotisserie chicken restaurant and next to a park that is part of the Malecon (the parks on the cliffs above the Pacific Ocean). It is a large three bedroom and I will be hosting a large Thanksgiving Day dinner for over 40 of our American and Peruvian friends (some who have never had a proper Thanksgiving Day feast). I am very excited to explore a new area that's quiet and more residential but also a little sad and anxious that I somehow acquired a ton more stuff in three months and am NOT going to be able to pack it in two suitcases.

My new apartment building is basically the first tall building (in the middle of the photo) - the first tall one after the group of buildings on the right.

No pumas nor jaguars nor anacondas but look what we found in the rainforest!

Our Refugio Amazonas lodge 5 hours upstream from Puerto Maldonado
Puerto Maldonado, Peru
After we hiked to Machu Picchu, we took the train from Aguas Calientes to a nice bed and breakfast in Huaran (we highly recommended the Green House). We relaxed for a few nights and then had to wake up early (again) to take a taxi from the Sacred Valley to the Cusco airport where we boarded a plane and hopped over the Andes to Puerto Maldonado (near the Bolivia border). Flying in was amazing as it was almost all "downhill" and the untouched rainforest looked like an endless plate of broccoli with a big red piece of licorice (the Tambopata river) squiggling through it.
The airport's runway was roughWe were picked up by our tour company and taken by bus to the office to drop off our luggage that we didn't need to take to the selva (rainforest). Seth and I had re-packed our stuff in the airport into one small black bag and it was amusing to see the office packed with people and their HUGE suitcases trying to shuffle things around.

Our favorite animal of the trip - the saddle-back Tamarin (pocket monkey) - that jumps sideways from tree to tree.


QUICK NOTE TO ANYONE GOING TO THE SELVA: 1) go in the dry season; 2) if you can't do #1, make sure to pack lots of bug spray and ONE main outfit to wear over and over that you don't mind getting mud, more mud, bug spray, sweat, purple rainforest dyes, and more mud on with another outfit to lounge around the lodge in at night. You only need flip flops as you have to wear rubber boots to go hiking on any of the trails. Don't bring electronics since they only have electricity from 5-9pm, but don't forget your camera charger (like I did).

Since it had down poured the past two days, the road to the port was flooded which meant we had to go to a port farther down river. That doesn't sound so bad except that the river was SUPER high and it added a few hours to our boat ride up river to the Refugio Amazonas lodge. We saw lots of wildlife on the boat (see photos below - P.S. thanks Mom and Dad for the early Christmas/Birthday gift). We navigated up a very fast current in our narrow wooden boat around lots of logs and we arrived in time for a delicious dinner.

The highlights of the animals we saw are shown below. My personal highlights were seeing monkeys, going to a local farm and learning about (and tasting) all of the different rainforest fruits and learning how cheap they are in the local markets (the farmers are definitely not making money on the prices we pay in Lima or you pay in the USA), and seeing a big bicolor-spine porcupine at night chewing on the plywood in the laundry room (glad he wasn't in my room)!

Our guide saw Capybaras (the world's largest rodent) and weirdest thing we saw. The porcupine is the third largest rodent behind the capybara and beaver.
Red Howler monkeys at the Tambopata rainforest control checkpoint. I loved listening to them call out to the forest and mark their territory - very unique grumbling sound.
Macaws at a clay lick on the Tambopata river.

A Hoatzin in need of a haircut.

Giant chicken tarantula. Luis fed him grasshoppers that he caught.
Long-nosed bats that camouflaged very well into a dead tree on the side of the Oxbow lake.
White-lined fruit bat on a tree on our first hike. One night when Seth and I were playing cards, we saw a bunch of big brown bats flying into the lodge eating all the insects! They are really swift: quick and quiet.

Wild turkey in the tree. One of the many common animals that I didn't know lived in the rainforest. We also saw a red brocket deer, red squirrel, mosquitoes (lots of them), giant grasshoppers, fireflies, and others.

