La Amazonia

Got back yesterday from the Amazon. We stayed 2 days in Iquitos, the biggest city in the world with no highways connecting it to anywhere and 2 days in la selva (the rainforest). We had a great time. It was incredibly hot and humid there, but definitely worth the trip.

The first day we walked around the very small downtown then went to the Belen market. Its a famous market, which was overflowing with people. I went in to try to do some research. I was mildly successful and was able to talk to several people about informal lending in the jungle. We ate dinner then enjoyed the air-conditioning of our hotel.

The second days we took a boat on the Amazon into the jungle. We went to the lodge we were staying at (no air-conditioning, but well-equipped with mosquito nets to keep the bugs out) and ate lunch. After lunch we trekked through the selva, mike ate a bug that tasted like coconut, we went to a serpententario where they had monkeys and snakes and sloths to play with, we went on the boat to look for pink river dolphins (we saw a few from afar), swam in the amazon, then headed back for dinner. After dinner, I wasn't feeling well, but the rest of our group went off to look for alligators at night. They tell us we didn't miss much, as they didn't find alligators but did encounter a surplus of mosquitos.

The next day we woke up early and went bird watching. We saw a lot of cool birds, and I loved how tranquilo the morning was. After breakfast we headed to a local village. They told us about their tribe, then we danced with them a little bit before trekking back to our lodge. We then ate lunch and headed back to Iquitos.

The fourth day we went on a city tour. We also went to a manatee conservation center. We got to feed a baby manatee some milk! Then we took a tour of the zoo and saw some very large jungle animals in very small cages. We also checked out the artificial sandy beach and headed back to do some souvenier shopping before catching our flight back to Lima.

Some fun things about Iquitos:

- they don't really have normal cars there, because with the heat, non-air conditioned cars would be unbareable...therefore open buses, motorcycles, and mototaxis (motorcycles with an open cart attached to the back for passengers) fill the streets...i really liked the motortaxis...

- they have floating houses. some people build houses on the amazon and live out there on the water. according to our guide, 'they bathe in the water, cook with the water, swim in the water, and drink the water'...i was very surprised that they can actually drink the river water...

- i would say, on average, everyone in iquitos eats about 3 ice cream cones a day

- we took too many pretty pictures to load here, but dispersed are a few

Hospital --> Lima

The altura was a bit too much for Mike. The second day he was here, there was a huge nationwide strike in Peru. We couldn't do much as no cars were allowed on the roads nor out of the city. So we decided to go on horseback to the 4 ruins close to Cusco. It was gorgeous walking around on the hills by Cusco. We stopped several times as our guide gave us the history of each 4 sites.

By the time we got back, however, Mike wasn't feeling well. We had scheduled to leave on a 4-day trek to Machu Picchu the following morning at 6 am. After having dinner at a friends house, we turned in early. Mike then proceeded to sleep talk all night and began to burn up from fever. He was also coughing which I thought was weird. When I tried waking him up at 5:30 to go on our trek, he was babbling about 'needing to win' before we could leave. After calling my mom, I decided to cancel the trek, let him sleep for a little longer, then go to a clinic. At around 9 in the morning, he was completely unresponsive. I would try to wake him up, then he would blink at me, roll over and go back to sleep. I had a doctor come to check him out. After seeing a blood oxygen level of 45% (most people in Cusco are around 90-95%, most people at normal altitude are 96-99%), he told me he had to be taken to the clinic immediately and put on oxygen. We had to carry him downstairs and to a wheelchair. Luckily the clinic was only 2 blocks from my house.

After spending the day in the clinic, the doctor told us that we had to get to Lima as soon as possible and that there was no other alternative. Mike had liquid in his lungs, and if he was taken off of the oxygen, his oxygen level would plummet again. Medical evacuation could have cost as much as $90,000, so the very amable doctor said he would fly with us to Lima on a commercial flight. We left the next morning, and Mike was connected to an oxygen tank the whole time.
We're now in Lima. The 1st day we had to just relax, but now Mike is feeling completely fine. We went to a soccer game, Cristal vs some other team. The players were kinda lazy, but the singing and enthusiasm of fans at a Latin American soccer game always makes it worth the trip. I also tried to go some research here yesterday. People are not very helpful. We were in a mercado, and people would straight up just not talk to me when I told them I was an American student. I think because of the high microcredit infiltration in the city that informal lending is more looked down upon here. After a discouraging day in the city, Mike and I made the impulsive decision to go to the Amazon.

