Last weekend decided to take a trip with ALL the kids from the orphanage. We left Friday morning because the kids were still on their week long vacation. We went out to the house mother Gina's house. She lives about 20 minutes outside of town on a farm that is in a river valley. It took me two trips in the van to get everyone there and that was still a stretch. We fit about 20 people in the van with clothes and food each trip.

When we all got to Gina's house we started off Friday with a trip to the river. It was about a 10 minute walk from her house and was a great place to swim. The older kids had fun swimming against the current and goofing off on their own. While the other volunteers and I took the little kids out and swam with them. The current was too strong for the little kids to play in it alone. We took some fruit out there and had a snack, then after about two hours we returned to the house and got ready for lunch. We had come pan fried pork which was excellent. After lunch we went to a different stream which was more of an irrigation ditch but was just as fun for the kids to swim in. The little kids could play by themselves in that one because it had some shallow parts that did not have much of a current. After the second swimming time we came back and ate dinner which was a turkey from Gina's house that she killed and cleaned for us to eat.

After dinner we went to Rosa's house when it started getting dark. Rosa is a lady who goes to the church and has a son in the school. She likes to be very involved with the kids. We all slept in her living room after watching all three Home Alone movies. All the kids were piled on mattresses and I was sleeping on top of a couple blankets on the floor (not the most comfortable thing). Throughout the night one little kids kept waking up and crying thus waking everyone else up. I think we all got about 3-5 hours of sleep that night.

Saturday we went back to Gina's house and did some more swimming in the morning. Then we did my favorite part of the weekend which was return back to Rosa's house for lunch. For lunch Rosa and her uncle prepared pork, chicken and beef by cooking it under ground surrounded by hot rocks they heated up in a brick oven with firewood. It was by far the best meal I have eaten in Peru. It tasted a lot like BBQ and was super tender. After lunch we lounged around for a little while then went and played some soccer. We headed back to the orphanage around 4:00 in the afternoon. Overall it was an excellent weekend, I had a blast and I know the kids had even more fun.

Packing up the van.

Looking out from the back of Gina's house, beautiful farm country.

Swimming in the big river

Swimming in the irrigation canal

Smashed together on some mattresses watching Home Alone movies

Machu Picchu

I went on a vacation with my friend Matt Sams last week. We met up in Lima then headed out to Cusco. We had a great week exploring all the ruins and for the last day of exploration we went to Machu Picchu. Everyone kept telling me I had to go and I kept putting it off but I can now say I am very glad I went. It was definitely worth the little amount of money it cost me to go there.

In other news I have my return ticket to go home as in USA home. I'll be back June 30th around 6:45 pm. I kind of hate to say it but I'm ready to be there now. I will really miss all the kids and the house moms and some of the other Peruvian people I worked with here. But it is time for me to move on to some other projects. As a teaser I can tell you I am already in the process of working on another project here in Peru that I would love for you all to be a part of. I'll let you in on more information when I feel the time is right.

The famous Machu Pichu picture

Another famous Machu Picchu picture but with some random guy in it.

A good shot of the terrace techniques the Inca used

That altitude sign is in meters. And yes that lady is really spinning alpaca thread while sitting next to her alpaca.

A beautiful shot of Cusco. The weather was like that all week for us.