we're leaving?... but we just got here!

Our last entry... we think...

My parents stay in Peru could not have been any better... minus a little stomach bug that we all caught! My dad, being the planner that he is, took care of all the details as far as where we were going, what we were going to see, where we were going to sleep... He had been in contact with Vidal who runs a travel agency out of Cusco and had been recommended by one of my dad's co-workers.

Vidal is the man. plain and simple. He had the hook-up for everything! Everything was planned and was perfect... On all of our daily trips one of the guides that works with Vidal was with us making sure we were all happy and always providing us with information and history. Here is a brief (I have trouble with brief.. ) entry describing what we did while they were visiting! enjoy!

The first couple of days after my parents arrived we spent in Cusco! We walked around the city and viewed the Cathedrals in the plaza.. The Catholic Cathedrals were built on top of Inca Temples when the Spanish invaded... The history of the Spanish invasion is sad story, full of trickery and death... The churches that were built are Catholic but contain a lot art done by Peruvians that includes hints of the Inca culture... such as the dresses that the Virgin statues are wearing are shaped like a pryamid symbolizing a mountain which was one of the God's to the Incas... There is a large painting of "the last supper" in the cathedral and at the center of the table there is a "cuy" or guinea pig which is a celebration food in Peru. (sad I know.. we saw a pen of them at a house and we all wanted to name them.. but Vidal told us he only gives them one name... Crispy)

The next day we drove around the Sacred Valley.. stopping at Chinchero to visit an old church, we went again to the salt platforms... and actually walked through the entire site (even a second time.. it's just so cool!) we went again to Moray... and our guides took us to a deserted church in the middle of nowhere.. and cooked us lunch! Yum! It was incredible... We pushed on towards Ollaytatambo where we walked around the ruins there as the sun was going down.. and stayed at a nice little hotel called Sauce which happens to be one of my family's favorite Norwegian words to make fun of...!

The next morning we were up early to catch the train to Aguas Calientes and to see Machu Picchu! The train was great, we played cards and saw some ruins along the way! Once we got to Aguas we threw our bags in the hotel and quick caught a bus up to the gates of Machu Picchu! Vidal was with us, and did a wonderful job guiding us through the ruins.. even taking to some of his favorite secret spots! My dad was in heaven.. he was inspired and bought a book about the Inca Empire and was happy to contribute to the tour with any other information Vidal forgot to include. When we were up at the sun dial we noticed that across the way on a mountain near by there was a fire! Vidal told us that one of the trails goes along that part.. and that these fires can get pretty out of control especially since they don't have services to fight them! The smoke was pretty heavy.. and made the view of the mountains around Machu Picchu pretty hazy... We continued to walk around the site.. and in the late afternoon we were ready to go back and get some grub!... but not before Nick and I took a little detour with Vidal to an old Inca bridge that was hidden on the backside of the mountain... Back in Aguas we enjoyed our second meal atIndio Feliz and then we found a nice bar to play some cards and enjoy the warm evening!

The next day we had to wait until 1pm for the train to take us back to Cusco.. Soo Nick and I went on a hike to what had been explained to us as "ladders that you can climb up the side of the mountain..." ??? we needed to get a visual.. We made our way to the first ladder.. and sure enough a wooden ladder about 2 feet across shot up further than we could see and climbed the side of the mountain! Holy buckets... Nick decided to climb it .. I decided to stay at the bottom.I wasn't scared.. I just wanted to be sure someone would be there to catch him if he fell. He was out of my sight before too long.. and 30 minutes later I finally saw him again.. carefully working his way down... in the mean time I took the liberty of carving his initials into the mountain! Back in Aguas we were sad to find that my mom was really sick... stomach bug...boo It was a long hot train ride back!!!

That night when we got back to Cusco my parents were pooped and took it easy in the hotel.. Nick and I decided we would get our fix of Ciencianos futbol and went to a game! A very exciting tie... Cusco scored in the stoppage time right at the end.. We went NUTS and looked a little nuts in our gear (Nick acted like the team had just won the world cup).

We had one more day in Cusco just hanging out and went and did our last minute shopping.. unfortunately I wasn't feeling good this day.. and my mom was still not well.. I slept a lot and so did the rest of the gang...

Next, we took a tour bus with our new guide Juan to the city of Puno which is on Lake Titicaca (meaning Puma of the Rock... or Rug as Nick understood), the highest (12,500 ft) navigable lake in the world .. not to mention it's MASSIVE... It borders Peru and Bolivia (about 40% is Bolivia and 60% is Peru) Puno is a pretty large city... and it was interesting because we were so used to all the cars in Cusco but in Puno the majority of people bike around and the taxi's are like tricycles! We took one of the tricycles to the port in the morning before we got on the boats... Nick and I were beating my mom and dad until the chain fell off our bike in the middle of an intersection... we lost.

