Wow what a full weekend our team had. We started off on Saturday with climbing the tallest Jesus statue in the world, Cristo de la Concordia (Christ of Peace) in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Most people have heard of the famous Jesus statue in Brazil, Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer), because it is one of the seven wonders of the world. Both statues were built to a height of 33 meters because Christ died when he was 33 years old, however, the Jesus statue in Cochabamba, Cristo de la Concordia (Christ of Peace), is a little bit taller because when the people built the statue, they built it to account for Christ living 33 years and a little bit. Our group climbed up all the stairs to the top (over 1,300 stairs) and then got to climb up into the arms of the statue. Our group opted to hike up versus taking the cable car so it was a long hike up in the altitude but so much more of an experience.

On Sunday, our group got up early to leave for the jungle. We took a large tour bus in which we managed to climb the mountains and pass other trucks on blind corners with steep drop offs. While in Chapare we stayed at a pastor's house with him and his family. The temperature of Chapare was so different than Cochabamba, as it was really hot and humid most of the time. On Monday we set up a free clinic for anyone who was in need of medical care. We had brought along a few doctors from the hospital and then some of the girls in our group were half-way through med. school so they were able to help as well. We gave free check-ups, medicine, shots and tooth extractions. We had about 80 people show up needing some form of care. It was really fun to be able to help these people that might not be able to afford care or medicine. They had taught us how to do injections, so I was able to give out a couple of shots to people. After we were done with the clinic we were suppose to leave to go back to Cochabamba, but for some reason our bus had gone back there the previous day and was not coming for us. So, we stayed an extra night and got to visit the market there. It rained that night so since none of us had taken showers we decided to wash our hair in the rain. On our way back the next morning we were able to stop at a park area where we could take more of a tour of some of the jungle and so we got to cut open fresh coconuts off the trees and drink the milk. We also got to try chocolate from the tree and eat fresh lemons.

This week we are going to be working some more in the hospital and then this weekend we are taking a trip to go see the famous Salt Flats of Bolivia.

~Jess