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| The Floating Islands at Lake Titicaca |
December was a busy month, but full of fun. I spent
the first couple of weeks doing dental clinics and getting my financial work
squared away for the following weeks I would be gone. I was really busy, and
when the 16th of December came, I was ready for a break. You may be wondering what I am talking about
as far as a break goes. All of the SM’s can only get a visa into Peru for 180 days
max. Sometimes it is hard to even get that, and you are at the grace of the
immigration official. All of us needed to get a new visa at some point around
the middle of the year. So around Christmas time we all had to leave the
country. They encourage us to travel a little bit to help deal with being away
from home and loved ones over the holidays. So for this reason I did a little
traveling over the holidays.
I chose to go to Bolivia with a couple of the other
SM’s. We also had the dentist that has been teaching and supervising us come as
well. We started by flying to Lima, where we had a one night layover where we
met up with Dr. Juan Carlos. The next morning we flew to Cusco, Peru where we
spent the day planning out and arranging the last minute details of our trip.
It is surprising as much tourism as Peru has; it is really hard to do some of
the stuff online. That night we got on an overnight bus to Puno, Peru. Early
the next morning we took a tour out to the floating Islands on Lake Titicaca.
These are extremely impressive man made islands that the locals have created
out of the reeds. They live on them and there are whole communities of these islands.
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| Mountain Biking the World's Most Dangerous Road in La Paz, Bolivia |
After returning from the island tour, we continued on
our way. We crossed the border into Bolivia and continued on our way. We made
it to La Paz, Bolivia at 10:30 that evening. We then took the next day to relax
and recover from the trip. Along with the long traveling, the altitude made us
feel even more tired as La Paz is almost 12,000 ft in elevation. As you could
guess, the climate was much cooler than that of the Jungle. It was a welcomed
change, but I was equipped for the hot jungle, not the cold mountains. However,
by layering up a hoody and my rain jacket, I was able to stay sufficiently
warm.
While in La Paz we ventured out and walked around the
city. We went shopping for alpaca sweaters, which are really cheap in Bolivia.
There are currently seven bolivianos to one dollar, so your dollars really
stretch. We also went mountain biking down the world’s most dangerous road,
appropriately named the death road. It has the most deaths on it annually by
percentage that use it. However, there is a new road that allows most traffic
to go around now, so I do not think that it still has the most deaths annually.
Still, I would not want to be on a bus driving on that road, but on a mountain
bike it was a lot of fun, and the views were pristine.
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| Dr. Juan Carlos and Myself in a shop in Cusco |
From La Paz, we went to the little lakeside town of
Copacabana to spend Christmas. It was very cold at night. Dropping down to
freezing at night, but warming up into the sixties during the day. This was my
favorite place as a whole of the trip. It was so peaceful and beautiful. While
there we took a tour of the Isle del Sol, the island of the sun, which was
absolutely beautiful. We also rented motorcycles for a couple hours one day
(for $12) and headed into the countryside to see what almost no tourist sees,
little villages of farmers. We passed a number of shepherds out watching their
sheep and others taking the cows out to graze; all living a very different life
than the one that you and I know. It was really nice to see this and just take
some time to relax in this little town.
After our time in Capacabana, we took another
overnight bus to Cusco. In Cusco there was so much to see. Cusco was the center
of the Incan empire and has so much history within its limits and in the surrounding
area. We were also very happy to get back to Peruvian food. I didn´t realize
how much Peru had begun to feel like home until I left and came back again. During
our time in Cusco we went to a number of historic Incan sites and temples. The grand
finale being, Maccu Piccu. To Maccu Piccu we took the cheaper student route.
This also included a lot of walking if you really wanted it to be cheaper. We
walked so much over those couple days. I’ve never seen so many steps in my
life. It took me three days to be able to go down steps again without pain. We
climbed and descended 3,000 ft. elevation that day. Almost all of the way was
steps. However, it was all totally worth it, and I felt much more appreciative of
the location after walking all the way up there. It really was an experience
and I was so lucky to be able to see these places.
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Now I am back at Amor Projects and have begun to catch
up on my work here. I am happy to be back and to be working again. I really am
happy to be a part of Amor Projects and the work that that is going on here.
Thank you so much for you continued prays.