The lake has a ton of Islands and floating islands that are man made with straw.. very incredible and people live on them in straw huts, they get around in these boats made of straw too! The pictures explain it a little better. On the island we stayed with a host family, Nelly was our Mama for the night and invited us into her home to stay with her and her family. We brought here chocolate to cook with and some fresh fruit as a gift! That day we toured the island, played some soccer, did a few hikes... and at night we dressed up like the locals and danced some local dances (not so easy at 13,000 feet...phew)! We all had a ball! :) It was one of my favorite trips in Peru! Unfortunately, Nick was sick now... and my mom and I were feeling a lot better... you can only be so careful! We didn't know if it was the altitude, because all of us were having headaches.. so we bought cans of Oxygen and were taking "puffs" of that and it seemed to help some! We got back to Puno to spend one more night and in the morning we were planning on taking a train all the way back to Cusco... Thankfully Juan went to the train station with us to check us in... only to find out that the tickets he had bought in Cusco were for a train that was going FROM CUSCO to PUNO... and now there was no room on the train going FROM PUNO to CUSCO... no good. Vidal to the rescue-the van driver that took us to the train station that morning happened to be an old buddy of Vidal and in a matter of 5 minutes Juan had him as our private van driver out in front of the train station ready to drive us the 6 hours back to Cusco. smooth.

Back in Cusco for our last night... :( We spent the afternoon trying to pack up EVERYTHING... we helped the economy in Cusco... with 3 extra checked bags than what we came with with got everything packed... praying we were within the weight limit. We had a really nice dinner with Vidal down by the plaza.. and then went and played our last few games of darts at our favorite bar Norton's Rat... out of 8 or 9 games of darts my parents managed to win 1... who wants to challenge us next?! Nick and I decided to go for one last walk.. through our favorite area San Blas.. there were tears but we reminded ourselves that we have a lot to look forward to at home!

A brief reflection... Nick and I really loved the experience we had in Peru.. It gave us a very different perspective on time and money and what you can do with it.. The most difficult thing we faced was not knowing what was going to happen at Madre Teresa when we left... We just had to keep remembering that we did everything we could while we were there and gave ourselves completely to the children... and be grateful that we were able to do as much as we did in such a short amount of time. We feel so lucky to have met everyone that we did along the way.. and want to thank them for being apart of our experience. We saw and did a lot of incredible things that we will never forgot... it only fueled our desire to do more volunteer work in the future.

Thanks to our family and friends for supporting us while we were in Peru and for your comments on this blog! We had fun writing it and keeping you all updated on life in Peru!

The organization we went through was the Global Volunteer Network and we highly recommend it to anyone that is interesting in a volunteer experience like ours!

HERE IS THE LINK TO OUR PHOTOS! COPY AND PASTE IT...

http://picasaweb.google.com/thom1571/JBBest?authkey=Gv1sRgCJ679e_alNva9AE&feat=directlink

Cheers

cHiLe!cHiLe!

We are back in Cusco, We arrived yesterday afternoon and just spent the day lounging around and trying to get things packed up.... =( sad. It was fun to meet some of the new people in the house, and see our friends!

Today, my parents arrived!!!! (see picture above) We paparazzied them at the airport... We went to the airport at 6:50am to surprise them (we told them we would meet them at the hotel..) They were surprised... and I cried a little. It was so nice to see them! They are really excited to be here and we can't wait to show them around! We went to the hotel, which is amazing and in San Blas one of our favorite areas. Nick and I introduced my parents to some coca tea and we ate a little breakfast! They are feeling fine which is great.. so we have planned to go walk around the plaza today and also take them to see Madre Teresa and meet our little kiddos!!

The rest of our time in Chile was amazing, we went back to Valparaiso for one more night of fun! We made it back from La Serena with enough time to get to the hostal, meet up with our friends and then walk to a local pub to watch a Chile futbol game vs Venezuela!! Chile hasn't made it to the World Cup in over 30 years, and if they won, they were in! But, we tied. Which wasn't so bad because we were losing for a majority of the game... They are not out yet, they still have a pretty good chance in making it into the World Cup.The next day was a little raining.. so we walked around a bit and found a great little pizza place to eat at! After that we went back to the house and just kicked it... In the evening we decided to go for a walk before it got dark out.. we brought along a soccerball with the hopes that we would have enough energy to start up a game! There were 7 of us, and we walked towards the old prison, through this awesome urban playground that had a huge slide that offered a way down to the next street without having to take the stairs.. very cool. The prison was rockin' with the beats of a drum circle that had formed at the entrance, there were kids flying kites, and a jam session going on in one of the buildings... We found a "field" to start a game of soccer!!! It was so much fun, we were getting sweaty... and bloody! (Nick and I were going after the ball and in his attempt to get around me slipped on the grass/concrete sidewalk and scraped his elbow and hand (dripping blood) and ripped a hole in his pantalones... ) I don't know who won.. but we all had a really great time! It was a perfect way to end our time in Valpo... The next day we had a quick breakfast and took off towards the bus station.. we caught a bus to Santiago and off we went!

