Ever since I was a child, I dreamed of joining an expedition to a truly extraordinary place like the Amazon rainforest. I was in Mexico when those childhood dreams suddenly came back to me. I remembered the adventurous kid who believed that if you want to live extraordinary experiences, you cannot simply wait for them to find you. So that's exactly what I did. I opened my laptop, searched for medical expeditions, and discovered Vine Trust. Before the trip, my biggest expectation wasn't just the Amazon itself—it was the people I would meet and the opportunity to learn from them…

Safari! The first park we went to was called Tarangire where we saw elephants at a close distance, crossing the paths in front of us and playing in the water. We also saw giraffes and many other animals. There were lots of cheeky monkeys at the picnic site stealing peoples lunches! We got along well with our jeep driver (GB) and had lots of fun listening to music, singing with Doug and being his dancing divas.  The second park we visited was Ngorongoro. This park was in an erupted volcano. There was a massive watering hole which loads of animals…

Mon, 22-June-2026 Site: 1 (Ellys site) Today we went to our worksite for a full day where we passed buckets of sand and stone along in a chain, which was sort of physically tiring, but gave us an emotional and moral boost as we were working with the local Fundis to help the family. The way we kept our moral high was by playing music, dancing and singing along, which kept people and the kids in the worksite smiling and laughing. Another way we lifted our moods was by naming the rocks and buckets; even though it was silly, it…

Sat,13-Jun-26 Safari Day!       Fri, 12-Jun-26 Today we went to say goodbye to the sites that we have been working on for the past few days which was very emotional. The best part of the day was getting to see how much progress has been made on the houses since Wednesday. It was also emotional when everyone started to give their speeches too. We also got the chance to go to a market and learn traditional Tanzanian bartering techniques for buying things. -Ellie   Thurs, 11-Jun-26 We went to the love and hope centre which is a local orphanage…

I was hauled up onto the bustling jetty from the small wooden fishing boat which brought us from Jubilee Hope to the island. As we were lead through the dense crowd, I turned to Eilidh and we shared a look - was this definitely a good idea? I certainly knew I wasn't in Edinburgh anymore. However, despite this initial assault on the senses, in 11 days time we'd be wishing we could do it all again. Eilidh and I have been friends since our first day of FY1, and, when we both became locum GPs at the end of our…

I’m a final year medical student who completed their elective last summer on the Vine Trust ship in Peru. I’ve had a few months to reflect on my trip and the experiences I had, and it’s safe to say that deciding to do my elective with the Vine Trust was one of the best decisions I could have made.  I did my elective with two of my best friends who are also medical students. We arrived on the ship and were welcomed by the crew and introduced to Frank. Frank was amazing – he taught us Spanish, took us into…