Lima to Cusco and HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LACY!!

Happy to report that Katie and I made it safe and sound to Cusco! We had a really really outrageously early flight this morning (5:45AM!) up to the beautiful mountian town. We´ve settled into our hostel and took a mid morning stroll through the food markets. I took quite a lot of pictures which I will post later. The food markets always are strange to me. Usually they have the standard fruits, veggies, rice, spices, etc all nicely stacked up in little disply pyramides. This food market was no different. Then you get to the meat section.... that part usually makes me squirmish. The smell alone starts to get to me after a while (and yes, I actually can smell something... I don´t know what it is but I don´t like it!!) At this particular market there were full chickens, feet and all along with guinea pigs, cuts of meat I couldn´t identify, and some animal heads. Neither of us were really sure if they were lame, llama, alpaca or what, but they were little animal heads just waiting to be bought. That was a bit excessive for me personally. I understand it is a cultural thing and it is great they are not wasting any part of the animal, I´m also glad that I have a choice in eating it.



Tomorrow Katie and I are heading to Aguas Calientes which begins our trip to Machu Picchu. The next few mornings are all going to be really early so we are already trying to sleep as much as possible. We need to get up at like 4AM to get to MP early enough to get tickets to the top of the mountain. This also requires us to hike a bit, about 1.5-2 hours up to the entrance to MP. This in inself is not an issue, however; at elevation we are a bit worried. We already feel a little drained and we´ve only been here for 4 hours!!



I´m not sure what the internet situation will be for the next few days so we maybe a bit out of communication for a while. If that is the case I didn´t want to forget to wish one amazing Lacy Morris a very Happy Birthday tomorrow!

Quick update on day 3

This is going to be really fast as the keyboard I am typing on gets really unhappy with the letter ´e´ and that is really annoying....

Katie bought an awesome hat at a craft fair!!

I then found the same hat in a museum.... Katie - the Incas want their hat back...

Katie accedentally bought Inca Kola again... she was devistated when the bottle came out.

We are off to Cuzco tomorrow to start our journey to Machu Picchu!! we both are very excited yet a bit nervous about the altitude sickness possibility. It is a good thing we can find coco tea up there :) don´t worry, it won´t make us high.... just not as sick according to the LP.

Sorry for the short post - this keyboard is going out a window soon!!!

Day 2 in Lima

Here are some more photos! Sadly we will not be able to go paragliding as there is some issues with gliding off the cliffs in Lima. Details were few to come across, but we´ll look to do it somewhere else or maybe before we fly out on Friday next week.

At our little breakfast spot outside our hostel

Katie and I on the top of our tour bus about to head out around Lima

Some Inca Ruins of sort - we didn´t really understand what the guide was saying about them or why they are famous... but we felt cultured seeing them!!

Catholic church in downtown Lima. I learned that Peru is something lik 70% Catholic, which would explain the multitude of cathedrial style churches

A beautiful, semi-normal balcony view

Inka Kola - our story:

We read in the Lonely Planet (LP) that the resident favorite cola is Inka Kola, a bubble gum flavored nuclear yellow beverage. Clearly Katie and I had to try it... here is our experience.

The charming bottle - yellow as described

Now for the initial tasting...

Looking very anxious - the unknown is so thrilling!

Clearly not a favorite

Perhaps it is an aquired taste....

We will not be trying this again. However, I do believe we will be consuming copious amounts of churros filled with dulce de leche, a street food treat we tried today as well. YUMMMM

Here are a few photos from our first day´s adventures!!! As promised - MONKEY BAR PICS!!

Look at me rock those monkey bars

Katie struggled a bit more....

Parallel bars!! Look for me at the 2012 Olympics!

Katie in the fountain - this was probably our fav.

Yay for the arch fountain!

In front of our other fav - the pyrimad fountain!

The Next Adventure begins! - PERU!

Katie and I are on our third grand adventure together! We landed safely in Lima, Peru very, very early this morning coming straight from JFK in NYC. We had enough forethought to plan where we wanted to stay and arranged a taxi to be waiting for us - it worked wonderfully!

We are staying at a very cute hostel called Flying Dog. The basic agenda is:
Thursday 5/27 - Sunday 5/29 in Lima
Flying to Cusco at the crack of dawn on Monday 5/30 - day in Cusco
Tuesday 5/31 - train to Aguas Calientes and the base of Macchu Pichu
Wednesday 6/1 - up super early to hike to Macchu Pichu and explore (7pm train to Cusco)
Tuesday 6/2-6/4 - Cusco exploring everywhere
Friday 6/4 - fly to Lima, few hours in Lima, Fly to JFK for an 8:45 AM arrival on 6/5.

I personally am hoping to enjoy a lot of ceviche and Katie is all about trying the guinea pig. We both want to go paragliding and are pretty excited for the water fountain gardens as well.

So far , all is well. Pictures to come soon! I can´t let you all miss out on Katie and I tackeling the Monkey Bars!!!