Peru 2008

My trip to Peru was pre-blog time, so in honor of my upcoming trip – FRIDAY – I thought I'd post some of my favorite pictures from the last trip. 

I went to Peru on a medical/dental mission trip in June of 2008 with First Baptist Church of Jackson. We had about 30 of us on the trip and I only knew 2 people before I left! We gave worm medicine, medical exams, gave eye glasses, extracted teeth, and had Sunday school! We flew into Lima (THE biggest city I've ever been to!) and then it took us 2 full days of driving to get to our "base" town. On that drive, we drove through a dessert and over a snow-capped mountain range in one day. Our base town was Pomabamba which is in the middle of nowhere in the Andes mountains. We drove and hiked for about 2-4 hours each morning to a village where we set up shop and got to work. We worked until it was dark, and then set up camp to spend the night. Every few days, we'd make our way back to Pomabamba for a bath at the town bathhouse in a concrete tub with hot spring water. It was definitely "roughing it" but it was such an awesome experience, too! One I would never trade! We were there for about a week and a half and I could have stayed much longer!


Here are some of my favorite pictures: 

Driving through the desert. 

heading towards the Andes

the most beautiful lake in the middle of the mountains...the picture does NOT do justice!!

where we're headed next...

at the top @ 16,000 feet...and the road we just drove up!

at work :)

Waking up the next morning after camping out at the base of a glacier.  Also pretty cool to see the sun rise and the moon at the same time!

I LOVE all of the colors they wear AND the hats!!

My favorite little patient - how cute is she?!

My next mission trip will be MUCH different from this one, since we'll be in a totally different part of the country.  I'm really excited about the group I'm going with.  Since this was a quick trip down memory lane, my next post will be about my upcoming trip...