Santiago... a big and smoggy city.. but still had a lot to offer! We ended up in another really cool hostal, lots of character.. and noise! But in a really great area, Belle Vista. We took it easy the first day, walked down the street to have a quick lunch.. thinking we were just getting the lunch special we ordered... We both laughed thinking the waitress had the wrong table when she presented us with a pot filled with whole potatos, 2 slabs of pork, 2 steaks, 2 chicken breasts, 2 sausage things, and 2 more purple sausage things.. holy buckets, I don't know if a family of 7 could have finished all the food... We did our best.. needless to say there was a lot of leftovers.. hopefully the dogs were able to get some of it. It was cold and nasty out, so we stayed in and enjoyed a bottle of wine and a movie. The next day was a lot nicer, so we took the trolley up to the top of San Cristobol to see the Virgin Mary statue that looks over the city... It was a really gorgeous area, with a great view of the city. We walked down and then just around the city... kind of aimlessly.. just wondering. On our last day in Santiago it was gorgeous outside. We walked up Santa Lucia and read on the benches... we walked through the city again, stopping in a few parks to enjoy the day and read our books! There were 3 soccer games on that day.. so we stopped in one of the pubs to catch England playing.. and then we went back to the pub around 7 to watch Argentina vs Uruguay and then Chile vs Brasil!.. Lots of soccer.. but we loved it! We lost the game, but nonetheless, Chile is still not out of the race for a spot in the World Cup! They are currently ranked 3rd and 4 teams make it, we have given up on Peru making it, they are in last place :( We took a taxi to the airport at midnight (we didnt want to pay for another night in a hostal.. since our flight was at 6am..) so we just slept at the airport!... Back to Peru we went! Adios Chile!

We were really happy that we got the chance to travel to another country in South America during our stay.. Chile was a lot different than Peru and we are glad we got to see it! We saw some wonderful things and got to experience 2 weeks of backpacking together... =)

Take care all!!

Here is the link for the pictures we took in Chile! Check them out!! The link may not work, try to copy and paste...

http://picasaweb.google.com/thom1571/BestOfChile?authkey=Gv1sRgCJ_P1vvYssPJhwE&feat=directlink

Chile

Pucon: we spent 3 nights in Pucon which is a resort town surrounded by 4 volcanos.. one active one! we had the most comfortable hostal ever! We made friends with about 5 stray dogs, one that looked like a stray Kuba.. and they followed us around the entire day.. even waiting outside of the cafes that we went to. It was raining for 2 days.. but we managed a horseback riding trip up to this 80 meter waterfall which was incredible!! My horse and Nick´s horse didnt really get along which was kind of funny... Our last day was beautiful, the sun was shining and we were able to see the Vallarica which is the active volacano... smoke was coming out of the top! We went on a tour of the area which took us to some great locations around pucon, including some hotsprings... where we had to wear swim caps! that night we took a bus to Valapariso..

Valapariso: What a cool city!! There is a really young vibe here and very "artsy". The city is covered in amazing graffiti.. which is not vandalism here. We stayed at a great colorful hostal with some wonderful people!! We took a day to walk around and at night we decided, along with our other housemates, to have a mexican themed food night!!! we cooked and hung out and two of the volunteers at the hostal played music and sang out in the courtyard into the wee hours of the night! We had a beautiful day the next day and spent it walking along one of the main roads that offers some great views down to the port and of all the beautiful colorful houses that make up valpo. We loved the city so much we are going back tonight!! We are going to watch the Chile vs Venezuela game tonight with two people from the hostel that we met.

On friday we took a bus to La Serena, which is a coast town. Our main mission was to make it out to Humbolt Island which is a national park that protects penguins and other sea animals, no one can go on the island. We got up at 8am on friday and took a tour with 7 other people to a town where we got on tiny little motor boats and headed out to sea! it was wild... the waves were huge!!! luckily no one got sea sick! we saw sea lions (so many of them.. they are hilarious) and penguins and lots of sea birds!! we cruised around the island taking pictures and riding the waves... then we headed out further to the otherside of the island where the waves were bigger! it felt like a perfect storm.... well sort of.. it was exciting! within a few minutes of being on the other side 3 or 4 dolphins started jumping up around us.. infront of the boat and on the side!!! it was so cool! they played with our boats for about 25 minutes while we cruised... we continued around to one of the smaller islands and got off the boat and stayed there for about an hour.. just hiking around and enjoying the views!! it felt good to be on land. We hoped back on the boat for a quick trip back to the town we started from.. docked and had a really great seafood lunch!! It was a really awesome tour! we got back to la serena around 630 and just got some cheese wine and bread at a local market and had a nice evening in playing cards and meeting some of the other guests at the hostal!

Today (the 5th) we are about to get on a bus back to Valpo! we will spend the night there and then tomorrow we are heading to Santiago. We are hoping to go to a vineyard and also do some skiing and one of the resorts.. we have heard it´s a great time to hit the slopes!

in about 5 days we will be back in Cusco... and my parents arrive the next morning! we are really looking forward to having them in Cusco and to show them around!!!

we hope all is well!!!

LOVE