End Of Year Wrap Up

Here are some photos from these last few weeks of the school year here. A few from classes, a few from a chocolatada, a few while planting trees, the winners of a poster contest Menda sponsored and of course some from Christmas with our host family.

[Fotos]

Thanksgiving

So we had a few Thanksgiving celebrations. The Sunday before, we had a potluck with the other volunteers in which we took over the kitchen of a local café. There was turkey, green bean casserole, sweet potato pie, pasta salad (Menda´s plate), spiced peaches (my own contribution), apple strudel and several others. The apple strudel was made by two Austrian women who, as it turns out, work three times a week at the school in our site. So I´ve begun helping them out in whatever small ways I can with the English classes they organize there.

We also celebrated thanksgiving in Trujillo, eating too much Papa John´s while sitting in a mall. It was the most ´Merican I´ve felt in a long time. The rest of the time, we explored the city and relaxed on the beach in Huanchaco. Not too shabby.

We´ve got a few pictures for you from Trujillo, but also included are a few shots of the kids in Jinua transplanting the cherry trees they´ve been growing since April. Here they are: Trees and Trujillo

Happy Birthday, Paria

So I guess yesterday was the anniversary of our town. I was pretty sure they celebrated that a little over a month ago. Oh well, here´s an album of little kids in traditional Peruvian dress.

Just A Small Update With A Few Photos

In no particular order:

We got some chickens.

Menda's public trash can project is a success.

We almost "stole" another neighbor's cat - by this I really mean that we gave it food when it came by to visit, but the last cat we did that for never left.

Menda got a 500 gram bar of chocolate at a museum in Lima. It only took us a few days to finish it off. They also had a 1 kilogram version, but I think it was two of the smaller ones back to back in the same package.

A neighbor gifted us a puppy, but after spending the night whining by the door, it sprinted back home when our host dad left for work in the morning.

We had a big birthday celebration for Menda, me, and our host sister (who happens to share the same day with me). Our host brother and sister came in from Lima, our other host sister from rural Ancash with a few friends, a smattering of various family members from the community (including our cousin's new baby girl), and a handful of volunteers. It was a bit early for a Thanksgiving celebration, but that's really what it felt like. We had twelve people packed around a small table, ate picante de pollo, and politely turned down the bubble gum flavored soda - a matter of national pride here.

Menda points out that a fair number of our posts have at least some small mention of a kitten. I apologize; fewer kittens in the future.

Chickens, a Kitten, and a Big Bar of Chocolate

Manu Manu (do doo do do do)

So we just finished up our first big vacation in Peru, a seven day trip into the reserve zone of Manu National Park, the least disturbed rainforest in the world. We went with a company called Pantiacolla and would highly recommend them to anyone interested in seeing the jungle. We left our house the afternoon of the 1^st and got back the morning of the 12^th. There was a lot of travel time packed in there (by foot, car, bus, boat, train and plane), but we got to see a lot. The total number of identified animals that we saw came to around 80, including 8 species of parrots, 6 species of monkeys, 4 species of vultures, 4 species of woodpeckers, 2 species of caiman, and a jaguar. Here’s a rough itinerary of our trip and the pictures that are worth 303,000 words:

1 October:

We took a night bus from Huaraz to Lima, getting in around 5:30.

2 October:

From the bus station, we grabbed a cab to the airport, and after spending less than 15 minutes to get from check-in, through security, to the boarding gate found ourselves with an excessive amount of time to wait around.  The flight was only an hour and twenty minutes, and by mid-day we’d already arrived in Cuzco. A short cab ride later, and we found ourselves with the majority of the afternoon free to do nothing but draw out money to pay the tour company and explore the city. Well, drawing out money between our two Peruvian accounts and our American account ended up taking the better part of the afternoon due to cash limits and foreign flags, and we still didn’t have enough. We even had my mom running to the bank back in Urbana to try to sort everything out. Thankfully we had scheduled an extra day in there so any travel delays wouldn’t prevent us from making our tour on the 4^th, so we were able to pull everything out we needed the next day and even took advantage of that extra time to book a day trip to Machu Picchu. We also ate at a restaurant called Greens that night. They have their own organic garden, and have everything on the menu labeled by percent organic. This is a place that in the States would have cost a small fortune, but with Peruvian prices it was maybe only slightly more expensive than a meal at Olive Garden. It was without a doubt the best meal we’ve eaten while in Peru and would make a serious running for best we’ve ever had.

