Down River Up North

Clinic number two…. Crazy times. We had a group of 20 come in from ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Calhoun, GA to work with us on a "mini-clinic" (which was totally not a mini clinic at all) for a week. This was a week of crazy adventures and good times. All of our plans for where we were supposed to go got thrown out the day before we were to leave, as is normal in Peru… there is no such thing as plans or supposed to in Peru…and our wonderful leader Jenni planned a new trip in about 18 hours. We left at one a.m. and rode on a launcha (a large passenger boat whose seats consisted of self supplied hammocks practically stacked on each other) for 24 hours to a small river village called Inahuawa. After toting all our stuff up the port (ports here are really steep muddy inclines) we got to bed at 3 am and awoke at five to organize medicines. During this week we went to four different places… all by dugout canoes and long jungle hikes carrying all of our meds. I truly never knew what hard work was before I came to Peru… nothing is easy here, but it is all rewarding and fun. On this trip I was labeled translator and got to do tons of pharmacy work, got my first IV (gotta love river water soaked bananas…yum) practice much patience, and buy a monkey. We got a squirrel monkey…. He is really small, super cuddly, slightly smelly, and over all a really cute little being with bug eyes, furry white ears, and an alien shaped head. Once clinic was done, we had a 9 hour peke peke ride (which was supposed to only be four hours) to Cantamana… a beautiful small river village upriver down south of Inahuawa. I think it is sort of a district capital or some such thing. From there we went to a natural hot springs which was beautiful and so relaxing. We slept outside in our hammocks under a palm branch shelter and listened to the rain. The trip back however wasn't so relaxing because the rain totally slaughtered the road and the motos couldn't reach us. At one point we tried to load four people on a motor bike, but a backpack strap got caught in it and ruined the bike… so we ended up walking 20 km barefoot in the mud to reach our destination. Gotta love Peru! After a day of getting the bike fixed and stuff organized we took another day trip via hammock boat back home to Pucallpa… I am sure there was more but it is late and my brain is frozen so I guess that is all for now…