Butterfly Garden and Hospital Tour

Last night I did not get the super restful sleep I had been hoping for, but at least I was dry and there were no bugs! Small victories. I was pretty hot despite the A/C, but got some sleep at least. I woke up around 6:30AM and couldn't fall back asleep, so around 7:30AM Caitlin and I went down to breakfast. I only had some mango, deli meat, and cheese, but it was sufficient. We definitely missed Nancy's pancakes! After breakfast we hung out in our room for a bit before heading to the AP office to meet for the day's activities.

Today we split into two groups to do the butterfly garden and a hospital tour. I was in the group to go see the butterflies first and we swapped after lunch. The get to the butterfly place we went to the market to catch a boat. Paige and Emily both tried a grub at the market and by their facial expressions alone you could tell they were not at all delicious. Luckily we got some good pictures. Stephanie's face watching Jose Luis eat the last grub was just as priceless. We got on the boat right after the grub stop and had a nice ride for about twenty minutes. When we arrived we had to walk a bit on a slightly muddy path the the butterfly garden and animal sanctuary. We put all our things in a locked area and heading in. There were a ton of animal and it was overall really neat. We saw red ukari monkeys, capuchins (the dominant female named Toni escaped her enclosure and provided a little chaos and entertainment, even climbing on Lindsey's shoulder at one point), black spider monkeys, three two-toed sloths, two three-toed sloths, an ocelot, a jaguar, a tapir, a coati mundi, a family of pygmy marmosets, and lots of butterflies, caterpillars, and a few moths. It was a pretty neat place. We walked around for a bit with a guide and I got a lot of pictures on my DSLR camera. 

After the sanctuary we took the boat back to the Iquitos market and took motocarros to a restaurant near the Plaza de Armas. I had a tamale and a dish called Aji de Gallina, which is shredded chicken in a yellow sauce over potatoes. It was pretty good. It came with rice and lentils as well and we all got camu-camu juice with our meals. After lunch we got ready to split back up, and it was our groups turn for the hospital tour. 

My Aji de Gallina

We ended up going to a different hospital than he morning group since they tour ended up being really short. Ours was the opposite. We started in the ED, which had a long line and not very many rooms. There are mostly just patients in a few rooms with multiple patients in each. We then saw the peds wards, where everyone is separated by type of illness, followed by the surgical wards, the ORs, the medicine wards, and the OB/GYN wards. The OR was neat because we got to go in and see their set up and I got to see their anesthesia machine. They use a Drager and have Iso and Sevo ready to use, though they said they use mostly Sevo. It was pretty cool to see. After the whole tour was over Paige, Emily, and I stayed to see a C-Section. There was a bit of confusion, but we were eventually allowed to stay and watch the procedure. The patient was young and I was able to guess the baby's gender by the condition (which hopefully you can guess, cause I'm not writing any more about it due to privacy). The procedure was mostly the same, but they did do some bizarre uterine stitching that made the uterus look like a tenderloin. It didn't look boggy or like it was bleeding excessively, so I'm not sure why they did it, but it caused a few uterine tears that required figure 8s so that was just weird overall. 

After the C-Section we took a motocarro back to the hotel where we met more of our group. They were on their way to drinks, but since we needed to showe we stayed to get ready for dinner. I took a lovely shower and then had a chance to relax for a bit. Caitlin had also picked up my laundry when I got back, which was amazing! So thankful, and now I have clean clothes again! I hung out for a while at the hotel and then net everyone downstairs to go to the office to meet up for dinner. We went to Antica, which was the first restaurant we ate at. I got mushroom lasagna, but it was too creamy and not cheesy so I wasn't too in love. It tasted fine enough but I probably wouldn't order it again. The calzone I had last time was definitely much better. After dinner we walked back to the hotel and hung out a bit before planning to go out, but I decided I was tired and stayed in. I tried to watch some TV, but I kept just finding the end of things in English and then the next show would be in Spanish, so I'm probably just going to sleep. Indid get to see the end of the Fashion Police Grammy Special. Fun times. Night!

Strange Mickey