Thursday, February 28, 2013

Easter island day 5/ travel to Santiago

Mike and I left early in the morning to catch a flight back to Santiago. The trip was pretty uneventful. We did learn that security finds bike pedals in ones bag to be suspicious.

Once in Santiago we found our hotel which was conveniently across the drop off lane of traffic from the airport. We enjoyed a bit of Internet and some food at the hotel. We were both exhausted so we didn't do much exploring. We had a late lunch and dinner at the hotel restaurant.

Easter island day 4 - off road tour

We rented a 4 wheel drive and did some off roading to explore the north western portion of the island.







Easter Island Day 3 (Bike Tour)

We rented bikes and explored the eastern portion of the island. We rode to the top of the southern volcano.







Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Easter Island Day 2 (Sunday)

Since its my blog I've taken the liberty to include all the "traveling" in Day 1 - and just talk about Sunday evening as day 2. After getting settled in our hotel, ( Picture a sort of tropical garden - with simple rooms - no a/c - no tvs - no internet - somewhat threadbare towels - but a flush toilet and warm shower) we headed out to find some dinner (for all those who think you are missing something not getting food on a domestic flight think again).

We headed to the beach. It was beautiful. Very blue water, warm air, lots of kids out surfing. We found a little place to eat overlooking the water. I ordered some garlic chicken - which was just that - some chicken in a garlic sauce. No sides or anything else. It was pretty good though, espcially once I got a side of rice to go with it. I also had a pisco sour. Different than Peru - it had brown sugar around the top of the glass and no egg component.

After dinner we continued to hike down the coastline from Hanga Roa to Tahai, which consisted of some of the standing Moai. We watched the sunset over the water and then headed in for the night. A shower and a flat place to sleep was awesome!!















Easter island - day1 travels

We left Augusta around 5pm on Saturday to begin the journey to Easter island. One of the goals of my fellowship was to plan an expedition where I'd be in charge of planning and executing a trip to a new location taking into account medical resources, safety, CDC recommendations, group travel and just about everything else :) I decided on our way to the Atacama desert for Racing the Planet would be a great time to work on this requirement.
I decided to plan a trip for Mike Caudell, my fellowship director and I to go to Easter Island. I'll be sharing more about the planning my experiences from that end afterwards.

From Augusta we flew to Atlanta - had a 3+ hour layover in which we feasted on lots of the foods we'd miss while traveling including some Georgia IPAs and salad. The flight from Atlanta departed around 9:50 PM and we arrived the next morning in Santiago. I think we both slept off and on. Not great sleep, but could be worse. Once in Santiago we paid the repriprocity fee ($160) just to enter the country. We cleared customs without a problem - our luggage all made it too :) We had a couple hours to spare before our next flight but were both exhausted so we napped while small children ran around screaming in spanish at our next gate. LAN airlines does a cool boarding style where they board by sections of rows. It seems to go much faster or perhaps people just bring less stuff. 5 hours later - just about 24 hours after we left Augusta we landed on Easter Island. Surprisingly the time zone there is EST.

We headed into the very small airport, bought park passes, collected our luggage and headed to Hotel Orongo where we were staying.





Park city - WMS conference

I spent February 14-20 in Park City at the WMS winter conference.

Dave and I flew in from Charlotte. Unlike my last trip to slc this one went much more smoothly and we were making turns on the slopes by noon :) We skied at the park city Mtn resort the first day.

On Friday we headed up to snowbird and skied there.

Saturday we headed down to salt lake and met up with Adam who took us up passed alta on a backcountry ski trip. Avalanche conditions were low with a few pockets of moderate. We climbed up some cat tracks to a peak near mt wolverine. It was great weather and there were still a couple areas to make fresh tracks.

Saturday evening the conference started. Several of the WMS members who'd gone on Everest treks spoke about their experiences including one who summited.
Afterward there was a reception.

Jenn flew in Saturday night so Dave and I went down to salt lake and picked her up.

Sunday the conference started bright and early at 715am. Lectures include updates on hape and have. Lectures were over by 1130 leaving plenty of time to hit the slopes at canyons after conference was over.

Monday was similar to Sunday. Seth lectures about anticoagulation in the wilderness. Paul auerbach also talked about travel medicine. I hung out with Mike and Seth for a Appalachian center board meeting Monday night.

Tuesday lectures were more geared towards search and rescue with several case report presentations. Tuesday evening we had a banquet and hit up the hot tub afterwards.

Wednesday Luanne freer spoke about frostbite. There were also some lectures about risk taking.

Wednesday afternoon we headed back to slc and dropped Jenn off at the airport. Then we checked out the backcountry store and got some great Mexican food at the red iguana.









WMS student elective

I spent feb 9-12 up at Camp Wesley Woods at the WMS student elective. I'd come here 4 years ago as a student and am now back to teach.

I Got to hear some lectures on search and rescue, heat and cold injuries, traumatic brain injuries, drowning, and ballistics. Spent time outside with the students as they practiced the rescue cube and some tracking techniques.

Met a lot of awesome and enthusiastic medical students and residents.

Gave lectures on lightning, ocular injuries and wound care.

Got to enjoy the wilderness with a short hike and saw a barred owl.

I'm looking forward to coming back in the future to teach and support future electives.