Super cute squirrel monkey that was spotted by our awesome guide, Luis.
Seth behind the blind at the clay lick nearly falling asleep waiting for the macaws and parrots to come down from the trees to lick the clay. We hiked over an hour on a trail that was flooded and had water nearly to our knees but it was worth it.

It rained, a lot. Can, can, can you do the... toucan!
Strangler fig tree in the Tambopata Reserve.
Hiking in the mud. Do I look like a wilderness explorer or what!?

Seth and I on the boat on our way to kayak down the Tambopata river. The current was so strong that we hardly had to paddle and we basically floated sideways (next to logs) as the rainforest passed us by. Too bad there wasn't much wildlife as the river was over 13 meters (usually around 3-5 meters in the dry season) and we couldn't see the shore.

Our bedroom with a nice hammock next to the wall that is missing/open that overlooks the rainforest. We had bednets to keep out the mosquitoes and giant grasshoppers and spiders.

Seth and our local (and short) guide, Luis, and I. He was awesome and very knowledgeable!

Better get back to work on my Fogarty projects (the PREVENCION papers, Center for Excellence projects, Heart attack perceptions retrospective analysis, and writing a few protocols for projects to start after the new year). Chau!

Machu Picchu

My boyfriend Seth left today to go home to the freezing cold state of Minnesota. We enjoyed two great weeks exploring Peru and its diverse landscape. Here are some photos from Cusco and our 4-day hike to Machu Picchu along the Camino Inca (Inca Trail).


Seth eating a fancy dinner of guinea pig (cuy) at MAP cafe in the Museo de Precolombino in Cusco the night before we started the hike. Not too bad except when you consider that you used to have guinea pig as a pet when you were a kid... poor Spike.

Saqsaywaman is an old temple overlooking Cusco and is one of the highlights of our trip (besides Machu Picchu). The rocks were rolled on logs from a quarry 8 km away. Look how big they are! They are carved to fit perfectly together and have withstood many earthquakes and are a fantastic Incan site that everyone who comes to Peru should try to visit.

Our group at the top of the third pass on the Camino Inca (Inca Trai). My friend Emily Howland, fellow Macalester soccer player and her friends, Devon and Anj who are traveling around the world, went with us and we met other awesome people in our group.

Steep steps with lots of people taking breaks. Our day packs had everything from bug spray and SPF to sunglasses and rain gear - and we used all of it everyday! Seth and I hired a porter which was a life saves as Seth wasn't feeling great for the first few days. It's part of the initiation into Peru but nonetheless it is not fun to be sick while hiking.

Our favorite ruins - Winywayna - with a nice hike down to a hidden waterfall (thanks Lizz for the tip) behind the terraces.

Can you see Seth?

The clouds in the valley next to Machu Picchu.
We woke up early every morning to hike but the last day was the worst as we had to get up at 3:45am to stand in line at the check-point until they opened at 5:30am and rush to Machu Picchu for sunrise. It was chilly and dark and it rained for the last hour of our hike before the Intipuku (Sun Gate, where you can see Machu Picchu for the first time). The valley was covered in clouds and we couldn't see anything when we got there. So we waited... and waited and finally walked down 45 minutes to the terraces above Machu Picchu but still, nothing. More waiting... ate our AM snack but still nothing but clouds. Then we climbed down to the entrance to check our bags and explore the ruins when all of a sudden the clouds lifted and you could see everything (except Winapicchu) but it was great!



