Midnight Sun in the Antarctic

 

Ahoy, fellow adventurers! Grab your thermal layers and prepare for the chill of a lifetime as we journey to the land where icebergs dance and king penguins reign supreme: Antarctica!

The Drake Shake

Our expedition kicks off aboard a Hurtigruten ship, gliding across the infamous Drake Passage. Known for its tumultuous waters, the Drake serves up a cocktail of excitement and seasickness—perfect for those with a penchant for adventure. But fear not! As the waves crash around us, the promise of half a million king penguins awaits on the other side, and that’s enough to keep even the most queasy traveler focused. 

Penguin Paradise

After what feels like an eternity (or just a few hours of dramatic waves), we arrive at South Georgia, home to our feathered friends. Stepping onto the island feels like entering a nature documentary. Imagine a landscape peppered with fluffy penguin chicks waddling around, and adult kings in their elegant tuxedos, squawking their royal decrees. Honestly, it’s like attending the world’s most exclusive penguin party, and everyone’s invited!

With every flap of their wings and every curious head tilt, I can’t help but feel giddy. These penguins don’t just waddle; they strut, and it’s utterly mesmerizing to witness.

A Night Under Midnight Sun

But hold on—our adventure isn’t just about watching penguins from afar! For the truly brave (or slightly crazy), we camp overnight on the ice. Yes, you read that right! Picture this: a tent pitched on Antarctica, surrounded by icebergs glimmering under the midnight sun. As I zip myself into my sleeping bag, I can’t help but feel like an explorer straight out of a Jules Verne novel.

The tranquility is surreal. Sure, it’s cold, but as the wind whistles around us, I’m reminded that this is a privilege few will ever experience. And then, the best part—a chorus of penguins serenading us to sleep! Talk about an avant-garde lullaby.

The Ice is Melting

Yet, as enchanting as this experience is, there’s an underlying heaviness. The beauty of Antarctica is a stark reminder of the fragility of our planet. Global warming is a hot topic (pun intended), and witnessing the melting glaciers and shrinking ice caps firsthand is a wake-up call. The very habitat that sustains these incredible creatures is under threat, and it’s a reminder that our adventures come with a responsibility to protect these wonders.

Final Thoughts

As we sail back, I reflect on our journey—a blend of awe-inspiring wildlife, breathtaking landscapes, and poignant lessons about our changing world. Antarctica is a place where the beauty of nature collides with the stark reality of climate change. It’s a call to action, a reminder that every adventure can spark change.

So, if you’re considering a trip to the ends of the earth, pack your sense of humor and your passion for the planet. Antarctica will challenge you, enchant you, and—most importantly—change you. Until next time, may your travels be as cool as an Antarctic breeze!

Last Days in Cusco

Yesterday, our tour bus was delayed while coming to get us in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. There was a transportation strike, and the main roads were blocked to and from the city. We spent the morning just enjoying the scenery and each other's company. Once the bus got there using a back route, we drove the long way back home to Cusco as well. We stopped on the way at a salt mine. That meant more steps and hiking, which my legs were not willing to do. I saw it from a distance, which was good enough for me, and perused around the gift shops. The salt mines are come from underground naturally at this point. We got back to Cusco around 3pm that day. We spent more time just hanging out and shopping around. Cusco is very cold at night--getting down to 38 degrees. It is still amazing to me how different the weather is from the coast, to the rainforest, to the mountains, all in the same country!

Salt Mines

A couple students and I braved the weather, and also braved the bacteria while eating street food. We spent 6 soles on our meal ($2.30) that included a huge bowl of soup, a hearty helping of deliciously herbed rice, and a nice piece of chicken. It also included a drink and dessert. I was very impressed. It tasted better than what we had been buying at the more upscale restaurants PLUS it was much, much quicker.

Friday was a free day! It was also a national holiday, celebrating one of the saints. We were able to look at one art museum, but the other two we wanted to see were closed. The museum we went to was "modern" art. Most of it consisted of sculptures that were made. They all had something to do with the crucifixion of Jesus, or the last supper, or other Biblical events. The sculptures were not realistic looking; they had exaggerated features that came across as very eerie. That day, we also went to a chocolate museum called Choco. We got free samples of Peruvian chocolate, which was much appreciated. All the chocolate you could buy was wayy over-priced. It had some history on the uses of chocolate around the world, and we also tried some chocolate tea. It tasted like really, really watery hot chocolate. We found some better markets to go to as well. They had better prices on the items we had been seeing and purchasing the entire trip. I am not a huge fan of bartering, but it is fun to get a good deal.