3 October:

We were picked up around 4:30 in the morning, and an hour and a half in van to the train station, an hour and a half in train to Aguas Calientes, and a half hour in bus later, we got our first view of our first wonder of the world. To be honest, I was expecting to be underwhelmed, but I was pleasantly surprised at just how wonderful this wonder was. Also, while we were there, we ate the 8^th and 9^th wonders of the world: the chocolate chip cookies they sell there. We would go back just for the cookies. They really are that good. We got back to our hostel around 6:30, drew out the rest of the money for Pantiacolla and ate a small dinner.

4 October:

The first day of the tour is primarily travel, starting at around 5 in the morning. However, this isn’t so bad, as it includes driving through the mountains of Cuzco and descending into the cloud forest (the entrance to the cultural zone of Manu National Park). Along the way, we stopped frequently to see various animals and even got to see a group of eight or so Cocks of the Rock, the national bird of Peru. The lodge we ended the day at was basically a small collection of screened in huts with a few beds, but there were hot showers, so we definitely had not made it into the really jungly jungle just yet.

5 October:

We left the lodge at about 5 the next morning and travelled a couple hours in van before getting to the Madre de Dios River, where we began the first of many, many hours in boat over the following six days. Along the way, we picked up people who were on the 9 day tour, and stopped in a few interesting spots before arriving at our lodge just outside the reserve zone – very similar to the last one but no hot showers. All along the river, any time there was an animal, we’d stop and take pictures; or if the situation allowed, pulled onto a beach and set up the telescope as well. You’ll notice some of the pictures are significantly better than others. Those were either taken with our camera through the telescope or taken by our guide with his camera and our memory card. We also stopped at a tree that has aerial roots that drop down from the branches; the end effect is that a single tree looks like a huge forest of smaller trees. Around the trunk, the roots are so dense, you can’t get past them. The guide called it an “Avatar Tree,” as it resembled the trees in the movie.

6 October:

From 5 until noonish we travelled in boat from the lodge outside of the reserve zone to the one inside. However, as before, we stopped frequently to see animals and other interesting sites along the way, so it didn’t feel like just travelling. That afternoon, we did some of our first actual hikes, first to a lake in which we spotted animals and, once it got dark, searched out some caiman (cousins to alligators and crocodiles). We hiked back in the dark, searching for eyes that reflected back our the light from our flashlights and got to see a bunch of spiders, as well as a poison dart frog, the most poisonous land animal on the planet. One of the other people on the tour saw a snake hanging out in a tree, took a picture of it and ran, unsure of the potential danger he might have been in. Turns out it was a viper, the most venomous of all the snakes found within the park.

7 October:

We once again got up very early, this time to hike to a lake to see the giant otters that live there. (This is the same lake where they shot the footage for Planet Earth, and our very own guide was the one who for six months helped BBC with the footage.) There was a baby otter, so we couldn’t get very close (if mothers get stressed, they stop producing milk, and the babies die), but after we got back to the dock, the otters followed us, and we got to see them really close up as they ate the fish they had just caught. We also saw monkeys, parrots, and other animals while on the lake but the otters were definitely the highlight. In the afternoon, we went to the lodge owned by the government where they sell goods made by local inhabitants and teach about their customs. As it so happens, both the captain and the boat hand are of that (thoroughly modernized) tribe, and they were able to fill in the blanks about the uses of the arrows and spears that were on display. We then hiked back to our lodge from there, seeing various plants and animals along the way.

