Today I released a free photo eBook titled “Mystical Peru”. The book is basically a compilation of my best/favorite photos from my travels in Peru earlier this year – with the photos organized by city/region. I took every single one of the photos in the book and am giving the book away for free. You can download “Mystical Peru” on this page.

While rifling through the bookcase in my condo tonight, I stumbled across a couple drawings I made at some point last year. They were just collecting dust, so I thought I should at least post them here.

When the Spanish invaded Peru during the time of the Inca, there wasn’t a single Catholic Church in the region. Today, there are 27 Catholic Churches in Cuzco, Peru alone. The structures dominate the city in parts… and even through the Spanish essentially wiped out the Inca population, the people here in Cuzco are still heavy followers of the Catholic church.

Yesterday I was walking around town at the time of day when the Catholic schools get out of session (about 2:30 PM) and everywhere I looked there were boys and girls dressed in Catholic school uniforms – walking across the city, talking with their friends, and hitching rides back home on crowded combi buses.

Learning Spanish is fun, but trying to converse with native Spanish speakers makes me feel like such as ass. In other words: Me + Spanish = estúpido. But I’m learning. Slowly.Yes. Very slowly. I’m learning.

This is the first drawing I’ve done during my time in Peru. It’s a donkey (or “ass”)… if you can’t tell. I drew it yesterday evening during my last night in Arequipa. I’m in Puno, Peru now and it is raining. Plus, it’s not nearly as cold as I thought it was going to be… and I love the rain!

I’m planning to produce a number of videos about my upcoming trip to Peru, so I thought it would be fun to use some of my drawings as the titles for these future videos. Can you see where this is going?

I’m leaving for Peru soon, so I thought it would be fun to make a Peruvian inspired drawing. This is what I came up with. What do you think?

Here are some close-ups:

This image was inspired by the young girl with the red hair in my 2010 Halloween post. I’m sure the actual girl is very nice, but I tried to draw her here as an evil queen in training.

When it comes to trust, I bet on the few individuals brave enough to say, “I don’t know.”

Drew this after seeing a photo on Ebba’s Foton blog.