A few days ago, Ollanta is celebrating its town anniversary with parades of all kinds, frutellada, a fermented fruit drink that is super delicious, and, of course, churros para chuparse los dedos (super delicious). In Adam's words, "There were better than I thought they would be."
We found some new restaurants in town that have some amazing pizza and great organic greens.
We have been doing a lot lately! One of the main things we have done is move into our new house on Lari Calle just a 2 minute walk from Brooke's work and a few blocks from our host family's house. I loved that I could move my stuff by hand just a few blocks. We both agree it is the easiest move we have ever done.
Some interesting things have occurred so far. We saw a scorpion in our home that was about 5 inches long. I have never seen one that was not in a zoo or in a pog. Our host mom said that a scorpion that big is sure to have kids around somewhere. The Peruvian nurse said to smoke a cigarette in our room so the scorpions come out because they are scared of smoke.
This past weekend, we went to the hot springs in Lares, which took us about 3.5 hours to get to through amazing mountains. I think the highest point was 4600 meters on the trip. Our host dad gave us the advice to chew just 2 coca leaves on the way up, and that we did. We had no issues.
Another fun thing we have done was go to the town's anniversary, which is basically when the whole town dances to the traditional Peruvian "shuffle music" as I call it, or Huayno as they call it here.
Brooke is officially taking over the 3 communities of Huilloc, Yanamayo, and Piscacucho as her predecessor, Elly, left yesterday.
Adam continues to use our host family's fixed phone to make some calls and is finding success.
This weekend, we plan to go to Cusco, Pisac, and Qoya, the town Brooke stayed in before.
This Sunday, Brooke goes to her furthest community of Yanamayo and will enjoy some time working with her health promoter, Matilde.
Lots of good pictures below and more to come soon, friends!
See the blog Brooke wrote for SVH here focusing more on her health care work in Perú: http://sacredvalleyhealth.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/trucha-torta-and-training/
Much love,
Brooke & Adam
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| Guy in the parade |
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| Recycling car |
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| Float with a fire on it |
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| Traditional costumes |
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| Float with a chicken (?) and corn |
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| On our trip to Lares |
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| Adam and Darragh, Brooke's co-worker from Ireland who is in charge of media for Sacred Valley Health |
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| Brooke's first time teaching with the Peruvian nurse, Leticia, on obesity and diabetes |
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| "Adam", our dummy, helping us review CPR with the health promoters |
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| Brooke doing education with a health promoter, Berta, from a community called Soccma |
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| Sarah did such excellent job on Heimlich training that she had some true-to-life, interesting experiences when she tested the health promoters on their skills |
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| Darragh taking care of a girl at one of our trainings offering "Darragh daycare" |
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| Churros in the town plaza :) |
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| No shortage of candy for those times when you want it |
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| Town plaza in Ollantaytambo |
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| People watching the parade |
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| Adam trying frutellada for the first time, a fermented fruit drink |
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| People in the parade |
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| Women in the parade |
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| Adam walking to the fruit truck |
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| Getting ready for the parades |
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| Children getting in line for the parade |
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| Adam waiting to march with Sacred Valley Health |
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| Waiting for our spot in line |
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| Neon and traditional garb |
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| Traditional dress |
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| Sacred Valley rainbow slide |
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| Adam doing yoga in Pisac |
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| At the Albergue restaurant doing a Pachamanka lunch |
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| Ready to bury vegetables and herbs under the Earth with hot rocks |
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| The house of one of Brooke's health promoters in Huilloc |
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| Pigs in my health promoter's backyard in Huilloc |
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| On a hike in Lares (you can see all of the hot spring pools below!) |
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| Group picture for the Sacred Valley Health retreat in front of the Lares sign |
Amazing photos. Thanks for sharing those. And I got the most important lesson from your post: Smoke a Cigarette in your Room to Drive Out the Scorpions! Great advice!! Well, this Scorpio wishes you a NON-stinging Día de Muertos!!!
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