Vive Peru 2016 is Officially Underway!

Hola from Peru! Northwestern's annual Student Academy Audiology humanitarian trip to Peru is officially underway. A little about our trip: once a year, a team of student clinicians from the Doctor of Audiology program at Northwestern University travel to Truijillo, Peru for two weeks. During this time, we give a seminar to share our knowledge about audiology with the local healthcare professionals who currently provide hearing health services, but are not specialized in the field of audiology. The majority of our time is spent in local schools teaching school children from kindergarten through high school about the importance of hearing and hearing health. In addition to this educational outreach, this is the first year we have the resources to conduct hearing screenings for both school children and senior citizens! We are very excited to introduce this clinical component into our outreach, and hope our efforts this year will help expand the annual services we offer to the citizens in Trujillo. 

Now that we are settled into our host family's home in Trujillo, we will be able to keep you (our supporters) updated throughout our time here. So, without further ado, meet our 2016 Vive Peru Team! 

Jennifer Phelan, AuD
Shannon Switzer, Third Year Graduate Student
Gregory Horton, Third Year Graduate Student
Clare Furuta, Second Year Graduate Student
Jenna Browning-Kamins, Second Year Graduate Student

Saturday, August 13

After carefully packing our audiometers, otoscopes, and bug spray, we flew out of Chicago on Saturday evening and arrived in Lima at 5:30am.

Sunday, August 14 

We were greeted by a member of the Vive Peru team, Janice, who recognized us in the airport from some of the glamour shots we had sent her a couple months ago. We piled into a taxi and took a speedy ride through Lima and along the coast before arriving at the Dragonfly Hostel. While we were not staying overnight at the hostel, it was a great place for us to relax for the day before our overnight bus from Lima to Trujillo.

After lounging in the hostel, we went out to explore the Miraflores neighborhood of Lima.

We walked around Parque Kennedy, which is locally known as the "cat park" where locals and tourists like to spend time hanging out with the stray cats who call the park home.

After taking in the sights and sounds of the area, we settled into a cafe for a leisurely lunch and discussed some of our goals for the next two weeks.

We returned to the hostel for orientation with Janice from Vive Peru, and then went out with her for dinner. After dinner, we took another speedy taxi ride to the bus station, where we took an overnight bus to Trujillo from 9:15pm-6:15am. Every member of our team slept straight through the journey! 

Monday August 15th

We were picked up from the bus station this morning by taxi and taken to our home for the next two weeks. We are staying with a host family in their lovely, spacious home. Señora Mercy y Señor Jose own a small cafe, which is attached to their house. They have two children, one who is in univeristy in Trujillo, and one boy who is six years old. Senora Mercy treated us to a large, delicious desayuno with home-brewed coffee. In fact, it was so wonderful, we did not think to capture it in a picture. We had the morning off to recover from our traveling and spent it chatting with our host family.

After lunch, we went to the Vive Peru headquarters down the road from our host family's house. We had a meeting with the organizers of Vive Peru to review our itinerary for the next two weeks and discuss the logistics of our projects.

Following the meeting, we took taxis into the city centre of Trujillo where we admired the Cathedral and beautiful colonial buildings.

We followed-up our stroll around the city with coffee and dessert in a cafe called "La Llave" because of all the old keys it displays on its walls. 

We then returned home to our neighborhood and went to a bar to sample Peru's famous Pisco Sour drink. We then retired back to our home stay to rest up for our first full day of work at the Vive Peru headquarters.

Thank you again to our supporters, and we will keep you all in the loop as our hearing wellness project progresses here in Trujillo!

Back Home We Go

 Tuesday September 1, 2015

We left the Dragonfly Hostel in Cuzco to catch our 11am flight back to Lima.

Our last day in Peru was spent shopping in Lima for souvenirs and gifts. We traveled all around the city and stopped into a coffee shop that sold Pachu's (our host father) coffee that he grows himself. We ate again at Le Lucha restaurant and treated ourselves to milkshakes. We ended the day with churros before heading back to the hostel. Our flight left Lima at 12:30am and we made the long trek home. From Lima to Houston to Newark to Chicago we made it back safe and sound. We would like to take a moment to again thank everyone who helped to sponser this trip. We look forward to seeing our outreach efforts grow and prosper in future years.

Also a big thank you to everyone who has been following along with the blog! Please feel free to share it with anyone who may be interested in our efforts, and forward any questions you may have!

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Machu Picchu

Monday August 31, 2015

"Machu Picchu is a trip to the serenity of the soul, to the eternal fusion with the cosmos; where we feel our fragility. It is one of the greatest marvels of South America. A resting place of butterflies in the epicentre of the great circle of life. One more miracle." - Pablo Neruda, The Heights of Machu Picchu.

The Lost City is one of the world's major archaeological travel destinations and was named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in 2007. Built around 1450 in classical Inca style, it was abandoned after the Spanish Conquest. The structure is 60% original work, 40% restoration. 

