PERÚ it may concern

As my wonderful and talented ghost writer continues chronicling our trip through Peru, my blog moves from Puno to Cusco on a kick ass train ride. Hope you enjoy Part IV of The Perez Family in Peru! There were a couple ways for us to get from Puno to our next stop, Cusco.   When we were planning the trip, we had seen and heard about train rides through this stretch of the country, and we decided to give it a try.   We took Peru Rail’s Andean Explorer (check out the journey on their site with a much better description than I can provide at perurail.com ), which is a ten-hour luxury train ride from Puno to Cusco. It took us between mountains and clouds and between mountains and highlands.   The Andean Explorer is beautifully decorated in the style of the Pullman trains of the twenties.   Marlee and Jamie with the train on one of the stops along the way. Love this photo! Bright and early, we were ready for a relaxing ride. We sat in a dining car, whi...

We Wash Our Hands!   Happy Worldwide Handwashing Day, ya'll! As a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Volunteer handwashing is kind of a big deal. The Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing  started Worldwide Handwashing day in 2001 as a way to prevent diarrheal diseases and respiratory infections, especially in third-world countries, through the simple act of washing your hands with soap. Every year on October 15th, over 200 million people celebrate Handwashing Day in over 100 countries all over the world, including plenty of Peace Corps Volunteers. In my time as a PCV, I've become way more aware of worldwide and national days that can somehow be tied into a Peace Corps related event because here in Guadalupe, we're always looking for an excuse to have a parade, give palabaras (speeches) and celebrate. This includes: school anniversaries, town anniversaries, Virgen de Guadalupe, Day of the Child, Water Day and other random days that seem to pop up out of now...

Here's the third installment of The Perez Family in Peru, written by the one and only Michael J. Thanks Pops for letting me take a break from the updates and play editor for a while (note the commentary at the bottom). Enjoy! After our three nights in Huanchaco we headed to Trujillo to hop a flight to Lima, arriving in the late afternoon.   This was basically our third time going to the Lima airport and it was starting to look very familiar.   We took our 30-minute cab ride to our hotel La Posada del Parque, and upon our arrival met Jamie’s boyfriend, Nathan, and his parents Debby and Kevin as well as his brother Isaac.   A long time ago when we were picking a time we’d be visiting, Jamie said Nathan’s family was going to be in Peru about the same time and maybe we could meet up with them.   A few months before the trip we started corresponding with Debby and Kevin to talk about places to stay and visit.   Soon we were exchanging emails resulting in...