He was bummed about not getting to see Machu Picchu, so we thought this to be a good alternative. I have also heard that because of the lack of alternative forms of credit in the Amazon regions that lending there is very informal. I'm hoping to gain some info before leaving and to talk to people while I am there.

Thats about it. I've heard the Amazon is amazing, so will be posting some photos after I get back (this Saturday)!

Mike is here!

Mike got in yesterday morning! He was pretty tired all day though because he had a pretty terrible flight path (about 30 hours of travel total!). There was a festival in the centro yesterday so we stopped by for a little while. Lots of school aged kids were dressed up in traditional Peruvian clothing and dancing in processions in the streets. We also went to the market in search of moneylenders. We found a few but none of them were very interested in talking to us. We also ran into someone from a small bank. It appears that some banks have seen the need for smaller daily- collected loans for people in the marketplace and are sending agents to collect repayments daily. Its very interesting that banks are seeing the demand for these loans and are taking strides to fill this gap.

There is a huge nationwide strike today and tomorrow, which I believe to be against the export of domestically produced oil to other countries (though I'm not entirely sure). Absolutely everything is closed down. No cars or buses are allowed to be on the streets and most stores are closed. People are marching around making bonfires and blowing whistles. We were going to try to utilize these 2 free days then the weekend (so 4 days total) to take a trekking adventure to Machu Picchu. Unfortunately, however, the tourist agency called us late last night telling us that one of the towns we were going to pass through in the jungle also decided to strike, so we have to postpone our adventure. Hopefully we'll still get to do something fun, and obviously we'll still be visiting Machu Picchu this weekend!

Week 2

After getting an e-mail from our research coordinator asking us how we were doing and if we had some field notes we wanted to send her, we decided to buckle down and start trying to make contact with moneylenders. We had a person in our office call the first three moneylender listings from the newspaper, and after three refusals to meet with us, decided it was best if we tried calling instead. With this we got relatively better responses. It seems as though people feel more comfortable talking to foreign students than stranger Peruvians (who may be trying to get them in trouble) about their business. We have called several and a few agreed to meet sometime in the coming week. I imagine its going to be harder to get an actual time to meet with them, but its encouraging that they didn't just hang up on us.

One of the people that we actually did meet with told us that he didn't have time for an interview, but if we explained what we were doing to him, he could ask his "head moneylender" boss if it would be ok to meet with us. We're hoping to hear from him by tomorrow. We also called and met with this very nice lender who gave us great insight into how his moneylending business operates. The first day we met with him he had to leave after 30 minutes, but agreed to meet the next day. We went up to a touristy site and brought some food to munch on while talking to him. He seems very friendly and could be very helpful in contacting other lenders as well.

We also went to 2 different markets hoping that some of the people selling things in the market would help us find some lenders. Though a lot of people were very helpful and informative, they all seemed to think that moneylenders came by at different times, so we weren't able to meet with any. We plan to go back to the markets to try to gain contacts from there.

This past weekend was good though. We made dinner on Friday and Saturday night at friends apartments and just hung out. Also Saturday afternoon, we met with a moneylender at Sacsaywaman, a ruins site, but didn't get to go in b/c we hadn't boughten a boleto turistico. It was still pretty from afar. On Sunday we took a bus up to Pisaq, ate some dinner and enjoyed the market. It was a very nice market, the most touristy I've seen here, with some nice alpaca gear and lots of silver jewlery. We're going to go back to the Pisaq market to do some "work" when Mike's here.

Yesterday was slightly less successful. We had to buy bedding for our rooms, which ended up being more of a hassle then we expected it to be. It takes small things like needing a blanket and not knowing where to go that reminds you that you are indeed a foreigner. We're hoping to get a few calls tonight from the local MFI we're working with regarding setting up interviews this week.

Here are a few photos from Sacsaywaman...the highly requested llama photo and one from the ruins (from the outside, since we couldn't go in...)

Found a place to live!