Saturday morning we flew back to Lima. My flight left from Lima to Atlanta at midnight that day, so I had the afternoon and evening to kill time. We all needed to go back to the Miraflores district in Lima to get our luggage that we did not bring to Cusco with us. This took quite a bit of time and money, which we were disappointed about. Some students were not leaving until the following day so I put my luggage in their hotel for the afternoon. We went to more markets, ate at Pizza Hut, and reminisced about the trip. I took a taxi by myself from Miraflores to the airport. Upon arrival, there were other students there so we waited for the Delta line to open up. The check-in process was very lengthy. Once we got on the plane, I tried to sleep since it was midnight until 8:30am. It was definitely hard to sleep. They did feed us well, though. We all boarded the plane on time, but after we left the gate, we needed to find a new gate to go to. Apparently, one of the gas tanks was leaking or not working or something. That took an hour of our time. I was a little nervous because I only had a 2 hour lay over in Atlanta, but it all worked out just fine. Five girls from my trip had the same flight to Atlanta as me, so it was nice to stick together for a bit. The plane from Atlanta to home  left on time. I sat next to a family with 3 little girls. We talked for a bit. The dad was a doctor so we had really awesome nerdy conversations about phenytoin, coumadin dosing, and the medical world.

Peru has been great but I am excited and thankful to be back home.

Macchu Picchu and the Sacred Valley of the Incas

On Tuesday, we drove to Ollantaytambo, or the Sacred Valley of the Incas. This is where we stayed for two nights. There are huge Incan ruins here as well, built into the hill. It was very impressive and quite the climb.  The hotel we stayed at was very nice. It had a cute courtyard with well-kept plants. The entire town was very quaint, and I believe it was my favorite location of the entire trip. It was surrounded by mountains, and had little water canals that ran throughout the entire city. We enjoyed the most delicious hot chocolate I have ever had there. All the local people were welcoming and very laid back. 

Incan Ollantaytambo Ruins

Yesterday, we took the train to Macchu Picchu. The train ride was about 1 1\2 hours from Ollantytambo. Then we rode a bus up to the top of the ruins. We hiked a long time all over the mountains there. There were  tons and tons of steps. It was absolutely exhausting. The weather was picture perfect, though. We got to the ruins around 8am, and we wandered around until about 3pm. Once we were all ready to leave we hiked back down to the bottom instead of taking the bus back down. That took about an hour and our thighs, knees, and ankles were killing us. I got about 10,000 more bug bites there which was disappointing. Other than that we are going back to Cusco today and tomorrow to hang out. Soon I will be back in the states!

Macchu Picchu

Cusco

We stayed in the town of Iquitos one last day on Friday. We had a fabulous hotel with clean, hot water and air conditioning. It was quite the treat after our adventure down the Amazon and the Reserve. I shared a room with the other Drake girl.We enjoyed the little things we normally take for granted that day. We had one last meal at The Yellow Rose of Texas restaurant, and slept early.  
We then flew from Iquitos to Lima on Saturday morning. The flight left at 8am so it was another early morning for us. Fortunately everything was on time and there were no issues. It was fairly nice weather in Lima. We went to an up-scale shopping place called Locumar, which is basically a mall that was built infront of the ocean on the side of a cliff. Everything was way too expensive, but it was fun to look. We went to the movie theater there to kill time. Fortunately, the movie was in English, with Spanish subtitles. That made it much more enjoyable. We ate at Chili's for lunch, giving into our American food craving. The portion sizes are smaller, but the food was just as delicious.
Sunday morning we flew from Lima to Cusco. If you recognize that name, it is probably because you have seen the Emperor´s New Groove. We had to get up by 3 am to leave that day. On the plane I sat next to a guy who was from Cusco, and he was a musician in town. He showed me his guitar, which looked more like a ukalele, but it had ten strings. It was interesting. We arrived in Cusco early, around 8am. We went to our hostel, but of course the rooms were not ready yet. We had breakfast there, and sat in the courtyard for a couple hours. It was good just to rest, because the altitude is so high. You walk up one flight of stairs and you feel like you just ran a marathon. Many people get serious altitute sickness when first arriving in Cusco, and it can be very dangerous. The moment we stepped off our plane, women were selling coca leaves to prevent this sickness. People put them in the side of their mouth, and essentially make a tea with their own saliva. We went to the central plaza that night and ate at a pizzeria. It was not quite American food, but we were all craving pizza.
Today was a day of sight-seeing. We went to various Inca ruins around the Cusco area. The first was called Saqsayhuaman, which was high up on the hill. It had a beautiful view of the mountains of Cusco, including the Andes. We also visited Tambomachay, which was also a hike to get to. It was an area that the Incas used to rest at on their journeys. Tipon was another place as well as pukapukara. Q´éngo was the very last ruin we saw. It was a cave where they believed the Incas performed sacrifices. Mostly, they sacrificed llamas, but archaelogists have found some human sacrifices, and mummified bodies. At night, we saw a cultural dance show. The traditional dances resemble the Spanish Flamenco and other folk dances.

The city of Cusco in the background

Cartwheeling through the mountains

Llamas and Alpacas everywhere!

I am excited for Wednesday because that is when we visit Machu Picchu! I can´t believe the trip is almost over. Nothing has been a relaxing vacation, but it has been very interesting!

