Finding Good Work

All year I've been wanting to do volunteer work. I didn't have anything specific in mind, just some sort of good work that our family could do together, some way to help out, to be of use. I searched the web for 'family volunteering'. I checked out WWOOFing. I looked at eco-farms in Italy. I never found a good fit for us, and I shelved the idea for this trip, hoping for better luck next summer. 

And now quite unexpectedly, here in our last destination before heading home, we are knee-deep

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Daily Life in a Developing Country - The Reasons We Love Cusco

We really love Cusco. Here's are some of the reasons:

• The incredible and inspiring community of expats and volunteers here.

• The 3 newborn guinea pigs at SAE - which Eleanor got to name: Chicha Morada, Peanut Butter, and Iniesta.

• The proximity to so many amazing places: Machu Picchu, the Sacred Valley, the Peruvian Amazon.

• The city lights at night,

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A Year In The Life Of A Boy

This is Owen last July, during the first few weeks of our journey:

This is Owen now:

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Daily Life in a Developing Country - The Down Side

Our apartment in Cusco is a nice one, in a good area. We have 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a big living room, and a spectacular view of the valley of Cusco. It's one of the nicer places we've stayed this year. We also have no heat, no hot water heater, and no oven. It's winter here, and it gets to around 30F at night, though it's up to the mid-60s in the day. Our place is FREEZING!!! The heavy pile of alpaca blankets on our beds are warm... so warm that I find excuses to crawl under them earlier and earlier every night.

We were all miserable in the mornings especially, so we finally broke down and got a heater. Well - the kind of heater that one uses around here. We went to the Saturday market a week ago and bought a big clay pot with a hole in the side. It's sort of a Chimera. Then we spent a week looking for the alcohol we needed to burn i

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Video Blog: Lake Titicaca and the Uros

Here's the video of our day on Lake Titicaca with the Uros. Go here to read the blog post of that day.