Category: South America

You drink coffee. Or the person sitting next to you in the cafe does. Maybe it’s a morning ritual, maybe it accompanies your dessert, maybe you’re in college and it’s essential to your sanity.

“Sleeping bag?” I asked myself.

“Check,” I replied, as I recalled the packing list for the hundredth time.

Once I was sure that I had jammed all of the essentials into my backpack, I made my way out to the dining table to meet the rest of my group. Eager faces and towering backpacks greeted me as we all sat down to eat breakfast.

During our first few days of OG’s first ever Explorations at Altitude program, we found ourselves in the office of Derechos Humanos Sin Fronteras (DHSF, or Human Rights Without Borders) in Cusco, Peru on May 21. The theme of the program is environmental rights and mining justice across Peru and Bolivia, drawing participants that are both passionate and driven by these subjects, and who each have a unique perspective to bring to the group and the partners we visit.

I think we can all admit that when our plane landed in Cusco we were excited, but that initial taxi ride up to the hostel had us re-evaluating our physical and mental strength. It wasn’t even worth counting the number of stairs once we reached 107. We already knew that Meg and Gordon had thrown us into the lion’s den, but little did we know that it was a blessing in disguise to prepare us for the adventures ahead.

The third day offered whole new landscapes and climates; glaciers and shivers turned into jungles and dripping beads of sweat.

Did you know that Peru has more than 3,000 different varieties of potatoes, frogs able to suck their eyes into their heads to help them swallow food, and is home to the maca root (a natural Viagra)?

Sea level. I miss it, how I take it for granted how easy my body is pre-adapted to such an altitude.

In Lima we were also introduced by our group leaders, Gordon and Meg, to ‘Puelas’, meaning a group activity of anything from silly games to deep discussions.

Kokama people inhabited the village and allowed us into their small community for a few days.

Spanish lesson número uno occurred outside the airport shortly after arriving, with our group leaders Lies and Liam showing us how to politely tell (or yell) “¡No, gracias!” to the hordes of taxi drivers waiting outside the main doors.

Here I was, a young and naïve pre-medicine student, expecting to “fix” Peru’s healthcare system; how foolish I was to simplify the situation.

I will not say that I went through a butterfly metamorphosis, but I sure did come home a different person, a better person, ready to go forward on the home front and make a difference in some way.

We landed in the city of Cusco with a great many sensations inside, enthusiasm for things to come… and terrible altitude sickness.

fter 28 short hours on a bus from Lima, 15 weary travelers arrived in Yurimaguas at the departure site of “La Lancha”, the river barge filled with fresh produce and local travelers which would be our home for the next three days! It only took us two nights of losing pieces of our luggage to figure out where to stow our gear in the night, but once we did, the rest of the trip was smooth sailing!