It´s the weekend!!

Hello all. I´m feeling much better and have had a really nice weekend. On Thursday night I finally agreed to let Ernesto prescribe me some antibiotics and they did make a big difference! I went into hospital as normal on Friday and did two little presentations on different parasites. It went well and I think I taught the mother of one of the patients some useful facts so that´s good I guess! I was exhausted afterwards though as I haven´t been able to eat much all week. I tried to lie-in on Saturday and today but they have birds in cages just outside my room, and I don´t have any glass in my window (it looks out into the hall so that isn´t a huge problem) so they woke me up before 7 both days! Yesterday I lazed about all morning and then went into A&E in the afternoon. There weren´t many adult patients about but there were loads of children in the paediatric room so I went there. Lots of lung infections and tummy bugs again! I stayed for about 3 and a half hours and then went home. Then Erin and I (Sara´s left so it´s just us) went out to the boulevard, the main social area which looks out over the Amazon, for a couple of drinks. It´s so nice to feel better, we were both so excited!

Today I spent all morning booking things for the trip and then Erin and I went to a hostel that has a swimming pool and the nicest garden with lots of hammocks and an amazing tree house. We swam and sat in the sun and chatted all afternoon. It was so relaxing, really the first day in ages that I haven´t had to do anything. Near the end of the afternoon we decided to climb the tree house. The views over Iquitos were amazing. Right at the top we met 2 French guys and their Peruvian friend. We started chatting to them and found out that they´ve been here for ages, doing volunatry work in the community. I chatted a bit in French which went better than expected considering I´m so busy thinking in Spanish! We then met all their friends who are really nice and we talked for quite a while. They live just around the corner from us so hopefully we´ll meet up sometime. I love talking to people from lots of different countries in different languages, it´s made me really excited about going travelling once Ï´ve finished here.

We don´t get food in the house on Sunday so we just went out for the biggest meal! Peruvian portions are huge but the food´s nice. I´m now booking Jen and my tickets to Machu Picchu, which is very exciting!