Last day at the reserve

Thursday, we did the rest of the student plant presentations in the morning. By this point, we had at least heard of everyone´s plant already so we had a better idea of what was going on. The afternoon was time back in Iquitos to do some shopping at the markets.
I have made very good friends with two of the waitresses at the Yellow Rose restaraunt we always eat at in town Their names are Susanna and Tatiana. They always squeal with excitement when I come, give me a big kiss on the cheek and a strong hug. I am one of the few students in my group who speaks decent spanish. I get in trouble, though: I speak well but I do not understand what is said back to me. I have talked quite a bit with these two young ladies and we are now amigas. They are so sad that our group is leaving.

That night we had a birthday party for everyone/going away party. We sang happy birthday to ourselves and ate delicious chocolate cake. It was our very last night on the reserve. I played a lot with Junior, the crazy and oh-so-loveable  6 year old who lives there. He was telling me all about his "Bota gigante" (giant boat) that fits 25 students and traveled the world. He only speaks spanish, so my details could be wrong. Our group will really miss Junior and all the staff at the reserve. We won´t miss the hard floors, river showers, or bugs though!

Junior stood still long enough for a picture!

Back to the Reserve

After the boat excitement from the previous day, we were relieved to find out that we would be taking the "rapido" boat back. This is essentially a speedboat. Initially we were going to take an 18 hour boatride back to our reserve, where we would sleep in hammocks, but everyone was too worn out and wanted to be back NOW.

Well...that did not turn out. The rapido turned out to be more despacio (spanish word for slow). The huge storm caused many logs and obstacles along the river, plus we were going upstream. The engine choked a lot and got caught in weeds far too easily. Sometimes, the driver would reverse the boat and that was all that was needed. Othertimes we had to cut the engine completely. That is all fine and dandy, except the quality of these boats is nothing compared to the US. The engine had a lot of trouble starting back up. We should have arrived back to the reserve around 1:30pm. Instead, we had just hit the outer edge of our city around 6pm. No food, no water, no bathrooms. Lovely. Our engine completely was shot at that point. Another peki peki came along side us. We hopped from our boat to that one, with all our backpacks in the middle of the river. This boat was slow.

The engine worked but we did not arrive back to the reserve until probably 7:30 that night. Riding in the boat at night was pretty interesting. We could not see a thing. We actually ran into another boat along the way, but no damage was done. I felt something wet hit my leg and then I heard fluttering. I quickly turned on my head lamp and saw a small silver fish had jumped into our boat! I´ve never successfully caught a fish using a pole, but I guess I can say I have caught a fish now. The time dragged on and on. We were all starving, dehydrated, and exhausted. Don´t worry. I had my glucagon shot and a whole bunch of pharmacy students waiting to practice in case I got too low of a blood sugar!
The Amazon certainly has its trials. You cannot expect anything to go correctly and must plan for the worst (but always hope for the best!). Everyone is alive and well though.

Pevas Excitement

Instead of waking up to just roosters crowing, we also had the 6am morning news. The town of Pevas has one loudspeaker that is projected throughout the entire town. The announcements sound like a garbled mess, even the soundest of sleepers could not sleep through these. Our group called this the "Daily Jungle Announcements." We looked at Fransisco Grippa´s gallery with all his paintings and pottery. He told us we could buy whatever we wanted. Unfortunately we are all poor college students that do not have thousands of dollars to spend on a painting. He personally signed any item we bought though, even postcards, which was nice. After the gallery, we visited 2 tribes by Pevas. We all crammed into the peki-peki. I was wondering if it would hold all us since on the 3 day trek we had to keep bailing out water. There were small leaks all over the boat. We arrived to the first tribe which had a giant hill with well worn stairs. The moment we got out of the boat it started to rain. We all thought it would be a nice rainforest shower, but it turned into a torrential downpour. We walked, already soaked, into the large community hut. Some of the people performed typical dances for us, including an anaconda dance.

Afterwards, we could barter and trade with the people. It continued raining really hard, but we moved on to the next tribe, which was within walking distance. We tramped through large puddles of mud and grass and found ourselves in another large community hut. One of the rowers on the trip with us is in line to become the head tribesman of this tribe. They performed more dances for us, and we had more opportunity to barter with them. People were thrilled to have pencils, pens, and paper. They asked me for the shirt off my back, my hair, and even my eyelashes. Sorry, I could not give those up. We waited awhile longer, but the rain did not let up at all. So, we brought out a huge tarp, tried to get everyone under it, and walked the steep descent back down to the river.
We made it safely to our peki-peki, but once on, we were really frightened. Rain was pouring from the top, and water was filling in from the bottom. We all sat paralyzed to the side of the boat praying that it would not sink, or capsize, or stop working. The rain was pouring down on our tarp. Imagine being in the position for a tornado drill, but on a boat, for about an hour. Pure torture. Our engine kept cutting out and our boat would stall. Too much rain was getting in. One of the Drake students thought we should help our driver. All of us stared at him in disbelief--we did not know anything about motors. He crawled out from under our tarp and held a tarp over our engine. That was all it needed! The lack of water really worked and saved the day. We arrived safely back to Fransisco´s house, all worn out and completely freaked out. We all literally thought that could have been the end of us.
Good news though...we were cleaner than we had been in days!