8 October:

This morning we travelled out of the reserve zone to get to a posh touristy lodge at which we’d be staying for the remaining two nights. At the suggestion of the chef, we left especially early to increase our chances of seeing animals along the river. It paid off. We saw a jaguar casually strolling along the beach. After a brief rest in the early afternoon, we headed out to an observation point built 140 feet high, on top of the first branches of a massive Ceiba tree. We had previously on the tour seen the largest known Ceiba tree in the world, but this one was still not small in comparison. We climbed a tower to get onto the platform and then spent the remainder of the evening spotting animals and waiting for the sunset. We hiked back in the dark, keeping an eye out for animals, and boated back to our camp. After dinner, we saw an injured baby tapir just hanging out on the grounds. A lady who worked there said it comes and visits every now and then.

9 October:

We got up especially early once again so we could beat the other tourists to the Macaw Claylick, the attraction around which the lodge was built. Various animals in the rainforest eat clay for a variety of theorized reasons, probably to offset the acidity of their diet or to supplement it with more minerals. This particular claylick is frequented by several species of birds, especially red and green macaws (just think parrot, and the first image that pops into your head will be this one). Around fifty or sixty gather every morning to eat clay or just to socialize with the other birds. We took an excessive amount of photos while at the claylick and with difficulty narrowed it down to 10 or so to show you all. We also have a video taken by our guide with our camera through his telescope of a toucan attacking a tree full of nests, eventually grabbing a baby bird and eating it. Menda afterward was left with a deep desire for Fruit Loops. In the afternoon we headed to a lake at which we saw some more giant otters, kept our eyes peeled for sloths (to no avail), and saw a bunch more birds.

10 October:

Thirteen hours of travel: three hours in boat, one hour in car, 15 minutes in boat, then the remainder in car. The car broke down briefly, and as we were hanging out in a small town waiting for it to be fixed Menda reminded me it was her birthday. Whoops. To be fair, I don’t think I’d fully awaken yet, having been up since 4 and dozing on and off throughout the preceding hours. I bought her chocolate cake to make up for it. During those 13 hours we got more of an opportunity to talk with the other five people who made up our group. There was an Australian couple in their thirties, a Dutch couple in their fifties, and a Swiss woman in her forties. We got back to Cuzco about six and we went out to celebrate Menda’s birthday properly. We shopped around for a good restaurant, but most everything was so... Peruvian. We like Peruvian food, but that’s what we eat at home, so we ended up going back to Greens. The second time around was just as good, and though it’s perhaps a little lame that in our brief time in Cuzco we ate at the same place twice, it was, after all, Menda’s birthday, and that’s what she wanted. And I gotta say, after eating, I didn’t care one bit that we didn’t branch out. That food was incredible.

11 October:

We finally got the opportunity to explore Cuzco a bit. Although entering the cathedrals was not permitted at that hour (they were either closed or in the middle of a service), we walked around and took pictures of as many of them as we could. We also stopped by the local market to buy some of the famed bread of Cuzco and a manta (brightly colored blanket used to carry babies, groceries, and to keep warm) as gifts for our family. Then we grabbed a cab to the airport (from check-in to boarding gate must have been under five minutes this time), we flew into Lima, went to Miraflores and spent the rest of our day just enjoying ourselves. We got falafel, went to a chocolate museum – where we somehow walked away with a bag of chocolate tea, mango chocolate jam, and a bar of dark chocolate weighing in at over a pound, and met up with our host brother (who is currently working in Lima). He saw us off at the bus station, and we began the final leg of our travels.

