Free Preview: Playmate of the Month January 2000 - Carol and Darlene Bernaola

<p><p>DARLENE BERNAOLA IS SCANNING HER DATE BOOK, shaking her head at page after page of appointments. "I am so busy," she says with a grin, "I have no life." She's selling herself short: At the age of 23, Darlene and her twin sister, Carol, have led extraordinary lives. From the jungles of Peru to the beaches of Miami to the pages of Playboy, they've overcome poverty, isolation, terrorism, language barriers and physical calamity to become our first Playmates of the new millennium. Now the twins are enjoying the whirlwind and taking pride in the drive and determination that got them here. "After the lives we've led, with all the hard work, everything has paid off," says Carol. "This is our dream."</p><p>Q: You were born in Los Angeles, but raised in---</p><p>Carol: Chanchamayo, Villa Rica, Peru.</p><p>Darlene: In the jungle.</p><p>Carol: It was a little town. There was one phone booth where everybody had to make calls. It was an area that had been settled by people fleeing World War II, so in one town there were nothing but German people, the next town would be all Yugoslavian, the next town Spanish.</p><p>Q: What did you do there for entertainment?</p><p>Carol: You could play with the monkeys, hang from vines, climb trees and eat the fruit at the top, go to the river or the lake, fish, hunt, ride horses.</p><p>Q: Why did you leave?</p><p>Darlene: Terrorism.</p><p>Carol: Peru had a revolution, and we fled because of that. It was too dangerous. So our mom sent us to Miami to s...