By Danielle L Krautmann Disclaimer:  As I believe my previous blogs reflect, I love living in Cajamarca, Peru. I love the people, culture, climate and lifestyle.  But after two years, there are just a few things I’m afraid I’ll never be able to accept.  Keep in mind if I made a list of the bones I [...]

The day we named the school   One day last June, I went for a jog with my new friend Shannon.  She had moved to Cajamarca as part of a Fulbright grant to teach English at the university.  While she loved her life in Peru, she missed working with school-aged children and was looking for [...]

Some of the kids that live on my street during one of our English lessons. By Danielle L. Krautmann Home is where your heart is. It seems simple enough, doesn’t it? There’s no place like home.  But when you live a nomadic lifestyle, traveling to a new place every year or two, it can be [...]

(continued from: To Be a Gringa: Part One) The Ex-Pat Community of Cajamarca, Peru   Amy and her husband Eric arrived to Cajamarca on a sunny Thursday morning.  A driver picked them up from the airport and drove them and their two dogs to their furnished home.  After a quick nap, they went and met [...]

By Danielle L. Krautmann A local celebrity How did  it get to be this late?  I’m lying on Violeta’s bed in her one-room home in Baños del Inca.  Actually, it’s not just her bed, she shares this queen-sized mattress which sits on cinder blocks with her husband and 11-year-old daughter, Alejandra.  It’s four o’clock in [...]

By Danielle L. Krautmann “Six months ago, I was living in Seattle with roommates, working as an occupational therapist for a home health company. Now, I am a housewife in Lima, Peru.” Can you believe that in January I celebrated my one-year anniversary of living in Peru?  This country and I have had a turbulent [...]

By Danielle L. Krautmann The problem began when I was living in Denver, CO and a squirrel got caught in my window well.  Brandy watched patiently as I spent three hours using different methods (a bucket, a broom, an umbrella, a shovel) to try to set the frightened creature free.  My final attempt was with [...]

By Danielle L. Krautmann One month ago, I moved to Baños del Inca, a very small town only 6 km from the “city” of Cajamarca.  My first two weeks were filled with holidays: an amazing Christmas visit with my family and a strange illness that rendered me useless for about ten days.  Finally, I feel [...]

By Danielle L. Krautmann As my taxi weaves its way through the streets of Cajamarca, Peru, things look different than they did my last visit.  Perhaps it’s because last April, I was a tourist from Lima.  This time I’m here to look at apartments.  I will be moving to Cajamarca in a month. The taxi [...]

By Danielle L. Krautmann Have I ever told you how much I love the Jorge Chavez International airport?  Well, I love it so much that I try to arrive early.  If check in goes smoothly I have time to sit outside the security gate to watch Peruvians say goodbye to each other.  Entire families go [...]

By Danielle L. Krautmann It’s 8am and I am in my best mood, sipping coffee, sitting alone in the open-air lobby of the main lodge writing in my journal.  For almost a month now, I have gone to sleep and dreamed of spending my days walking through tangles of vines, trees taller than my apartment [...]

By Danielle L. Krautmann My senses are heightened in the rainforest. Despite being legally blind in my right eye, I can see more clearly than ever before….maybe there’s just more to see.  Something as simple as sunlight illuminating a water droplet on a leaf is a vivid representation of the complexity of nature.  I look [...]

By Danielle L. Krautmann About a month ago I was bored in my apartment for 10 minutes.  Charlie was at the mine, it was eight o’clock at night and none of my movies looked enticing.  I hate the mention of the words bored, boredom, boring and agree with Harvey Danger when he sings “if you’re [...]

By Danielle L. Krautmann The other day I was taking a taxi back from work.  I negotiated the fare to be eight soles, a fair price to go from San Borja to my apartment in San Isidro.  I told the taxi driver to please not take the street Javier Prado explaining “la trafica es mierda [...]

By Danielle L. Krautmann I can’t take my medal off. It’s bronze colored with a plain navy blue ribbon to hold it on my neck. It’s the cheapest, worst quality completion medal I’ve ever received from a race, and I love it. This one says Lima 42K, 2010 on it…my first marathon. After the race [...]

A Photo Essay of Cajamarca, Peru By Danielle Krautmann Charlie and I just got back from a long weekend in Cajamarca, where we celebrated my husband’s 30th birthday. Cajamarca is the city nearest to Cerro Corona, the mine where Charlie works, which is about a tw0-hour drive from the city.  Although Charlie knew he liked Cajamarca, [...]

The Wheels of the Combi Go Round and Round By Danielle L. Krautmann Currently Lima, Peru has no public transportation.  This restricts Limenians to use either taxis, buses, cars, or “combies”.  Charlie and I don’t plan to get a car while we’re here because it’s easy enough for us to get from one place to [...]

A Visit to the Zoo and Some Cultural Observations By  Danielle L. Krautmann Per suggestion of one of my lovely readers, last week I visited Parque de las Leyendas, a zoo in Lima.  A quick bus ride from my house and cheap admission, the trip was definitely worth it. But not because of the animals. [...]