Vamos a Perú!

I am ashamed to admit that five years ago if you had put a map of the Americas in front of me and asked me to put my finger on Peru I wouldn't even know where to begin. My eyes furiously scanning, finger hovering over South America. But yes, this was me. Since that time my feet have planted themselves on Peruvian soil three times. It was over a year ago when I last ventured to the Southern Hemisphere. On a missions trip to Oxapampa, Peru I marveled at the sights. I mingled with the people, lived in their homes and joined their families. Then I went on a journey with my sister to the jungle, where we treked through lush forest, fished for pirahnas, ate fruit off the branch of at a local farm and marveled at exotic birds perched high in trees. I filled up every single inch of my photo memory cards, bought a flash drive, emptied them, and filled them up again. My heart swelled with the beautifulness I was capturing and would "soon" share with you all. My plan was to do little vingettes as blog posts; The missions trip to Oxapampa, Journey over the Andes, a Jungle Adventure, The Lodges of the Jungle. This was the plan. So many stories to be told.

And then... a year passed.

Now here I am, in Peru again, with sketchbooks and empty memory cards waiting to be filled. In the next 15 days I will journey to the deepest canyon in the world, the highest navitagable lake on earth, a collection of floating islands, sacred vallies and one of the seven wonders of the world. My mom and aunt are joining us in a week and at the end of it I get to bring my little sister (who has lived here for over two years) back home with me. And hopefully this time around, I will be more diligent about sharing a bit of this with you upon my return. (In the meantime, if you would like to follow our journey as it is happening, come and find me on Instagram @ carolinemaxcy. The flood of travel posts have already begun.)

I absolutely couldn't cross the equator again without sharing a little bit of what I was able to experience last year in Peru. So two nights ago, before I hopped on the plane, I stayed up way past a wise bedtime to upload a few, many un-edited, images from last year's journey. I still hope to share a more structured, curated and better narrated blog post with you all in the future but for now click on the images below to view a flickr sets and get a peek into the adventure from 2011...

Bible Fellowship Church Missions trip / Oxapampa, Peru



Peruvian Jungle Adventure with my Sis / Madre De Dios, Peru / Tambopata National Reserve