Hiram Bingham was an American historian who lectured at Yale University. He came across Machu Picchu in 1911 while he was searching for the lost city of Vitcos, the capital of the Incas. Bingham returned to Machu Picchu in 1912 with sponsorship from Yale and undertook a four month clearing of the site. 

It is theorized based on remains found at the site, that Machu Picchu was a place of education and worship. Sacrifices were made to the Gods for good harvests and prosperity. 

We had a great day exploring the ruins, and then climbing up Wayna Picchu, the prominent mountain behind us in the pictures. 

 

We caught a 3pm train back to Ollantaytambo, then a van back to Cuzco. We ate pizza for dinner that wasn't half bad and slept very soundly. 

The Elusive Whitecapped Mountain

Sunday August 30, 2015

Today we started our tour at a silver factory where, similar to the alpaca factory, we learned to differentiate between real silver and fake.

Before lunch we stopped at Urubama Valley at Pisac. This city controlled the route that connected the Inca Empire with Paurcartambo in the eastern jungles. It was comprised of an impressive lay out of terraces and stonework. Also, this area houses the largest cemetery in South America. Buried in the hillside are thousands of tombs that were rummaged through by the Spanish settlers searching for gold and treasures.

We stopped for lunch in a small town and had veggie paninis and french fries. 

Continuing on, we went to Ollantaytambo. This little town is build on top of the orginial Inca foundations and shows Inca town planning. The town is divided into blocks that each have thier own entracnce leading into a central courtyard. The town sits next to Inca ruins that were used for worship. The temple sits on top of steep terracing that helped with defense. The area was still under construction when the Spanish invaded and it was never finished. 

We left from Ollantaytambo for the train station to Aquas Caliente, where Machu Picchu is situated. The two hour train ride was filled with beautiful scenery of mountains and rivers. 

We checked into our hotel and got to bed early in preparation for our 5am start to Machu Picchu!

Beef Hearts & Alpaca & Guinea Pigs, Oh My!

Saturday August 29, 2015

Today is actually Friday September 4th; a combination of unreliable wifi and days packed with travel and adventure got the best of me. But I've been keeping notes, so here we go!

We had breakfast on Saturday at the Dragonfly Hostel in Lima. Classic bread, rice puff cereal, coffee.

We then traveled by van to the Lima airport and made our way across the Andes Mountains to Cuzco, Peru. We got settled into the Dragonfly Hostel in Cuzco and met up with our tour coordinator Willy. He directed us to the beautiful Plaza de Armas in Cuzco where we met our tour guide, Freddy. 

Our "City Tour" of Cuzco began at Qoricancha, the Sun Temple. This was the most important temple in the Inca Empire, dedicated to Inti, the Sun God. Spanish settlers tore down part of the temple to build the Cathedral of Santo Domingo on top of it. When the area was stricken with earthquakes, the Spanish built portions of the buildings crumbled, but the Incan structures remained due to their exceptional stone masonry. The Incas built their stone structures with a lock and key type of system, and the stones were cut on a slight angle that made them more resistant to earthquakes. 

 

 

Next, we ventured to Sacsayhuaman (which sounds very similar to "Sexy Woman" which our tour guide found rather funny). Sacsayhuaman means "speckled head". The city of Cuzco is said to be shaped like a puma and this raised fortress that overlooks the city is the head of the puma. The limestone walls run nearly 400km in length and weigh and upwards of 300 tons a piece. Pope John Paul gave a mass here in 1988.

 

En route to our next destination, we stopped to overlook the Sacred Valley.

Then we continued our journey to Tambomachy. Commonly referred to as the Inca Baths, this was a site for ritual bathing. It has been suggested that it was used only for ceremonial occasions and that the water there would give you immortal life. The four cutouts in the structure signify the elements water, fire, earth and wind. It was at this point that we realized we should have packed some parkas, we were freezing!!

We made a quick stop at Puca Pucara, the Red Fort. Theories are that this fortress acted either as lodging for travelers or as a guard post to regulate goods and people from Cuzco to the Sacred Valley.     
                           

As it got dark, we stopped quickly at Q'enko. This rock is an example of "Inca Rock Worship". There is belief that the Inca held cosmological beliefs that rocks possessed hidden spiritual force. On the top of the rock are zigzag channels that held sacrificed llama blood. Inside the rock is an altar where sacrifices took place.

Our last stop on today's tour was at an alpaca factory where a local Peruvian woman taught us how to differentiate real alpaca goods from synthetics.

After a day packed with history, traveling and lots of pictures we set out for dinner. Cuy, or guinea pig, is a common dish in Peru and it was on the top of my list of things to try out. We ventured to a restaurant near our hostel and ordered cuy, beef hearts and alpaca lomo saltado. The alpaca was by far the best, tasting similar to steak. The heart and guinea pig were both a bit tough, and though we were glad we were adventurous and tried them, are not something we would seek out in the future.