Our first bit of news is that we know where we'll live for the next two years. Our town is La Jalca Grande in the Department of Amazonas. We'll be the first volunteers in our region and pioneers for the Peace Corps there.
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| Amazonas (the narrow yellow one on the map!) |
We returned from our site visit last week and are ecstatic about our placement. We're located in the Northeastern highlands of the country in what is called the "Ceja de la selva" or "Eyebrow of the jungle". The elevation is 9,840 feet above sea level in a cloud forest. It's unbelievably green, rustic and like stepping back in time. There are about 3,500 people in La Jalca and several smaller villages nearby. The main modes of transport are via horse and good old walking. The climate is temperate, between 55-75F year round and pretty chilly at night. We'll get an intense rainy season starting when we arrive. Our host family seems lovely and we have a huge room that needs lots of love. The community seems really excited to have us there even if most have never heard of the Peace Corps. It seems like there are a lot of great projects we're hoping to start working on. We'll be about 2.5 hours via car from our department capital of Chachapoyas. We'll also be about 24 hours via bus from Lima but we did hear that starting in May there will be a national flight service from Lima to Chachapoyas. Just in time for us to have visitors!
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| Plaza de Armas, La Jalca |
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| View from our site, La Jalca |
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| Chachapoyas |
The region has a lot of ecotourism opportunities like Gocta Falls, one of the tallest waterfalls in the world. There are archaeological ruins like Kuelap and Revash. We can actually see the walls of the ancient city of Kuelap from the secondary school in our town. When we asked how far of a walk from our town one of the professors answered, "not too far, about 10 hours!".
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| Gocta Falls |
We'll head to site next week after we swear in as volunteers. Our next posting will be from our new home in Amazonas (new mailing address on home page). Lots of love.
