Buchu Dayz

Hi everyone,

We hope you are enjoying hints of spring, wherever you are. Here, we are enjoying hints of autumn: yellowing leaves, a cool nip in the breeze. LJ will leave us on Tuesday, to catch his return flight to the states. We will also leave Buchupureo on Tuesday, for a trip to the mountains. Though we can feel our time here winding down, there are still memories being made. As you will see from the photos, we are continuing to enjoy the beauty of this magical place, while also finding small ways to help the people who live here.

Any questions about why we love this place? This helps explain it...

The view from our Buchu home.

The footbridge to the beach here was washed out in the wave that followed the earthquake. If you look closely, you can see another piece of the bridge on the right bank of the river, just before the bend. That's how far it was carried, upriver, by the surge!

We helped the family that lived in this house pre-terremoto. They are currently living in temporary structures in their backyard. (Note: the following photos are all of this same home.)
This shows the adobe building style. The walls are almost two feet thick! In this case, the whole front wall of the house split off the rest of the structure. To me, knowing how violently the earth shook here for two and a half minutes, it is almost unbelievable that the walls are standing at all.

A stopsign on the streetcorner is visible through the crack between walls.



We helped them piece together temporary living structures, using materials salvaged from their demolished antique home.

Pondering the movements of the ocean

Ryan, pondering the waves.

We will miss LJ! He's been a great compadre!

While we are feeling nostalgic about leaving Buchupureo, and about parting ways with LJ, we still have two solid weeks left of this epic adventure, and we aim to make the most of it! Who knows what is in store????

Love to you all,

Jess, Ryan, and LJ :)

P.S. For Oliver-fans, I added a couple photos to the "It's a..." post.