Probably, but not noticeable. I'm referring to the spider monkey that jumped on my head on Monday and started looking for bugs. Hope he didn't find any. I'll put up pictures later, but I forgot my camera in the hotel room for now. The trip here was uneventful; the long layover in NY was interesting as the terminal was full of people going to the Middle East, South America, and Ireland. LAN airlines is THE nicest airline I've ever used; friendly staff, good food (but seriously, serving supper and wine at 1 am? :) I passed on that.). Got to Lima, went through customs, rechecked in, and got on a flight to Puerto Maldonado via Cusco. Absolutely beautiful... the Andes are enormous, expansive, and look completely different from above as the towns in them are small, ... read more

Just an overview of things, for reference: I leave Minneapolis on June 6, arrive in Lima early in the morning June 7, and fly to Puerto Maldonado several hours after landing. I'll be in Puerto Maldonado until July 6 or 7 (can't remember at the moment), then fly to Cusco for the second half of my placement, in Huyro (a town 5 hours or so away by bus from Cusco, as I understand). Puerto Maldonado is a town in east/southeast Peru, and Taricaya Reserve is in the middle of the rainforest a couple hours downstream (east) by boat from Puerto Maldonado. Work here looks diverse (at least reading their website), including animal rehabilitation, bird counts, sustainable farming, construction, experimenting with different ways of growing mahogany trees, and the like. We'll live in bungalo-type buildings, I think, ... read more

Today I received some initial information about the Inca Project portion of my summer... I was pretty excited to get this email, as I hadn't heard from Projects Abroad in a week or so. Things are falling into place! I have a meeting with Financial Services tomorrow to discuss funding and the Imagine Fellowship, and will be getting information on the Taricayra segment soon, as well. Looking forward to the planning phase! More details to come; I just wanted to start up this blog. :)... read more