From 2025/05/10 till 2025/05/23, a team of 6 students and 2 mentors traveled to Prado, Peru for an Assessment Trip. The purpose of the trip was to collect critical data, conduct on-site tests for potential bridge designs, and engage with local villagers to understand and align with their needs and expectations for the bridge. Over the course of the trip, the team successfully gathered technical and community input that will guide the next Implementation Phase. Each member returned with valuable insights, strengthened connections with the community, and renewed commitment to advancing the project in the coming year.
Monday 05/12
By Siena Yiin
Written By: Siena Yiin
We woke up bright and early for our first work day of the trip. Breakfast was made by Nancy, our cook, at 7:00 am in our Nauta hotel kitchen. After eating, we went to check out the hardware stores in Nauta, stopping by a few different ones to buy a few materials and get an idea of what materials were available in Nauta. We ended up buying a 50m measuring tape since we only had 5-10 m ones. After exploring the hardware stores, we got on the boat to Prado. Caesar, our boat driver, would take us to Prado and back every day. This boat ride took around 30 minutes from Nauta to Prado going downstream, longer coming back. One thing that we ended up forgetting to buy in Nauta that we had to bring to Prado was sulfur powder, to help prevent chigger bites, so halfway to Prado, we had to head back to Nauta to buy this important powder.
Finally, we arrived at Prado at around 9:30 am. We were greeted with warm welcomes from the community members and were introduced to some of them. Our first order of business was visiting Bridge 1, which was a quick 2 minute walk down a path from the main part of the village. The area near the bridge was filled with lush greenery and diverse plant life, along with tiny squirrel monkeys up in the trees. Bridge 1 is currently a wooden pedestrian bridge that was rebuilt a couple of months ago, but tuk-tuk’s aren’t able to cross through them.
Bridge Site 1
After getting to Bridge 1, we quickly determined the elevation that the community members wanted the bridge to be at and used a string level test. The string level test helped show what the bridge elevation would look like across the bridge if it was kept level. Next, we asked the community members where they wanted the center of the bridge to be, which they marked out for us. After determining the tuk-tuk widths, we were able to come up with a safe width for tuk-tuk crossings on the bridge, of around 7 ft. Finally, using the string level test, which gave us a good idea of how long the bridge actually needed to be, we were able to map out using the string and posts what the size of the bridge would look like. Lots of progress was made in the morning, and it was quickly already time for lunch made by Nancy at 1 pm.
After lunch, we started walking towards the other bridges, which were on the same path as bridge 1, but further down. We walked 5-10 minutes from bridge 1 to reach bridge 2 and 3. Bridge 2 and 3 each consisted of one 6m long 6 inch pvc pipe with the soil acting as the bridge over it. These pvc pipes were placed to help direct the water from one side of the bridge to the other, which had creeks on both sides. However, the pipe was too small, causing flooding of the soil bridge. This meant that adding additional pvc pipes next to or on top of the existing ones would help with flooding at the site, and a concrete or wooden bridge would not be needed.
Finally, we got to the Bridge 4 site, which was an additional 5 minute walk from Bridge 3. This was the monster bridge. There was multiple feet of flooding here, with the water being 59 m long. This bridge was going to have to be massive. There were small boats located in the water here, with community members being forced to take these in order to cross to the other side. This was one of the highest levels of water seen at the bridge site. In order to determine the water length, we had two groups go out and take the boat to the other side with our 50 m tape measure and string. However the 50 m tape measurer wasn’t long enough, so multiple measurements had to be taken. There was no way anyone would be able to cross the bridge without a boat, and seeing this in person, truly showed us the importance of this project to the community.
Visiting bridge sites 2-4 took up our afternoon, and by 4:15 PM, we were already heading back to the center of the village to take the boat back to Nauta. After getting off the boat, our team explored some of the markets nearby, getting some snacks and drinks and going to a nearby park. Then, we had another meal cooked by Nancy, and dinner was always at 7 pm. After dinner, we began discussing more about what we were going to do the next day. And then it was suddenly already 10 pm, so we finally wrapped up our first day of work in Peru.