An alpaca on Machu Picchu (or is it a llama- i can't tell the difference) but they are very cute.
Overall I would highly recommended this trip except November is the beginning of the rainy season and it rained everyday! Friends who have done this hike warned us and I will warn any adventurous readers who want to hike it - two of the four days are climbing up (and sometimes down) very steep stairs at altitude (12,000 ft or more). It's not easy (except our guide had an 80 year old on one trip so it can be done).
After a two-hour tour from our guide Jime (pronounced Jimmy in English) we relaxed on the terraces enjoying the beautiful views until our tummies were rumbling and it was time for lunch. It was weird to get on a bus after hiking. It was a bit confusing to be hiking and seeing lots of amazing ruins and going over mountain passes of over 13000 ft and camping outside when it was 40 degrees F and then seeing tourists with purses and make-up who were speaking dozens of languages on our last day when we hadn't showered. Oh well. The dirt road to Aguas Calientes, a horrible tourist town full of people who are only in Peru to go to Machu Picchu, had lots of switchbacks (with all the money that Machu Picchu makes you would think the road would be paved). We ate lunch at a restaurant that our guides get a commission for taking us to but the food was ok. Emily enjoyed a real coffee (none of that instant stuff they had on the trail) and we said goodbye as Seth and I boarded the train to Ollyatatambo for a few days in the Sacred Valley before heading to the Amazon (next post).
What a great trip!

Love/Hate

Living in Tumbes has made me realize what I love and hate about living Miraflores (in Lima).
Love about Miraflores: having hot water and taking a nice hot shower
Hate: paying extraordinary amounts of money for rent and utilites (by Peruvian standards since it costs $350 to rent a 1br in Miraflores and 150 soles ($50) in Tumbes)
Love: being next to the beach (even though it's rocky) and watching surfers
Hate: that it's rarely sunny to enjoy going to the beach. Tumbes is always hot and sunny but we're inland from the beaches. After our trip to Mancora last weekend, however, I will say that cold showers feel good on your sunburns!
Love: friends with cars and motorcycles so that you don't have to worry about being run over on a mototaxi or being stuffed into a combi
Hate: the traffic in Lima; it's just like LA!
Love: not having guard dogs barking all night
Hate: listening to car alarms going off instead
Love: having a kitchen and microwave. you can only eat out for so many meal and when it's all rice and no veggies it get a little frustrating.
Hate: paying gringo prices at the tiendas and street vendors
Love: going dancing at the clubs
Hate: paying 20 soles to get in
Love: going for a run along the Malecon and the ocean rather than run stairs in my apartment in Tumbes
Hate: breathing lots of car exhaust
Love: sushi
Hate: over-priced food and menus (a set salad or soup, entree and desert for one price) since you can eat menu here for 5 soles ($2)
Love: good coffee since everything here is instant
Hate: paying for it - in a country that produces a lot of coffee you'd think it's be next to free but all the good coffee is imported from America and has imported prices.
Love: speaking English
Hate: being able to speak in English. Only Heather, Miranda, Colin and I speak English in Tumbes
Love: not having to wear bug spray because the mosquitoes eat you alive. I also love not having little bugs in my bed, and tiny ants climbing on my stuff and in the sink and shower.
Hate: how urban Lima is
Love: not throwing my used TP in the basura (waste basket)
Hate: thinking about where all my garbage goes - hopefully it's not in the big dump pile in the shanty town by the river...
Love: 24 hours/ 7 days a week electricity and never having to deal with power surges
Hate: 24 hour internet because I can work the entire day and never leave my apartment

Only two more days in wonderful Tumbes. It's growing on me even though there are only 4 reasonably good restaurants that Heather and I frequent for lunch and dinner on a rotating basis. I'm sick of going out to eat all the time, taking cold showers and not running every morning but I'm going to miss the blue sky and hot sun and the wonderful field workers. I will probably be back in March for a few months but we'll see...

Hasta luego!

Puerto Pizzaro and Mancora

Puerto Pizzaro



Puerto Pizzaro is a small fishing town 8 miles from Tumbes. The combis that I take to get to the Proyecto all go to Puerto Pizzaro so yesterday I decided to take the combi and not get off and explore Puerto Pizzaro. I had no idea what to expect and four hours later I was overwhelmed and stuffed. After arriving I was swarmed with men in neon green shirts who work for the motorized tour boats. I wasn't expecting to go out on a boat, I just wanted to walk around and explore, but after the 6th man came up to me to show me photos of the crocodiles, Isla de Amor (where lots of honeymooners go), and Isla de los Pájaros (where the Magnificent Frigget bird nest), I thought maybe I should go check out the mangalares (mangroves). I stopped to take a photo of the fishing boats (see photo) when a nice older man asked me if I'd like to go out on one of those boats. In Spanish, he explained that he has a motor/row boat and for only $10 (much cheaper than all the neon green t-shirt guys) I could have him take me on a private tour. The only stipulation was that if I liked it then I would tell my friends to go to him in the future.

