Finally getting to Peru and the Sacred Valley

Ok, I'm all set to start posting some pictures from Peru. We took off from Seattle a Tuesday morning and went to Houston, had lunch, and then we were off to Lima. After a night of card games in the airport we flew over to Cuzco, the former capital of the Inca Empire and still home to some of the freshest air on Earth. We were picked up by Stephen's Abuelo and taken to his home in the heart of the Sacred Valley.

Abuelo has a little farm and a lot of land in there next to a pueblo called Lamay. The farm was called La Ponderosa. We stayed here for a few days.

We had the fine company of Abuelo's dogs, Oso and Tintan. I think Tintan suffered from anxiety attacks. That and the crazies.

Abuelo has hopes to expand his home and create a sweet getaway for his family. This is his backyard. I'd say he definitely has room for growth.

While staying here we visited all over the Sacred Valley. There are lots of little cities here and there. I'll touch on some of the specifics (including ruins, thermal baths, and pueblo parties) in other posts. We hit up the Pisac market where they have more chullos (Peruvian hats) than you could ever dream of and also some orange with fruit that looks like boogers (its really not that bad).

We went to church in Urubamba (one of my brother's former branches where he served his mission) where the kids easily out number the adults at least 3 to 1. A missionary that was finishing was there with his family so the total norteamericano count was pretty high too. The family brought byu t-shirts for everyone. After shaking my fist at the family and shaming them I told the Peruvians that the shirts were rags for cleaning their backside.

And of course we made a few ventures into Cuzco. Here is a view of pretty much the whole city.

We saw this view from Cuzco's very own Cristo Blanco. While not as big as the one in Rio de Janeiro I am going to go ahead and count it as equally neat making me even that much more unlikely to visit Rio.

We visited the Plaza de Armas and the main Catedral of the city.

The Inca style architecture is all over. By that I mean there are really big stones everywhere. They are all packed pretty tightly. Even if they have 12 angles like this one. I was pretty impressed till I went to Machu Pichu and found some stones with like 40 angles on it.

We ate super well in Cuzco, but oddly enough never here or there.

It was so great to be back in South America and just pass the time eating great food, chatting it up in Spanish, seeing some amazing things and recieving the great latino hospitality. Plenty more to come.