Dulikhel

Tomorrow we are packing up and leaving our hotel in Kathmandu. We are stopping by the leper hospital here on our way out of town to visit, then will be going to Dulikhel where we will spend a week. We are going to spend some time in the hospital there and working with their medical students. On the following Monday we will return to Kathmandu for a day before departing again for our 6 day trek in the Helendu region, where we will stop by a couple of the remote health posts in the village. So fr the trip has been great, I'm getting a lot of pictures I like working on putting them together to upload, though the internet makes that a bit tough to do!

Kathmandu

Hello everyone, yesterday was my first day here in Kathmandu in Nepal. I'm staying at Hotel Vajra with the group. It is a fairly nice hotel with a good breakfast. The power is not on during the day however, which means no charging or WIFI. The group seems pretty good, there are the two physicians leading the trip, an OBGYN and EM physician from UNM, 2 residents from UNM in EM and IM, 2 med students from UNM, me, and  4th year from Georgetown. Yesterday we met with the Ministry of Health here which was interesting, and then went to the US embassy to meat with the USAID. In the evening we had a touristy traditional Nepali dinner with dancers etc. I slept like a rock, still trying to get caught up on sleep. Though I was pretty fortunate on the way over, I had a whole to myself to stretch out and sleep on during the flight from Vancouver to Guangzhou. In Guangzhou I did not have to clear customs or anything, just was bused around on a convoluted international transfer. Basically just walked off the plane, onto a bus, up some stairs and onto the next plane, since my flight had been over 2 hours late leaving. Today we are going to meet with some NGOs, which should be interesting.

Nepal

I'm on my way to Nepal today, just got through security at the Seattle airport and will be flying to Vancouver soon, then on to Guangzhou (China) and finally to Kathmandu, arriving tomorrow at 10:10 PM local time for a total of 26 hours. It appears Nepal is 12 hours and 45 minutes ahead of Seattle. I will be meeting with my group the following morning and will find out more about what the trip entails then. I'm looking forward to it.

Kodiak

I arrived in Kodiak yesterday and Lindsey met me at the airport. She showed me around some of the main places on the island. It is quite small. There is only 100 miles of road on the island all put together. We went for a hike at Fort Abercrombie which was pretty interesting. Apparently there were multiple military installments here from back in World War II.

USA

Back in the US now, waiting in San Francisco for my connection to Seattle, I actually really lucked out here they were able to bump me up to an earlier flight with my checked bag and put me in an exit row, and waived the fee for all this. This morning I just barely made my flight in Lima by 5 minutes, every time I think for sure I have seen the extent of how slow a process can be my trip managed to surprise me, hah. Lima was a good two days at the end of my trip. I spent a fair amount of time hanging around with friends, one from University who is living there and her flat mates, the guy I met while traveling with whom I stayed, and a French couple I met in Huanchaco who I really enjoy chatting with. I also managed to squeeze some surfing in and find a few souvenirs.

I will be going through my pictures over the next week or two and putting some more up. I leave for Kodiak AK on Wednesday, and who knows perhaps there will be interesting things to write about or photograph up there. I'm planning to keep up the Spanish studies using duoloingo.com, flash cards from various vocab lists of medical, idioms, and phrase lists online, possibly a few lessons over skype, and also trading e-mails or chatting with some of my traveling friends who speak fluent Spanish but want to improve English.

Santa Cruz and Lima

I arrived in Lima at 5 this morning. I will stay with a friend from here I met while in Huanchaco. Ive just been hanging around the park here at the viewpoint over the sea, where ironically I have found the best wifi of the entire trip, by at least 10-20x. I will meet up with one of my university friends in the next day or two to possibly do some surfing and see different parts of Lima, then fly home Saturday morning.

I went on the Santa Cruz hike through the Andes, specifically the Cordillera Blanca (White Range), which was quite beautiful, though I do think the Cascades are far more spectacular. The group consisted of 11 people and it was very fun to hike with them. Possibly in part because the guide company messed up so many things it was best just to joke about it. But I did survive and saw some beautiful mountains. Myself and 3 germans returned on the third day instead of the fourth, which introduced another layer of complexity the company had said would be fine but apparently was not equipped to handle. In any case, we went to the agency after returning to Huaraz and managed to procure a reimbursement for 1 day, which shocked me. The hike was great though, the first day is spent going up up up a hill which "tiene mucho caido" (is very steep). It was not too physically demanding, but was simply slow going having only arrived at 10,000 feet from sea level 24 hours prior. We hiked into a mountain pass which opened into a valley with a river where we made camp. Luckily the rain didnt hit until after we had made camp, which is pretty unusual for this time of year. The next day we continued to hike through the valley to a teal milky glacial lake into which I led the swimming charge. Then we went across a flood plane with a multitude of little rivers we had to hop-scotch across, searching long and hard for possible routes. Then we continued up to a glacial lake, with the glacier sliding down into the bowl. It was pretty amazing, and while there I saw/heard three avalanches. Hiking back we found some large boulders and some of us practiced climbing. With my reach I was the only one to succeed on the route, much to the local guide's chagrin. Then the rain hit as we hiked another couple hours, everyone being thoroughly drenched. I really should have seen this coming that when the Peruvian lady where I made the booking told me they have "all the gear you need included" and "the equipment is excellent", she meant that they would give me a smelly old sleeping bag and leaky tent. After already having paid, the size 48 hiking boots I was promised were proven to not exist, so there I was walking through the downpour in my mesh running shoes, oops. At this next campsite we were literally invaded and attacked by cows. There were 4 surrounding my small shared tent when I tried to go to bed, 2 with their heads (and horns) lowered right at the entrance eating the grass. I was able to scare them off by beating my poncho at them for just long enough to sneak inside. In the night a couple times they ran into our tent and tripped over the fly lines, pulling them out, worsening an already less-than-water-tight situation, haha. We could hear them running through the camp and simply hoped not to be trampled. The next day those of us leaving woke up at 3 in the morning to begin the hike back, the guide disappeared after about 100 yards and we ended up needing to take a taxi when the arranged transport never showed. But as I said, we made it, and afterall it was a pretty fun adventure.

Ive been importing all my photos (here's a tip, if ever you take a water-tight camera, such as the GoPro, to 14,000 feet, leave the case cracked open before you descend back to sea level) and will be attempting to sort them and post some more in the next week or two.

Huaraz and the Mountains

Im in Huaraz now and will be leaving tomorrow morning for a 3 day mountain trek through the Andes here. Its called the Santa Cruz trek, and supposed to be pretty amazing. I get back late Wednesday and will take a night bus to Lima that night to spend 2 days there before flying home.