After quite a few delays in Cusco, we headed off on our 5 hour bus ride to Ayaviri. The views were amazing. We stopped at a mountain pass just under 15,000 ft.
As we approached Ayaviri, we started to see the rural neighborhoods outside of the city. They were clusters of homes, no more than 10 or so. These are some of the people we will serve. They would have no access to medical care otherwise.
As we pull into the city, all of us gringos had our faces pushed against the glass staring at the people in the streets, and they were staring back at us. Jared started to wave at them and smiled and waved back. They have been advertising this mission for several months with posters around town, at the market on Wednesdays, and at mass. Dede thought she noticed they had cleaned the streets. The whole town seemed excited about our arrival.
We arrived at our hotel just off the main square. It's 4 floors and as tall as the beautiful old cathedral that sits on the square too. The hotel is pretty bad. I never traveled to hostels in college, but some people here have and evidently this compares to a pretty cheap hostel.
Jared and I's room is on the 4th floor. Everything is generally dirty. I recleaned the bathroom at the urging of one of the hosts, Juan, with Clorox. I reminded Jared that earned me some wife- points. However, there are two beds and a light and a shower with occasional hot water. It feels like camping. I'm glad I brought our own towels. I'm also thankful for the two mummy bags we brought with us so we don't have to really use the beds.
After we had lunch, tacos(!), we took our bags to our room and headed to the clinic. A word about the clinic: this is the first year with access to this building. It's owned by the church and was originally intended to be used as an old persons' home. That could not sustain itself in Ayaviri and now it could possibly be the permanent home of this annual clinic and mission. It's not perfect, but a permanent home means we could leave equipment all year round.
Jared and I were assigned to help the pharmacists get the pharmacy set up for patients tomorrow morning. We worked diligently until about 8 pm unpacking boxes, taking inventory, and putting medicine on shelves. We both liked the work... It suited our non medical personalities. :)
Other people got the exam rooms set up, cleaned the bathrooms, hung partitions for privacy, or counted vitamins. We were joined here by doctors from Lima and doctors from Miami. There are 47 of us now.
We had dinner at 8ish. Dried out turkey sandwiches. No one complained.
EDITED 10/23/12
Picture of Jared and a group of Peruvian girls that asked to take their picture with him, presumably because they thought he was a professional basketball player. Jared asked our tour guide if they were "full grown."
Justin, Abby, me & Jared at a sacred Inca site in Pisaq.
Our hotel room.
Justin on our morning commute. Justin's bags were lost and he couldn't get them back until we flew home through Lima. Justin earned the "good sport" badge because I'm not sure anyone else would have been able to handle that hiccup like he did.
One of the "taxi's" in Ayaviri.
This woman would is on the street and hand whip cream, to put on top of jello and sell it for breakfast. She didn't realize I was taking her picture until afterwards, and she was a little annoyed at me for some reason. We didn't try any because we still thought there was a chance we could avoid the water, but it looked really good.
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