12 October:

Throughout the whole vacation, everything had been on time, well organized, professional, and incredibly satisfactory. It’s funny that it took coming back to Huaraz for something to screw up. The bus never pulled into the terminal; it just stopped on the street outside because they couldn’t easily back in and expected us to figure out on our own that we were supposed to get out and grab our luggage from beneath the bus. Not to mention it was 5:30 in the morning and we might easily have slept through the whole thing anyway. Well, we finally figured out something was up, stopped the bus on the highway, got out, grabbed a cab to our bus stop, and made it home by around 6:15. Our host family was really excited to see us. Ma ran to the door to greet us and promptly offered to wash our dirty clothes from the trip. We politely declined, ate some fried egg sandwiches, and then we slept.

[Cuzco, Machu Picchu and Manu]

[Manu Fauna]
[Manu Flora]

One Year In Perú (Almost)

I’m gonna start a little negative and work my way up to the more positive stuff.

First off, this past week our abuelito, Virgilio Huané Cacha, passed away after nearly 88 years of life. In the United States, when a family member dies, usually the community of friends, family, and church pitch in, bring food, run errands, etcetera. Here, the family works for several days straight preparing food for anyone who wants to come and give their condolences. At first, it seemed a little harsh to us, but it keeps you busy – and I mean busy, sun up to sun down – and cooking for other people, or really doing anything nice, also makes you feel good. Then again, it didn’t seem as though our family was quite as upset as you might expect. They were definitely sad, but it didn’t seem the ordeal that it often is in the States. Death in general seems to be more accepted here. It’s more celebrating, less mourning. During the mass, the priest had three main points in his homily: We should thank God for the life of Virgilio, we should ask forgiveness on his behalf, and we should ask God to help guide us in our own lives. It struck me that there was no great mention of death there. Perhaps it would have been stating the obvious when there’s a coffin directly in front of him, or maybe it’s just the style of this particular priest, but the service seemed to be far more about life than death, and I can’t say I’d have had it any other way. Then afterwards, everyone, barring our family, went and got drunk at the burial and the following meal at our uncle’s house. There are some pictures we got of the pots in which they prepared the food. I’ve seen hot tubs smaller than those things. Oh, and Menda got harassed by a drunken professor asking her if she knew who Robin Hood is.

The other bit of negativity has to do with our jobs. We were told time and time again during training last fall that we would regularly deal with disappointment throughout our two years of service, still it’s no less baffling when it happens. Two examples:

Menda worked with our district municipality, local mayor, and the governor of an annex to expand the trash route to more people. This project would eventually entail some education to explain to the people the why of it, but primarily it’s just explaining the what and the how. All parties involved in the planning were immediately on board; the only hurdle to overcome was how to cover the costs for the municipality. This burden usually falls on the people who now have an alternative to burning their trash or throwing it on the ground, therefore contaminating their air, land and water. And what would the cost be? About a sol per month per household (less than 40 cents in US dollars), and unfortunately, this was deemed too much, and the community voted not to expand trash collection to their annex. Disappointing, but what can you do? Still, not as bad as the volunteer who saw the president of the local water committee kicked out because he suggested that 50 (Peruvian) cents per year was a reasonable amount to pay for the chlorine to ensure safe drinking water.

The second job-related bit of disappointment has to do with my attempt to start a group of Pasos Adelante – a program developed by Peace Corps Peru and the Ministry of Health of Peru to capacitate young adults in training their peers in themes of self-esteem, HIV/AIDS, future planning, and other equally noble pursuits. I, over the course of a month or so, spoke with the director of the school two or three times to successively discuss the program, pick a time during the week to teach the course, and finally once more before talking with the teachers who oversee the hour in which I was going to teach. I then went and talked with all of the classes to explain about Pasos Adelante and have the kids voluntarily sign up. I was more than a little excited when I had 39 kids opt to take my 12 week course. The following week, I went an hour early, spoke with each of the four classes from which I’d be drawing students – to remind them we’d be starting class that day, and at the appointed time I made the announcement that we’d be starting immediately. Maybe it’s the fact that I had selected to teach during the hour that directly follows their twenty minute afternoon break. Maybe they all signed up the previous week as a joke on me. Maybe my expectations of starting on time for a forty minute period were completely unrealistic. Regardless, no one showed. Five of the kids had a legitimate, previously discussed reason for not being there; I’m still unsure what happened with the other 34. The teachers that should also have been starting class at that time just sat by and watched as I floundered, and as I complained to Menda on a stoop outside the school, I saw kids still leaving the school to go to a bodega twenty minutes after class was supposed to have started. So what’re my next steps? Not sure. The director suggested I try teaching outside of school hours, but if the kids don’t show up when they already have to be there, I don’t see much chance of them being there when they don’t. I’m thinking of trying to take over a class that already exists, that they already have to be at, with a teacher in the room and all, and then using whichever kids are in that class as opposed to taking volunteers. The only problem with that plan being that if the kids don’t volunteer, and in the next year I want them to teach their peers, the chances of them being in the least bit effective are pretty slim. We’ll see, I guess.