After my last post, I promptly fell very ill from altitude sickness. Apparently only waiting 3 days before going on a 3 mile run at 12,000 feet isn't enough time. I was pretty sick the next two days, nauseous/headache/couldn't really eat/sleep, but have since then recovered and am doing well!

We finally found a place to live too! After searching all weekend and almost deciding to stay long-term in a hostel, we were put in contact with a British economist who does freelance development work (and knows people from IPA) who has a few extra rooms. It has hot water, internet, a kitchen we can use, and two extra bedrooms. The only problem is that one of the bedrooms is suuuuper tiny, but we'll make do. It's nice to not be vagabonds and to have somewhere to go, we'll probably move in either tomorrow or the following day.

Work was put on hold yesterday while we searched for apartments, but we've still been making some progress. We've found that "prestamos de dinero" are actually advertised in the local newspapers. People offer to give money with TV's, computers, kitchen appliances, ect used as collateral. I also saw cars being accepted today, which makes me wonder how many cars a lender can rack up while extending these loans. Another interesting thing we've come across is called 'anticresis'. People actually give up their houses or apartments or even just rooms of houses in exchange for money. If they default on their loan, the creditor can seize the entire house/apartment/room (though I'm not sure how the room logistically works out...). Some are sad to read because they are giving up their house in order to pay for medical expenses. This is, again, all advertised in the local paper.

We're not sure on the legality of these things, what is the interest charged on these loans, or how the collateral actually works, but we hope to be able to talk to some of these people in the coming days. We're not sure if they are going to talk to us, but we're hoping to woo them over with our bad spanish before they hang up on us. We don't really have a second plan of attack yet, so hopefully this works out.

Day 4

I've been in Cusco now for 4 days. I've been pretty busy getting used to the city, meeting some cool new people, getting going on my research, and apartment hunting!

The first day we looked at two apartment options. The first was unfurnished, soo undo-able, and the second was more of a mulitple room set than an apartment, the kitchen was on the roof, and she didn't have enough rooms available. The following day we didn't really have any better luck, so we're going to try to look at some more options today. For the mean time, we're staying in the IPA Cusco director's apartment for the next few days (b/c he's on a trip) until we can figure something out. This apartment is really nice, and it has internet. The only down-side is that a crazy cat that is actually kind of demonic lives here too. Last night it somehow turned on the faucet, so I woke up to a some-what flooded bathroom at 6 am. Cool cat.

Work has been going well. We have written and translated our survey, and have gotten a few leads on ways to get in contact with moneylenders. I think we'll start talking to people on Monday.

Highlights thus far. I've met some pretty cool 'gringos' here, and a lot of them are working either in my office or in some type of MFI, so we're all kind of on the same page- which is conforting in a new city. Also, the second day I was here, there was a 'feriado' (holiday) for Corpus Christi. All of the differnt zonas in Cusco have a saint which they paraded from their centros down to the Plaza de Armas in the middle of Cusco. There were TONS of people everywhere. We went up to a 2nd story bar to watch all the commotion from a pick-pocket safe location (see attached photo).

Also, my highlight for today has been finding a place to run. There is this great stadium-like area with a bunch of cement soccer fields, a pool, an indoor basketball arena, and a big track and field. It's only 2 soles (about US$0.70) to use the field, so I went out this morning to check it out. It was nice, breathing was a little tricky, but it was good to get out there and get some endorphines flowing again!

Well thats about it, our landlord came to change our lock this morning because I guess the key to the outside door that everyone in our building has, also opens our apartment door, so he decided that was a bad thing. We're waiting for him to get back, then going into the city to do some apartment shopping/looking around!

Made it to Cusco

Just landed in Peru, and I'm sitting in the IPA office here in Cusco! Cusco seems nice so far, not as urban as I had expected, but I believe this office is about 20 blocks from the center, and as I've only been here about an hour, I haven't seen much yet. The air is a little thin, but hopefully adapting to being 2 miles high won't be too hard!

Bogota was really fun. It was nice to visit with family and soak in a few days of spanish before jumping into my internship. I ate at a few yummy restaurants that my 'primo' Mauricio took me to, visited Bogota Beer Company de nuevo, and went to a concert to see my 'primita' perform at her university. Overall a very good visit. I've attached a photo from BBC; we went out to celebrate Diego's 20th b-day (about a month late...).