It was the best $10 I've ever spent on a tour. I had my own wooden boat and 70 year-old guide, Juan, who took me on a romantic ride through a labyrinth of tidal channels to a crocodile farm. Then we went to see the frigget birds and then to the Island of Love where I sat next to the water and ate a big plate of chicarrones (fried calamari, fish, and shirmps) and listened to the waves.


The mangroves are a very important food source for numerous species of crustaceans, molluscs, fish and fauna and humans enjoy conchas negras. The tides change dramatically and by the time my tour was over the channel to the crocodile farm was too shallow for motorboats.




Thousands of magnificent frigget birds nesting on the island. Males have bright red breasts and the chicks are white. Quite an incredible site!

Mancora
Two hours south of Tumbes, Mancora is one of the greatest beach/surfer towns in Peru. My friend Heather who I'm working with in Tumbes and I went to spend the day in the sun and swim in the Pacific Ocean. My friend Miranda decided to meet us there and we had a great night (and day) in this surfer town eating delicious seafood, drinking Piscos and bad Peruvian beer and dancing at a club on the beach until 5am. It was a great day in the not-too-hot-but-feels-great-85-degree-sun if only my three applications of SPF45 would have been more effective! I'm totally fried (but really only in the places I forgot to reapply sunscreen). I bought a couple sarongs and Heather bought an awesome hammock for only 50 soles ($18) at the cute markets. I love Peru!

Me, Heather and Miranda enjoying some Pina Coladas at a restaurant on the beach.


Next week
I have one more week in Tumbes and then I am going to Lima for Halloween and to meet my boyfriend Seth there. We will be going to Cusco, Machu Picchu, Sacred Valley, and Puerto Maldonado for the next two weeks.

Field work

Most people have no idea what it means to go out and collect data in the field. Let me try to briefly explain what I am doing in Tumbes, Peru.

For the project that I'm helping with right now we are trying to answer the question "Did the 1997-98 El Nino have an effect on the growth of children in Tumbes?" In order to do this we need to screen over 2,000 kids to find a 0.2 difference in the age-standardized variation of children who were 0-36 months old during those years. Basically we go to these small towns in the Tumbes district where we recruit one child per household (that were randomly selected from the Proyecto's census records). We knock door-to-door (if there is a door that is) and confirm that the kid lives there. Then we ask to talk to an adult, preferably a parent but older siblings and grandparents are fine too, to answer a 30-minute questionnaire and consent to let us measure the kid's weight, height, triceps skin thickness and percent body fat the following day in school.

There are three local field workers who have been trained to collect the data and work full time, waking up at 5am to go to the field. We meet up with them around 8 to 10-100 miles away go to the schools. Some schools are only elementary school in the morning and in the same classrooms they have high school in the afternoon, and some are vice versa. Some towns are big enough to have two separate complexes for each. Basically we don't know what kids we are going to find until we get there and even then a lot of kids don't go to school everyday in which case we have to come back the next day.

This best park about this job is the kids. They are wonderful! They are so inquisitive and beautiful. They are very polite but love to stare at me. The families invite us in and invite us sit to on their very nice plastic chairs while they stand. Others have 1970 floral-patterned brown couches that are comfy. No one really wear shoes. Everyone has one television and a large poster of Jesus in their living room.

