thelukey's VirtualTourist Home Page

Out with the old, in with the new. After almost two years, an update of my homepage is now long overdue. Unfortunately, I’ve got my hands full studying right now, so that update will have to wait a little while longer. For now, take a look at some of my favorite travel pictures and check out my travel pages. I hope to be able to add more photos and tips from my travels through Central and South America before the end of August, so please come back then.

This first picture was taken in December 2001, on the beach in El Sunzal, El Salvador.

From November 1998 through June 1999, I lived in Mascarilla, a small village located in Ecuador’s Chota Valley, three hours north of Quito. This photo was taken in Dosacequias, an even smaller village that is just a few minutes walk from Mascarilla, during a return trip to the region in February 2006.

Before heading on to Mascarilla, I lived in Quito for two months. This picture was taken during the same 2006 trip to Ecuador.

My most rewarding travel experience has been the work I accomplished as a Peace Corps volunteer in El Salvador. Specifically, I was happy to be able to help coordinate a project that brought potable water to approximately 2,000 people living in seven rural communities, including Los Prados (pictured above).

Of course, Peace Corps was not all work and no play. A sports fanatic since childhood, I finally got the opportunity to fulfill every soccer player’s fantasy of playing in an international match on April 7, 2002, when the team representing my site – the town of La Laguna, Chalatenango, El Salvador – traveled across the Sumpul River to the village of San Juan Olosingo, Honduras, where we played the locals to a 0-0 draw. In the picture above, taken before a home match some time during that same year, that’s me standing in the back row, the fourth person from the right.

My curiosity sometimes drives my wife nuts, but it also pays off sometimes, as it did during my March 2004 trip to Nicaragua, when I was able to convince the grounds crew at the Estadio Roberto Clemente in Masaya to let me wander around the stadium and the playing field taking pictures.

I’m not really sure why I like the picture of this “espantapájaros” (scarecrow) – taken in March 2003, just outside the town of Santa Rita de Copán, Honduras – as much as I do.

This is my favorite picture from my most recent vacation, a trip out to Los Angeles to visit my brother-in-law and see the Rose Bowl Parade.