We just got back from a whirlwind 7 day trip to Cusco, Peru, and a few surrounding areas. It was amazing! I'm going to break down the trip into three separate posts in order to preserve my sanity. Here's post one.
CUSCO
Dan and I flew to Cusco, Peru starting on Friday, June 1.
Our last flight from Lima to Cusco showed "Just for Laughs" - that candid camera type show from Canada. I was rolling! I loved it. They also gave us some funny named snacks.
We arrived in Cusco Saturday morning and took a taxi to our hotel.
We showered and took brief naps while trying to adjust to the altitude change. They also gave us herbal tea that's supposed to help. It didn't.
After taking it easy for a while, we ventured out to one of my "must-sees." The Coricancha. It's the old Inca Temple of the Sun. The Spanish tore most of it down and built a church on top of it. In this picture, the dark stone is the Inca stonework (1400s). The stone below it is pre-Inca and the stone above it is from the Spanish. They were having some sort of performance on the lawn.
They, just like Utahns, like to put words and letters on their mountains. "Viva El Peru."
Inca handiwork.
Inside the Coricancha. There was an earthquake in the 1950s that revealed a lot more Inca walls. (Funny that the Inca stonework withstood the earthquake when the newer stuff did not.)
They were so precise. I'm looking from one room through another into a third and Dan's standing in the third room - perfectly framed. Amazing!
The inner courtyard.
His best "Hiram Bingham" - the explorer who brought Machu Picchu to the world's attention.
Above: Double doorway means an important room.
I saw a picture of this exact spot on the cover of one of the books I read before coming out. It was from the 1920s or something. I'll have to add it, too. Holes for drainage.
Our hotel. I accidentally booked two twin beds.
Lunch the first day. Best avocado of my life!
Inca ruins above Cusco, Sacsayhuaman (basically pronounced "Sexy woman"). I don't typically say that word, so it was slightly awkward for me... Can you imagine getting those stones into place??
Overlooking Cusco.
So awesome.
Above: Throne of the Inca.
We went around to the back of the ruins to a natural "slide." I did it, but was scared to death! I am a wimp. It doesn't look like much from the video, but I promise it was. Here's Dan and a local doing it.
We walked to some more ruins and then hitched a ride with a tour bus to a few more places Saturday night.
The Inca were really awesome at making fountains and getting irrigation going to places that needed it.
After that, we headed out to a nice dinner at the Inka Grill on the Plaza de Armas and hit the sack in our twin beds.
Sunday morning we got up bright and early to attend church with the local LDS congregation. Dan was embarrassed that I made him take this picture. Their building was really nice.
It was fast and testimony meeting. We really enjoyed it. I only understood about 40% of what they were saying, but was really touched by the people.
After that, we hired a local taxi driver, Willy of Willy Tours, to drive us to a few more sites: Pisac and Ollentaytambo.
The views of the valleys on the way were gorgeous.
Pisac. It was WAY up on a hill. Crazy.
After this we headed into town for their local market. Dan and I found just what we needed for the Inca trail: hats and gloves. The weather was kind of tricky. About freezing in the morning up to about 70 in the afternoon. Had to be prepared. And I found that sweet plaid shirt at the thrift store before we left. It was perfect for keeping my arms out of the sun and it reminded me of my grandma.
Ollentaytambo:
What's that? You wanted to see us kissing at Ollentaytambo? Awesome. here you go.
Cool stonework. The better the stonework, the more important the place was.
Thanks, Willy!
We hit the sack to rest up for the next morning's 5:15 pick up for the Inca Trail.
I told Sam we could do whatever he wanted for his birthday. Thankfully, he didn't really take advantage of that outrageous offer and ask do to anything too extravagant.
First we headed to a local baptist church that has an awesome indoor play area for kids. Sam invited Carter and Harrison, his two besties, along.
Next Sam wanted to go through the car wash. He used to HATE it, but ever since I told him it's like the car is taking a shower, he likes it. But not the HEB car wash, the blue one.
Next was an elaborate lunch of his favorite - a cheesy tortilla and a smoothie.
Following naps, we went to the pool for a little while and then had Kirk and Gretchen over for dinner and presents. He was majorly spoiled and loved everything.
