A little background

So, I think I am getting the message that people need more background on what we are doing here - and more pictures! Our friend's Lizzie and Mike's blog from their Turkey travels was amazing. Scott and Amanda's world tour photos were incredible. And I loved Tank and Cara's too.

For background, David is a geography professor and studies how people use the Amazon region. You can read more about his work in fancy academic lingo here ;) I tease but he is quite impressive and was awarded a prestigious Fulbright grant so we decided to come as a family for 5 months. He has been coming to this same city for 8 years during the summers for research. We came here together last summer, sans kids, to see if we could make it work for a long-term stint. I work remotely as a software quality engineer for my Austin company in Virginia. So, (*crossing fingers*) with reliable enough internet I can do the same from here.

There is a noticeable lack of tourist infrastructure here and expats. Basically anything remotely familiar ;) Which is fairly unusual for Peru because there is a huge tourist industry. For our honeymoon we went to Cusco, Machu Picchu, and toured the rainforest on the Tambopata River. We enjoyed touring and dining with many international tourists. But in Pucallpa, some drug cartel issues in the early 90's created a bad reputation that stuck despite the removal of the cartels. This has it's advantages and disadvantages obviously. Some advantages: there is no begging and no expectation of anything from us, which is nice. Prices are extremely low (future post). And in some ways I feel we are charting our own path, not taking on the baggage of expats here before us. You can immerse yourself - no halfsies here. A disadvantage is you can't get much that is not local or of interest to locals. (don't worry hugh - i Can get Pepsi!) Another one is there is not much to do as far as family activities or for guests who want to come visit. Neither the cuisine or attractions have been 'tourist-ified' meaning limited selection and litter is prevalent. Also, postal mail or shipping seems to be nearly non-existent.

David says the fact that no one else is here is the very reason we need to be here. I'm still gaining an understanding of everything but in my simplistic view I can see - there is a WHOLE lotta rain forest out there and a seemingly equal amount of problems. He is here to help via his research - I am along for the ride but am excited to work on my Spanish. One of our big goals is to have the children learn a different language and culture. And, most importantly, grow up with the recognition that we are very fortunate with our life in the states but there are also a lot of other great people and places out there in the world.