The day before we left, Santa must have known and stuffed our stockings!
John and Drew had their socks stuffed full of American Candy!! Santa must have known how much they missed it. (Thank you Jenny- Bought Jelly Belly's for me last July, brought them to Bolivia, hid them from me to give to me on Christmas. I love my wife.)
We saw him later that day at school. The kids were so excited that Santa came this year!
After school we took the overnight bus to La Paz! Here we played the largest and highest game of chess in the WORLD!
We also met up with our friend Chris from home who came down from San Diego to hang. THANKS SHINEY!! Who is coming next?
From La Paz we made our way to Copacabana and stayed at Isle del Sol. It was a great hike to the top with panoramic views of Lake Titicaca.
John and Chris had a romantic sunset, candlelight dinner off in the woods. (Jenny had to stay behind and finish some homework.)
From there we made our way to Peru! We had to take another overnight bus to Cusco. We made some friends that were traveling the same direction as us. Johannas & Rafael from Germany. They were GREAT, and we miss them a lot. Here is the 5 of us trying to find a Hostel.
We love Cusco. You all have to go and stay as you make your way to Machu Picchu. A beautiful city.
Well we finally found a place to stay. We opted not to stay in a hostel, and instead stayed with this family. It was a courtyard with all of these rooms. And in the middle with a bathroom and a kitchen to share. It was really neat to see how Peruvians live. Here we are in their kitchen with stone/wood stove. This is were we spent a lot of our time because it was the warmest.
We would have jam sessions at night around the stove/fire. The reason my legs are up is because they had guinea pigs squealing and running around the kitchen floor. About 20 of them. Quie (guinea pig)- is a peruvian delicacy. and I might add, is quite tasty.
Spending Christmas night with the Peruvian families was so wonderful. You can see the nativity, which they spend all day setting up. They are very elaborate and set up like Christmas trees in the U.S. I love that they take the time to make sure that every animal is perfectly facing baby Jesus. We learned their traditions. They count down to Christmas like New Year's, celebrate with fireworks, and lots of drinking and dancing. Definitely a neat experience.
Singing Christmas carols in a room in different languages by the fire. Again, a time to remember.
We took a four day journey on the Inca Trail to get to Maccu Picu, one of the seven wonders of the world. The first day we biked, and hiked three more. Here we are in a little town call Ollyantambo- we spotted our first ruins.
A natural plant that Inka's used to paint their faces. The guide painted ours. Made John look like a wimpy version of Braveheart.
Hot Springs. In the middle of nowhere. Definitely very cool.
Worst part of the hike. We stayed in a run down hostel one night and I woke up itching like crazy. Bed Bugs. Gross.
Turn your head to the left...On our way into Aguas Calientes, the town right outside of Machu Picchu, we hiked in on train tracks. We thought it would be really cool to hike on train tacks, like we were in the movie Stand By Me. But not that cool.
We hiked a trail to see Maccu Piccu from another mountain. We hiked having to climb up and down huge ladders. None of us fell or died,. We are thankful.
That's MP in the back ground!! WAHOOOO!
So the next day we got up at 4am, hiked up these stairs for an hour and half. To try and be the first at MP. We were the first 40 people in line. Which was AMAZING! To hike around while it was still cloud covered gave the same feeling I had when standing in the Collosium. I guess that's why they are both one of the 7 wonders?
We will show more pics of our time in MP, Lima, Panama, & Costa Rica in our Picture Show! Part Two.
