A bit of adventure: destination The Lake

It's the tail end of internship, but that's not why I'm writing. It's 7 AM and in 3 hours I'm leaving to go on a bit of an adventure to Southeast Asia with two of my oldest buddies. JO will be coming by any minute and then we'll hop a train to NYC where we'll hop a plane to Beijing. There we'll meet JC on the connector to Bangkok.

Now, Bangkok isn't exactly the place to be spending a lot of time these days. There is a bunch of civil unrest, with the Red Shirts and the Yellow Shirts. Initially the protests started out peaceful, albeit with some creative twists like dumping gallons of donated human blood in front of government buildings http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/world/asia/17thai.html . However, recently people started getting blown up http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/world/asia/24thai.html?hp

Our hopes and prayers are that this gets resolved peacefully and quickly; our time and money will be spent outside Bangkok. Perhaps a quick run at the island of Phuket http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/travel/21hours.html , but we have a full 24 hours before we arrive so we'll be mulling that over.

What I'm really stoked about is catching up with old friends in Cambodia and getting to help out on The Lake Clinic, a floating medical clinic that provides free healthcare to the extremely underserved Cambodians on the Tonle Sap Lake.

Here's a video on The Lake Clinic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXVVYn2bNr8&playnext_from=TL&videos=F4uump4dZXc

Here's the blog:

http://www.blog.lakeclinic.org/

Here's the web site (donate!):

http://www.lakeclinic.org/

And we're off!

Machu Picchu (at last)

Finally, here is a long-overdue album from the Machu Picchu trip back in March as I am literally packing to return home to the US.

What is Machu Picchu and why was it named one of the new 7 wonders of the world? In short, it is a stone city and Incan religious site on top of a mountain in Peru; it is partly important because the Spanish never found it and destroyed it, so it is mostly intact (except for damage caused by nature's slow reclamation and a few earthquakes).

Here is the Wikipedia on Machu Picchu.

The Chakana or "Incan cross" is a prevalent symbol, so here is the Wikipedia on that too.



Download album here:

Machu Picchu

Santa Cruz autonomy referendum

Yesterday in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where I have returned to work on a congenitally transmitted parasite project, there was an autonomy referendum that has been receiving a lot of press. Things got hot in places, with an estimated 20 people injured and 1 killed, but it seems the tension has eased following the very predictable results. The apartment here is just a few blocks from the main plaza, so it got loud at times with marches and fireworks, but I have felt perfectly safe. Click here for a BBC article on the autonomy movement in Bolivia

Work work work

I haven't had time to get up the final album from Machu Picchu because, believe it or not, I do a bit of work from time to time. I feel bad for missing my target for posting the Machu Picchu album, so here are some photos from my projects:
1) Editing video at my desk (many thanks to a friend for letting me borrow their Mac to do the editing!)
2) An incubator that I MacGyvered up in order to do a time-lapse video of tuberculosis growing over 2 weeks. Literally used a Swiss Army knife & a cigarette lighter for the majority of making it.
3) Video shoot to explain a new test for tuberculosis that was developed here in Lima; I am editing the video now and will post a link once it's done (update- it's done, and translated into Spanish as well- click here to go to the site).


Download full album here:

Video desktop & Incubator project

Inca Trail to Machu Picchu

After 2 days acclimating to the altitude in Cusco, we departed for a 4 day, 3 night hike on the old pilgrim route to Machu Picchu. The dates were March 13-16. I tried to arrange things in a way that made sense, but all mis-labels are my error (please let me know what I've screwed up and I will fix it). On a side note, I got Munko's photos so re-check the Amazon album and the Sacred Valley album: they have a lot of new photos thanks to Munko.



Download album here

Inca Trail

A little quake

Yesterday morning I woke up to another quake. This time it was just a 5.5- things certainly were shaking in my apartment, but most importantly there was no widespread damage as with the quake last fall.

http://www.livinginperu.com/news-6055-natural-disasters-lima-two-earthquakes-hit-perus-capital-city

Sacred Valley & Cusco

Out of order, but here are photos from Cusco and the Sacred Valley.

Here are 2 MP3s of
1. Andean music in airport
2. Blind man playing harp in Sacred Valley

To clarify the itinerary: we started in Lima-> flew to Cusco-> 2 days in Cusco to acclimate to altitude, one day went to Sacred Valley-> 4 days on Incan Trail which ended at Machu Picchu (those photos are next for posting)-> flew to Puerto Maldenado-> 3 hours up river to Amazon lodge for 5 days-> back to Lima



Here is the album put to the music


download album at

Sacred Valley & Cusco