That cake turned out better than I thought it would.
Carter was more than happy to help Sam open and examine each of his presents. It was cute.
Sam is great. He is usually a very good listener and tries to "choose the right" and "make good choices."
He picks out all his own clothes and I absolutely love it. I'm always excited to see what he comes up with. He just got two more superhero shirts for his birthday, but before that, he would wear the same superman shirt for days. Until we made him change it.
He is great with his numbers and I'm trying to help him with starting to read, but it's not really going anywhere, yet.
He wakes up early (6:30 or so) most days and takes a nap about every other day.
He likes to play at the gym and go to "school" - that free 90 minute preschool-type thing the school district offers.
He likes TV - too much for his own good. I need to be better about making him turn it off.
He is a joy and so much fun. We're so grateful for him. I'm excited for this next year. I've only got one more with him before he starts going to school, so I plan to enjoy it while it lasts. We love our Sammy man!
We haven't had much going on lately. I tried to upload a video of the kids singing to Grandpa C for his birthday, but although it's uploaded on YouTube, it doesn't show up in blogger when I look at my youtube videos. Annoying.
Other things we've been up to:
We hosted two BYU folk dancers last week. That means they slept in our house, ate breakfast, and left. Two nights. Not bad. They were nice guys. Hosting also meant that we got two free tickets to their show. Dan was dying to go, but Gretchen won the arm wrestle, so she got the ticket. It was a really great show! Here's a picture of us with one of the dancers. Please note how amazing she looks after dancing for 2.5 hours and how pasty and tired I look after just watching. Yikes.
Here's the fam eating breakfast on a Saturday morning surrounded by...
ROCKWALL HOLDS. Yes, Dan is building a rockwall in our crawl space. He'll be done soon. Until then, here's a picture of what it looks like in there so far. It's not very tall, but because of the angle, it's definitely going to be challenging.
He's going to do that back wall, too.
We had K&G over for Mother's Day.
Our pomegranate tree has one fruit on it! Hey, one is better than none. We'll see if it hangs on long enough to ripen this fall.
Sam's birthday is Friday. He's been counting down the days for about two weeks. He sure is a cute kid. He wants an Iron Man cake. Not sure how I'm going to pull that one off. He's trickier than he looks. Tune in later this week to see if I succeed.
I love my kids! Can't believe how much they grow in a year.
Last Mother's Day:
This year:
Poor Afton had a major cold/runny nose yesterday. Dan took her home from church after Sacrament meeting. She picked out the turtleneck.
Earlier this week, Sam came down with a major case of hives. I'd never seen hives before so I was freaking out. At one point his entire body was covered in big welts. Dan calmed me down and said they'd probably pass in a few days. He was right. I also discovered that it's hard to take a good picture of hives. Can you see them?
Dan and I went on a date of Friday to see The Avengers. I give it 8.5/10. I don't know about Dan.
This weekend Dan worked on his secret project a lot and we had a nice Mother's Day. I'm lucky to be a mom to two sweet kids and a wife to such a great husband. I'm also grateful to have an amazing mom for an example.
I thought I would be a great mom this week and take the kids strawberry picking one morning. It was only 30 minutes away, but Sam asked if we were almost there about 5 times. It was a nice little establishment. The owner explained that the strawberries were almost all gone but I might be able to find some over near the dumpster. I'm guess most other people didn't think to start by the dumpster...
We grabbed our buckets and got to picking. Sam picked about two before he said he had to use the bathroom. We trudged back to the small store they had and asked if they had a bathroom. They didn't and told us to just "go around back." When finished, we got back to the dumpster and I started picking again. Sam said he was done and would rather play in the sand. That was fine with me. Afton was content to sit for a few minutes. That's when I snapped these pictures.
Then I noticed that Afton, who had previously been eating strawberries I fed her, was now eating rotting strawberries off the ground.
So I firmly told her "no!" and she proceeded to cry and either leaned up against me or tried to sit in my lap for the rest of the time, which made it hard to squat and pick strawberries. I kept picking until I couldn't take the crying anymore, we paid, and she screamed until we were about 10 minutes from home.