Motocars at one of the major intersections in Tumbes


If you haven't noticed, the entire area here is poor and rural. However, I can't imagine why anyone would want to move to Lima or the USA because they have everything they need here. People who are the richest of the poor have a nice life. Most people who are born here never leave and their entire family (and extended family) live in the Tumbes area. Downtown Tumbes has a church and center square and in total Tumbes is about 8 blocks long. Some "richer" families send their kids to the neighboring towns (that we've already been to the schools) but then we have to go back. The reason we can't do the measurements in the house is that most houses don't have a straight wall for use to set up the height measurements nor do they have plugs that won't blow our impedence machine. It's amazing how quickly you can tell what families are "rich" since their floors are "tile" and they own a horse rather than donkeys and occasionally have motocar (see photos) instead of bicycles. Most families make between 150-300 soles/month which is less than $100/month. I can't imagine but they all seem very happy and that's really what's the most important.

It's very interesting work and I love it!


View from Heather's third floor room - arguably the "best view" in Tumbes. Pretty nice, huh?

Buenos Aires and Tumbes

I am exhausted. I arrived in Tumbes less than 24 hours after arriving from Buenos Aires on one of the best vacations of my life! I have lots of work to do and I can't wait to get experience working in the field here but first a quick summary of my trip to BA.
-Thursday: arrived with 5 girls to the hostal and ate at Cafe El Federal in San Telmo.
-Friday: toured the old mansion and now museum El Zanjon. Very cool. Ate at a cafe on Defensa in San Telmo and for dinner got dressed up to go to Bourgognie in the Alvear Palace Hotel - super fancy and expensive but the best meal I can remember.
-Saturday: Ate delicious sushi in the tea house at the japonese gardens and then watched Argentina's Natonal team sneak by a horrible Peru soccer team in a world cup qualifier game while it was POURING rain!

-Sunday: San Telmo antique markets all day with tango in the streets.

-Monday: Met fellow Fogarty, Lisandro, and his wife and wandered around Monserraut and San Nicolas and then went to the Recoleta markets outside the famous Recoleta Cemetary where Evita is burried. Flew home in the evening, did laundry, uploaded photos, went to a few meetings in the morning and re-packed for Tumbes.



Lots of peaceful (and entertaining) protests in Buenos Aires during Ferria de Colon (Columbus Day).

Delicious ice cream on Calle Florida

This is 9 de Julio, the widest avenue in the WORLD! 11 lanes wide with a HUGE obelisk at Ave de Mayo.


Tumbes
The Proyecto Eliminacion de Cisticercosis has established a great place to do research in Peru. Fieldwork here is easy because of the great work they have done over the years. Quick background, Tumbes is the northern most district in Peru and where I am staying is only 30km from the Ecuador border. The Proyecto is on the PanAmerican Highway (yes we hitchhike the PanAm to get to and from here) and is a few acres surrounded by acres of rice fields (and lots of mosquitoes). There is a brick wall outside and inside is a clinic, a lab, a pig pen (where they are slaughtering pigs right now to study cysticercosis), a soccer field (of course!), a three story building with the first two floors are offices with lots of computers (and wireless internet) and an apartment on the third floor. There is another guest house with screens for windows and a kitchen which is where my friend Miranda is staying.

I am staying in an apartment with the neurologist from the Proyecto in the neighboring town 4km down the highway. Tumbes is a small city but has a main plaza and a few hotels and even fewer gringos (Americans). The community has lots of smaller neighboring towns and the whole area is very poor. We are measuring kids height, weight, body fat, and talking to families and having them fill out a questionnaire to assess whether El Nino has an impact on stunting children. I've never been in a place like this. We ride around in mototaxis which are motor bikes with carriages on the back. A nice dinner costs $3. We measure people's wealth by the number of animals that they live with. In one household you can have many families with all their animals (ducks, pigs, donkeys, etc).

Today we went to two schools, a primary school and a high school. It was very fun but it is hot and humid here and i was dying! Tomorrow I am going with the field coordinator, a RN, to do home visits to finish some questionnaires and then meet up with the other two field workers to do more measurements. These women are very nice and we hire a driver to take us and the equipment around all day for $20 (which is a ton of money). None of them speak any English! I'm already getting better. Hasta luego.