Now on to the more positive, or at least neutral, aspects of our service:

We are continuing with the English and environmental classes we’d been teaching in one of the annexes of our town, and now we’re also teaching computer classes. That school is one of many which received a ton of those tiny little “a laptop for every child” computers. You know, the ones that look more like toys than computers, in the bright colors, with an old distribution of linux specialized for use in classrooms. Well, the laptops kinda suck, but clearly the kids are still learning some of the basics which may serve as a foundation for knowledge acquired in the future – how to use a mouse pad, which key to press to insert a space, stuff like that. At this point we’re working on getting them comfortable with the equivalent of MS Paint. Color selection, click and drag, text boxes, etcetera. Creativity is still a challenge for a lot of the students; they tend to just copy whatever drawing pops up by default when they start up the program, but with a little pushing and prodding they’re definitely getting more accustomed to using whichever side of the brain it is that’s supposed to supply the creative juices. For example, we had them draw a picture of something that starts with the same letter as their name. Sure, we had three or four casas drawn for every kid whose name started with a c, but at least they were copying each other instead of the computer. Most importantly though, it seems like they’re having fun doing something that isn’t just rote learning.

This past weekend, the volunteers of Ancash hosted a three day camp called VALOR (Varones Adolescentes Lideres Organizados Responsables) – yeah, I think they were kind of stretching it with the acronym too – in Huascarán National Park for the teenage boys in our sites we see as potential leaders. There were sessions on health, machismo, future planning, Huascarán National Park, and tree planting in addition to a talent show, a career panel, and a hike up to Lake Churup. Menda stayed back in site due to a meeting that she wouldn’t have been able to be back for, but I still got to take the two kids from our community we had picked. Whether or not the kids learned something about the environment, changed their perspective on gender roles, or decided on a potential career path, it was great to see so many boys from across the various communities in Ancash hanging out, making friends, and sharing a little about their home. In the States, many of us had regular opportunities to get out of the classroom, broaden our minds, have a little fun in the midst of learning, but this was most likely a first for the majority of the kids there. I’m proud of the small role I played in making it happen, and if I can only figure out how to help make the Pasos Adelante conference later this year an equally big success.

After months of hard work, grueling grant writing with its accompanying groveling, and generally increased levels of stress, Menda has succeeded in acquiring ten 120 liter garbage cans, painted inside and out with anti-corrosive paint, with holes in the bottom for drainage, and metal posts on which to rotate, along with the cement to install them. We’re still waiting on the welder to arrive to solder the tops on, but every single bit of it was funded by the municipality. Our mayor also worked his tail off in acquiring some tools and additional smaller garbage cans just for the plaza. Using this sizable donation from the municipality, Menda was also able to acquire funds through a Peace Corps grant to do the necessary education so the garbage cans won’t just sit there unused as well as enough money to revamp some older garbage cans already here. This all works together with a community-wide campaign to deal with the excessive amounts of garbage floating around. For those who live too far from the collection route or those too stubborn to pay a small fee, we are also continuing our work with familial landfills, cubic meter holes in which to put all the garbage that can’t be recycled or used for compost.

