1. Medical school Interviews! Incredibly hectic flying around and sleeping on friends' futons...two trips back to the US later, I found out that I got into medical school around Christmas, when I was in Sucre, Bolivia! I got into a couple places before I withdrew from all schools and decided on UTSW (University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center) in Dallas, Texas for medical school. It is incredibly cheap with in-state tuition, great clinical foundations, and I'll be semi-close to home (but not uncomfortably close). School starts in mid-August!
2. December trip: I spent two weeks in Peru and Bolivia, traveling with Luis. We had a great time, and saw some amazing sights. In Peru, we went to (in order) Lima, Cusco, Sacred Valley, 4 day Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, Puno, and the Uros Islands in Lake Titicaca. In Bolivia, we went to Copacabana, Island of the Sun (biggest island in Lake Titicaca), La Paz, Tiahuanaco (Tiwanaku), Sucre, and Potosi.
Here are some photos from our trip:
Women in Chinchero, Sacred Valley of the Incas near Cusco, Peru. The mountains, framed by puffy pastel-colored clouds, looked truly majestic!
After Three and a half day of hiking through the mountains (in two days of pouring rain), we finally reached Machu Picchu. The eerie (almost myth-like) clouds shrouded Machu Picchu in the morning when we arrived. The hike was definitely worth it!
View from one of the man-made floating islands of the Uros in Lake Titicaca. The inhabitants transport themselves from island to island by reed boats. The islands are super small...maybe 10 meters in diameter for a domestic island, and bigger for more "commercial" islands. There is an island with an elementary school for the kids (and a school-reed-boat).
View from our hotel on the top of the Island of the Sun in the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca. The views were spectacular, and the long ferry ride through the lake reminded me of the incredible size of the lake.
I found this experience exceedingly amusing. From Copacabana (on the shores of the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca) to La Paz, there is a ferry boat crossing. The blue bus that is pictured above (with white letters) was our bus. It crossed the water in a flat plank while we (the passengers) crossed in a small motor boat. I heard that there are some buses on the bottom of the lake due to accidents, so I brought our passports and money with me on the motor boat.
Street graffiti in La Paz, Bolivia. For many Latin American countries, 2010 marks an important anniversary - the bicentennial of their independence! (also, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico...wow it was a bad year for Spain)
My absolute favorite city - Sucre, Bolivia! It was amazing, and I spent Christmas in the White City (a lot of the buildings are white).
Luis and I in Potosi, a town in Bolivia famous for its mines (lots of silver). Here we are after we got out of La Negra. It was a pretty heart-stopping three hour tour. The cave had crystallized arsenic, the air was thick and humid, and the infrastructure was not very hi-tech. We survived, nonetheless, and I don't think I'll be going into mines in the near future.
In Tiahuanaco (Tiwanaku), a really large archeological site. There used to be an ancient civilization that lived here before it was destroyed. It was another rainy day, and we had to hurry through the site, but I got a couple great pictures!
We ended our fantastic trip in Valparaiso and the famous new year's fireworks on the bay. It was a fantastic way to start 2010! Happy New Year's, everyone! (also, Chinese New Year's was just last week - year of the tiger!).
