Cultural and religious immersion...and chocolate.

The Corpus in Cusco aka procession of saints through the town.

Each village has a saint and the members of the village carry the saint through the town.

Inside Koricancha/Dominican Church.

Koricancha was a sacred Inka temple that was partly destroyed and later a Dominican church was built on top of it.

Notice the symmetry between the walls of the temple.

The "Catholic" part.

This wall is an original wall from the time of the Conquista.

View of Cusco from Koricancha.

Peruvian McDonalds aka Bembos! Except this was 100x better. My burger had sausage, eggs, and small fries (mi hamburguesa tenia chorizo, un huevo, y papitas fritas).

Chocolate cake with chocolate filling and frosting. What else would you expect from me :).

Real coca tea from coca leaves. I actually thought it was quite good. 

Hola readers,

Today I was shadowing Hermana/Sister Elaine in the clinic. She specializes in treating patients with leishmaniasis so I saw several of the classic cutaneous ulcers today! I realize that having extensive knowledge of a rare parasitic infection is probably going to be useless in the U.S., but when I get to see that one patient during my entire career as an infectious disease doctor that does have leishmaniasis, I'll be ready!

As part of our daily excursion around town, we (everyone except for Monsy) went to the Inka temple of Koricancha. The temple is actually the foundation for a Dominican church because the Spanish conquistadors destroyed most of the original temple and built a church on top of it to try to evangelize the locals. And boy did they do a good job converting the locals! Peru is an extremely religious country, as you can see from the procession of saints we witnessed today. We had a guide through the temple that explained everything to us and all I kept thinking is that I felt a little ashamed of my Spanish ancestry. They destroyed an entire civilization, stole their gold, and killed their people. It's hard to swallow all of that, although we'll never know what would have happened without the Conquista.

After our daily excursion, Erick (the native Peruvian) suggested we have some Bembos aka Peruvian McDonalds. Now I've had McDonalds all over the world, and this was 100x better than anything I've ever had. My burger was fresh and perfectly cooked, had local sausage on it, an egg, and small potatoes. I got a medium side of fries that was tiny, which says a lot about portion size in the United States. After dinner, we all went out to one of the local bakeries to celebrate that we've all officially passed the first year of medical school! Here's hoping to a fantastic second year!

Saludos,
Annelys