The Road Less Travelled Before we left some people couldn´t understand why we wanted to choose what they perceived as the ´hard option´. We´d been married just over 2 years, Mark was happy with his job, Karen had only been in her job 16 months, we´d just bought a house…it didn´t quite make sense. Surely at that stage we should´ve been concentrating on our interior décor or saving for a bigger car. A few people reasoned that it was just us, we always ha...

The Final Countdown "You're really going to miss us" a lady in our church informed us before we left, leaving us amused at her confidence. We've become very familiar with this unashamed pride that many Peruvians exude - about their food, their towns, their scenery, their natural resources, their music and at times, themselves! While we appreciate that Peru has a LOT to offer in many of these areas, this confidence is not always justified but always entertaining!...

The Streets Following the success of the Football Tournament outreach in March, we decided that a Football School would be a good follow-up for the kids who work on the streets of Huaraz. I`ve never seen such an elaborate annual Action Plan as exists for the Arco Iris Street Team, and although this "School" was originally planned for February, it didn´t happen. So, the gringo (Mark) again put on his football boots and, like the Pied-Piper of Hamlin, tried to ro...

Llanganuco With the arrival of June it was time for our third and final big event with the kids in the Casa Hogar - a trip to Llanganuco, a beautiful turquoise lake situated in Huascaran National Park. To expect everything to run smoothly would have been foolish on our parts, after all this has pretty much never happened since we arrived in Peru! Therefore we were a bit disappointed but not too surprised when we were greeted in the morning by grey skies over Hua...

Reaching New Heights April has undoubtedly been our most varied month in Peru so far, full of new experiences. It began with a real treat - the fifteenth birthday of our landlord's daughter; the most significant milestone for any young lady in Latin America. The garage (directly below our apartment) was converted into a disco complete with flashing neon lights, loud eighties hits and hyper teenage girls. All that was missing was the typical pink fairytale dress ...