Peru

May 25 - 30, 2018

Lima, Cusco & Machu Picchu Village, Peru

Jeff had a convention in Peru, so Dan and Suzi, their kids Katelyn and Chase along with Sidney, Cade and I met up  with Jeff at the end of his convention in Peru.

This was NO vacation thats for sure.  We were TRAVELING!  We were on the move every possible moment of the day.  We usually woke up around 4:00am - 6:00am to either catch a flight to another city, catch a train to another city or catch a bus to Machu Picchu.  We were exhausted when we got back home but it was seriously such a cool experience!

Our favorite city was Cusco.  Who knew it would turn out to be such a cultural place to visit!  There was usually between one and three parades PER DAY.  I never understood the reason or the significance of the parades either.  I would ask what they were for and with my broken spanish, all I got was that they were in celebration of their religious priests.  

Music, traditionally dressed women with baby llamas wandering the streets and Alpaca or Guinea Pig on most every menu!

I couldn't get over the hats that the women wore.  They were the ugliest things - and I loved them!  Simply because that is just what they do and it made my experience all the better.

This was probably the tiniest woman I have ever seen.  She was so small in stature.  If I had to guess, I'd say 3 feet something tall.

One of Cade's souvenirs was this crazy mask that a lot of the men would wear in the parades.

We took a three hour train ride from Cusco to Machu Picchu Village.  It was a beautiful ride in a glass roof train.  The rivers and mountains were amazing.

When we got to Machu Picchu Village, we stayed at a sketchy place called Gringo Bills.  There were dogs and cats everywhere in Peru, but this place had open air cafes, shops and hotels..... so cats were sitting on the sofa's in the hotel.  Our outside hotel door had a simple door handle / lock on it.  Similar to one you would have on your bathroom door inside your home.  The room Jeff and I had had three twin beds in it and a tiny bathroom.  Thats it.  We put the kids in a bigger room.  The girls shared a queen bed and the boys slept on twin beds.  Cats fought and mated all night long and had everyone except me up half the night, ha ha!   But it was such a quaint little place that you couldn't help but love it.

I had to take a picture of a typical menu.  Don't get me wrong, the food was delicious but there was NO WAY I was going to bring myself to trying ALPACA or GUINEA PIG!!!

We took a scary as hell bus ride UP the mountain.  It was a 20 minute "taking your life in your hands" ride!!!!  It was nothing but a steep, narrow dirt road of nothing but switchbacks.  Occasionally the driver would slam on the breaks to avoid hitting another bus head on.  Then my bus or the other would back down or up the mountain until they came to a place in the road that was wide enough for the two to pass.  Once we finally made it to the top of the mountain, we hiked up stairs for about 15 minutes to get to the middle of Machu Picchu.  Some of the stairs were only 8 inches tall while others were 20 inches tall.  It was a workout!  But so amazing and so worth it!  There were llamas wandering around up there.  They ate the grass and acted as a natural lawn mower.  I loved every single minute of it!  We made it up there by about 6:30am.  Once the sun started to come out more and it burned off the clouds, the whole village was in view.  It was amazing to see in real life.  I've never sought out going to Peru as a place on my bucket list, but now that I've been there and I've seen it first hand - - I now know why its one of the seven wonders of the world!

Built over a span of just 80 years, it was once a thriving community of 20,000 people.  They don't know what killed them off or drove them away either.  And they haven't been able to excavate all of it yet.  You could see steps and walls that were barely peeping out of the earth.  We were told that it would only get bigger and bigger as they continued to excavate.