Included with the grant are also funds to build a G.L.O.B.E. climate monitoring box. Google G.L.O.B.E. It’s pretty sweet. Started by Al Gore (shortly after he invented the internet), G.L.O.B.E. is an international initiative to educate students around the world about climate change, and not only that, but have them participate in the research as well. Students at schools participating in the G.L.O.B.E. program, through a variety of different tools, report on temperatures, cloud cover, rain fall, etcetera in order to have a standardized and widespread system of data collection. Like I said, pretty sweet.

Another project on which we’re working is to develop a network of geocaches in various volunteers’ sites, particularly those next to Huascarán National Park with tourist destinations. For those unfamiliar with geocaching, it’s basically a GPS-based treasure hunt wherein the final destination reveals a box in which you leave some small trinket and take something someone else had already left. It’s inexpensive, fun, and we’re hoping it can drag some tourists to some locations not already on the top 5 list of Ancash-based tourism. We’ll keep you updated in future posts as we make progress.

I’ve been organizing games of ultimate for some time now with the youth in my site, but it wasn’t until the last month or so that I got some guys around our age interested, and it seems I may finally have the weekly pickup games I’d been hoping for. They’ve still got a bit to learn about disc control, throwing under windy conditions, and reading the disc in the air, but they get the rules, they show up to play, and week by week I’ve definitely seen progress being made. I’ve also introduced hacky sack to the same group of older guys. They work up at the ruins in our site, so when there aren’t any tourists around, they don’t have a lot to do. Enter hacky sack. Additionally, I showed the hacky sack to my mom, asked her if it was something she could potentially make, and a few days later she had made one using some scrap yarn and dried beans. I got her some red and white yarn at the market so she can make Peruvian flag ones too, but the real goal I have now is for her to teach other women in the community, and then using locally shorn wool and locally grown and dried beans or corn, they can start an eco-business. Environmentally friendly, no cost to the producers past a little TLC, and a potential source of income. Besides, it would be pretty cool to start a new trend among the youth sitting around at street corners. Plus, I came up with a sweet name for marketing. Chaki means foot in Quechua, so Chaki Sak. And now back to disc sports. Just yesterday, I went to a welder, bought a meter and a half long stick and a half meter long pipe, had a point pounded onto the former and a cap welded onto the latter, and now I have a goal for disc golf. Not a basket, but an old-fashioned tonal pole like the ones used when the sport was first getting started. The tube sits on top of the pole, and when the disc hits it, it rings out. And the best part? It only cost me 15 soles (a little over five bucks).

