Peru

Travel Intern: Back to work after a….Peruvian appendectomy!?!

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Ed: This was written 7 days ago, but we were only able to post it now. We’ll have another update from Isabel very soon.

Hello, this is Appropedia Travel intern, Isabel.

I arrived in Costa Rica today after a series of interesting detours…

My last blog was written about a month ago from the dreamy town of Mancora, Peru where I was attending a refresher week of Spanish classes and falling in love with surfing. I left Mancora near the end of June, feeling healthy and once again confident with my Spanish skills.

I accompanied my fried Kat to the airport in Lima, sad to see her go, but excited to dive into my internship with a visit to the office of Soluciones Practicas, an incredible organization using appropriate technology to address poverty in Peru.

Unfortunately, the day before my appointment, I began having terrible stomach pains and the owner of my hostel, Francis, insisted that I visit the hospital. After 11 hours in the emergency room and a myriad of tests, I was told I had appendicitis and needed to have surgery…right there in the Lima Hospital. I will soon be posting a personal blog with all of the exciting and nitty-gritty details of the Peruvian appendectomy and 5 days spent in the hospital.

For the purposes of this blog, I will say only that it was a life changing experience. I will also say that I couldn’t have done it without the kindness of a stranger, Francis Chauvel, owner of  Albergue Miraflores House Hostel.  He stayed with me in the ER, contacted my family, visited me in the hospital everyday, and threw a Welcome home partyfor me when I came back to the hostel!!! …Thanks Francis!

During my stay at the hospital, my mother (who was perhaps more traumatized by the experience than I was) asked me to come home to recover. I happily complied with her request and spent the monthof July in Tennessee with my family, following the doctor ordered diet (which was quite restrictive) and sleeping off the anesthesia in my system. After a full month of rest I feel both mentally and physically strong and ready to continue traveling.

I am excited to visit a few projects in Panama and Costa Rica and to return to Rancho Mastatal, an environmental learning and sustainable living center, which has become somewhat of a second home to me in Costa Rica.

As always, my schedule is flexible and I welcome suggestions for projects and places to visit in Panama and Costa Rica.

Hopefully I will have better luck this time around!

Thanks for checking in, Isabel

Day in the life of a Travel Intern

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On our journey from the rainforest to Lima, we decided to stopped for a few days in the cultural mecca of Cusco, Peru. But a funny thing happened on the way to Cusco…

After an entire night of bus travel on the winding mountain roads I woke up out of my half slumber to find that we were in complete standstill traffic about 30 minutes (by bus) outside of Cusco. The road was blocked and we would be waiting until nightfall. After inquiring with the driver and some of the locals, we were assured that our best and safest option was to walk 4 hours to Cusco down the road. I had naively assumed the block had been caused by a rock slide, as the steep terrain seemed to threaten collapse around every turn of the highway.

I had to  laugh when we came to the first block… it was simply a few logs that blocked the way and a collection of  about 20 people. I approached the group of elderly women sitting atop the logs and asked about the situation. In broken Spanish they more or less said, “We do not have water to grow plants or to live. We do not have access to the lake from which we have always gotten our water. The lake is also becoming very polluted. We want enough clean water to live and we will wait here until our message is heard.”

The sights long the the 30km of road were nothing less than surreal. For over 30 Kilometers, the road was blocked by rocks, boulders, logs, small fires, chunks of metal, glittering broken glass and hundreds of people young and old. This was a major, multi-pueblo, direct-action protest aimed at getting the attention of the Peruvian government.

The walk was very long and difficult, about 30km ( 20miles) on pavement in the mid-day sun. Though I had to fight to keep my spirits up, there was an undeniable beauty in being able to walk this long stretch of highway without a single car passing. There were only mountains splattered with pinkish mud and sagebrush, similarly pink adobe houses, and the faces of countless smiling,relentless people.

As we neared Cusco we saw that the Peruvian Army had arrived in drones to clear the streets. It has been difficult for me to find this story covered in the media, but as far as I can tell from talking with the people, the issue is water privatization. The people get their water from one lake. Someone owns or has recently bought the lake and this private or new owner raised the price of water so that the people could no longer afford enough water to grow crops. This is a simplified version of the story, but it is the only information that was consistent among all the people I questioned.

I am by no means an educated authority on these issues, but I know that these situations are not black and white. If someone owns the water, there is the danger that the people will not have access to what they need, however, there can also be problems when no one feels responsible for a resource.
I am aware that this is an age old debate and as I said, I know only enough to know that I know nothing about this, but I do think it is an issue worth thinking about. I know alternatives exist and I look forward to comments and peoples opinion on these issues. Please enlighten me.

Well, there is much more to say but that all for today. Be sure to check out my next blog (coming very soon) in which I hope to talk a bit about my process as I figure out what it means to be an Appropedia Travel Intern.

Thanks for cheking in!
Isabell

Isabell Kimbrough: First Travel Intern, First Blog

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Exploring a lake in the Amazon

Hola! Isabell Kimbrough here! I have begun my journey and stint as Appropedia’s first travel intern.  (Follow the links for more info.)

In a nutshell, I just graduated from Humboldt State University with a degree in Botany and a passion for conservation and sustainable living. I saved my pennies for quite some time in order to do some traveling in South and Central America; and while I commend those who are able to travel free as a breeze, I come from a world of structure and need to feel that I am on some sort of mission as I wander. This is where Appropedia fits in. Members of the board of Appropedia had already birthed the idea of the “travel intern”, someone who would, during their travels, visit and report on successful projects for Appropedia. My internship is the trial run of this idea. I am excited and honored to have this opportunity.

I have begun my adventures and am writing from the rainforest town of Puerto Maldanado, Peru. My dearest friend Kat Fountain has been working on a conservation project in the state of Madre de Dios Peru , deep in the Amazon. It just so happened that she needed a field assistant and I just so happened to be a qualified biologist. What luck! So I joined her at the Sachavacayoc field station, a center for research, education and ecotourism. For a week we rose before the sun and spent the day exploring and experiencing the incredible Amazon rainforest.

This Amazonian hardwood tree named "La Purma" is 500 years old!

I have learned a lot in a week, not only about the local flora and fauna, but also about the situation of the people. Those working to protect and conserve this incredibly rich and biodiverse region of Peru face many threats and obstacles to conservation including (but not limited to): mining and subsequent mineral contamination in the water, logging for hardwoods, cattle farming, drilling for Petroleum, and slash and burn agriculture. The situation is, of course, very complicated and when taken as a whole, has the potential to be a little overwhelming. However, many of the conservationists and scientists I have spoken with here have a great deal of hope.

I personally find a sparkle of hope in this: There are many people and organizations whose sole (and soul) purpose is to protect this precious piece of the world. One of the biggest problems conservationists faced is that the lack of communication between groups and organizations who share the same goals. Call me idealistic, but it is my belief that as infrastructure for communication improves and these groups continue to collaborate and organize, the looming problems I mentioned before are well within our power to change. As we all know, even the biggest changes happen poco a poco.

This is why I am grateful to be a part of the Appropedia community. Every page, and each connection made, is a step towards change. Perhaps some of you have heard the expression “the revolution will not be televised!” I agree. I think it is being documented in Appropedia.org!

Till next time… Isabell