Archive - July 11, 2019

    Up On The Mountain by Michael Beede (Peru 1963-65) and (Venezuela 1968-70)   From March of 1963 to February of 1965, my good friend, Ron Arias, and I served as Peace Corps volunteers in the high Sierra town of Sicuani in the Departamento de Cuzco, Peru. I was 20 years old, and Ron was a year older. We had been assigned to the PNAE, Peru’s National School Lunch Program, and we were having the time of our lives. School holidays and vacations provided the time and opportunity to explore in the  Andean Cordillera surrounding Sicuani. There were backcountry regions in those mountains where few foreigners, if any, had ever ventured.  The march of civilization was rapidly changing the environment forever. The time to visit these isolated places while they were still in a relatively untouched  state was fast ebbing away. The opportunity to do so was now. We were young and . . .