About a week ago, I decided to go to up to the lake above our site in order to get some publicity shots for Huascarán National Park. The idea I had was to take a picture every fifty feet or so and then compile it into a video they could then use to promote the hike up to our lake. Well, I got up to the lake (6 km of trail rising from 3400 meters to almost 4500 in under three hours – a new record for me), and then decided I wanted to head over to San Cristobal, a large rock formation that sits on the side of the mountains above our site. From the lake, you can see something that looks a lot like San Cristobal and which makes it appear as though you have to walk along the top of the ridge to get to it. So I hiked up to the top of the ridge, then decided, why not go a little higher, then a little higher, and a little higher after that. Before I knew it (three hours after leaving the lake, that is), I’d arrived at the top of the last peak before they become completely snow covered, and what did I behold but two beautiful lakes right beneath me, of which I’d had no prior knowledge. By this point, however, it was three in the afternoon and I’d already eaten my five packs of cookies, six mandarin oranges, and drank my liter of water; I decided I’d better head back as opposed to going down to the lakes. So I proceeded to climb down from the mountaintop on which I’d been resting and start to walk along the top of the ridge to eventually arrive at San Cristobal. The first impasse I reached I decided to skirt around the edge on a very narrow ledge until I got around the giant rock formation in my way. At the second impasse, there was no available ledge, nor could I climb down to my left toward the lake and the route home, so I had to climb down to the right. At least this part wasn’t dangerous. It might even have been fun if I hadn’t already been dead tired, but the dirt and rocks that made you perpetually slip and slide was instead quite a nuisance. Finally around six, I manage to make my way around and up to San Cristobal. I’d called a local guide and confirmed that there was indeed a path down, steep though it was, back to our site. I even thought I found that path, but I hadn’t. Instead, I ended up climbing down a small valley behind San Cristobal which became more and more dangerous as the light faded. About that time, I called Menda to have her meet me at the cross, which I could see from where I was climbing down but not much of what lay between. What began as thick patches of grass with hidden rocks waiting to trip you and random holes trying to twist your ankles, quickly turned into thick patches of bushes and trees with giant boulders blocking your path and drops of five or more feet that you had to slide down if you didn’t feel like jumping into the black unknown. Finally at one of these such drops, I realized the drop was not a mere five feet, but, rather, the tiny flashlight which provided what little light I had – it was of course a new moon that night – couldn’t shine far enough to reveal the bottom of the cliff of which I’d started to slide off. Well, as is only reasonable, it was at that point that I accidentally dropped my flashlight. Fortunately, it caught on some branches, so if I could only dangle by one hand, I could maybe reach it, and then proceed to pull myself back up. Well, all went smoothly, and I was once again swimming my way through bushes and trees with thorns a plenty. Menda, who had previously been guiding me by watching my light called to say she could no longer see anything moving. Assuming there was just something between the two of us, it didn’t occur to me that maybe I was circling around to the front of San Cristobal as I followed the line of the steep ravine into which I’d almost fallen. At this point, our family, obviously more than a little worried that we’ve not returned home, calls me, or rather calls their son in Lima, who then calls me and asks where I am. I tell him that it is pitch dark, I’m lost, and Menda is waiting at the cross at which I’m pretty sure I’ll never arrive. A giant phone tree then followed, or maybe more of a phone vine which tangles in upon itself, until everyone’s called everyone else at least twice, and no one is left without knowing that I’ve somehow gotten myself lost. Eventually, our uncle is called who lives way out above the farthest annex of our site, and he manages to find me in a matter of minutes. Either I’d stumbled across his property in the dark, or he’s just that good. Probably the latter. Menda walks down from the cross using only the light from her cell phone, gets accosted by a few dogs on the way, and we meet up at our aunt’s house before proceeding home. I was gone for a total of twelve and a half hours, there wasn’t a part of my body that didn’t ache, and I had to get up early the next morning to gather up the two kids who were heading off to Camp VALOR with me. Menda also says I smelled pretty bad. When they talk about male pride in a negative sense, this is undoubtedly what they mean. For the record, though, I had asked a guide to go with me that morning, but he was busy. The only upside is that I got some pretty great photos along the way.

The last thing I’ll mention is that in less than a month we’re heading to Madre De Dios, just north of Cusco, to go on a seven day tour of the rain forest. It’s the shortest tour we could find in which we’d actually go into the reserve, but we’re not complaining. It’s costing us an arm and a leg, and it’ll be hot and muggy, but when else are we going to have the chance to do something like this? Manú National Park is one of the few reserves left in the world with virgin rain forest. And in case some of you hadn’t seen the footage yet, just this past week they found a previously unknown group of indigenous people living in the rainforest in Madre De Dios. Incredible.

Also, a huge thanks to everyone who has sent us a little something in the mail. We feel very much loved. As a thank you, here are some pictures:

[Miscellaneous, Mountains, and a Hot Tub Full of Papas]

Send Us Something!

Pictures, letters, candy, your latest home taxidermy project, anything! Send us something!

Charles/Amanda Romero

Casilla Postal 277

Huaraz, Ancash

Peru, Sudamérica

The rest of the Ancash volunteers receive stuff all the time from home. We look pretty lame. Help us convince them that we´re cooler and more popular than we really are. Send us something! Please?