For those of you who don't know...that is my favorite saying as of late.
Why, you might ask? Lots of reasons. I have a pretty darn good life, but the past 6 months have been particularly fun. Just look at my passport. In August Brian took me to Paris for a week for my 40th birthday. October found us drinking margaritas by the pool in Los Cabos, Mexico. If you've been to our blog before you know that I loved Vietnam. Now I'm recently returned from Peru.
Life has settled down enough for me to take a second and tell all of you how amazing my last trip was!
I was lucky enough to be able to fly down to Lima Peru to visit my friend Ann who has been living there with her family for the past two and a half years.
To be honest with you, Peru was not on my short list of places that I'd like to visit, I was really just going to see my friend. Imagine my surprise when I realized that Peru is an amazing country. I am already planning a trip back with Brian and the boys. (I'd like us all to hike the Inca Trail!)
To give you an idea of how much I loved Peru, I took 200 pictures in three days! Every couple of steps I'd look up and say, "wow, that's the prettiest thing I've ever seen, I better take a picture of it!" Or , "Hey, take a picture of me in front of this...fill in the blank... no one will believe that I was somewhere this beautiful!" You get the gist, A-MAZ-IN-G! (if you have seen the move Ron Burgundy you'd get that reference, sue me it's snowing again and I'm easily amused.)
I flew into Lima where Ann picked me up. Lima is a big, dirty, crazy city but Ann and her husband live in a lovely part of it. Ann's brother, Rob was down there visiting as well. We left her kids with her wonderful husband and the three of us caught a flight to Cusco.
From Cusco we drove through the Sacred Valley. This may sound funny, but I've never smelled air like that before. It smelled green. As we drove along I had my face out the window like a dog, just breathing it all in. We hit a llama farm and a local market all before lunch.
After a wonderful meal our driver, Jose, took us to Moray.
Moray is believed to be where the Inca's experimented with agriculture. It has huge circles terraced upon each other going down into a valley. The terraces had stones sticking out the sides for steps and channels for the water to run down. As we stood at the center of the circles and looked up, we all felt like we were at the center of the universe, the energy was amazing.
The next morning we were up bright and early to take the train to Aquas Caliente. The town at the base of Machu Picchu. It was a rainy day so we stayed in town, shopped and hit the Aquas Caliente (medicinal hot water pools) that the town is named for.
We woke up the next morning to pouring rain. Determined that we weren't going to let that stop us we bounded out of bed and caught the 6:00am bus up the mountain to Machu Picchu. Through the mist and rain we saw what we could of a guided tour through the ruins. By the time the tour was over the sun was peaking through.
Next on the agenda was whether or not to climb Waynapicchu. It's the mountain behind Machu Picchu that you see in all the pictures. It's not an easy climb. People have died. Seriously, slipped or been struck by lightening and died. After an animated discussion of the pros and cons of climbing Waynapicchu, we decided that if an 80 year old man from Japan could make it, so could we. About half way up we were rethinking our decision. Never the less, we soldiered on.
It was so very worth the climb. The view from the top was breathtaking. The clouds moved in and out making me feel like we were afforded our view from heaven. Corny, I know, but it was the honestly one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen. The pictures I took don't do it a bit of justice.
After making it back down Waynapicchu, even though our legs were shaking, we hiked over to the Inca Bridge. By the time we got back it was time to catch the bus back down to Aquas Caliente. There we had just enough time to have a bite to eat, grab our bags and catch the train out of town. From there it was a two and a half hour cab drive back to Cusco. We were beat but forced ourselves out the door to the bar next door to toast ourselves. We were, after all rock stars. :)
Needless to say, it was a wonderful trip. I'm so grateful to my friend Ann for hosting me, her husband Rob for being so great about us ditching him and the kids, and her brother Rob, who is definitely in the running for best sport of the year for bunking with the two of us. And, of course, husband of the year...big Brian for coughing up the miles for yet another destination for me that left him home with the boys.
It was a once in a lifetime trip.
Here's hoping that all of you have as much fun in the next 6 months of your life as I've had in the past 6 months of mine!
Happy travels,
peace-
Sandy
Why, you might ask? Lots of reasons. I have a pretty darn good life, but the past 6 months have been particularly fun. Just look at my passport. In August Brian took me to Paris for a week for my 40th birthday. October found us drinking margaritas by the pool in Los Cabos, Mexico. If you've been to our blog before you know that I loved Vietnam. Now I'm recently returned from Peru.
Life has settled down enough for me to take a second and tell all of you how amazing my last trip was!
I was lucky enough to be able to fly down to Lima Peru to visit my friend Ann who has been living there with her family for the past two and a half years.
To be honest with you, Peru was not on my short list of places that I'd like to visit, I was really just going to see my friend. Imagine my surprise when I realized that Peru is an amazing country. I am already planning a trip back with Brian and the boys. (I'd like us all to hike the Inca Trail!)
To give you an idea of how much I loved Peru, I took 200 pictures in three days! Every couple of steps I'd look up and say, "wow, that's the prettiest thing I've ever seen, I better take a picture of it!" Or , "Hey, take a picture of me in front of this...fill in the blank... no one will believe that I was somewhere this beautiful!" You get the gist, A-MAZ-IN-G! (if you have seen the move Ron Burgundy you'd get that reference, sue me it's snowing again and I'm easily amused.)
I flew into Lima where Ann picked me up. Lima is a big, dirty, crazy city but Ann and her husband live in a lovely part of it. Ann's brother, Rob was down there visiting as well. We left her kids with her wonderful husband and the three of us caught a flight to Cusco.
From Cusco we drove through the Sacred Valley. This may sound funny, but I've never smelled air like that before. It smelled green. As we drove along I had my face out the window like a dog, just breathing it all in. We hit a llama farm and a local market all before lunch.
After a wonderful meal our driver, Jose, took us to Moray.
Moray is believed to be where the Inca's experimented with agriculture. It has huge circles terraced upon each other going down into a valley. The terraces had stones sticking out the sides for steps and channels for the water to run down. As we stood at the center of the circles and looked up, we all felt like we were at the center of the universe, the energy was amazing.
The next morning we were up bright and early to take the train to Aquas Caliente. The town at the base of Machu Picchu. It was a rainy day so we stayed in town, shopped and hit the Aquas Caliente (medicinal hot water pools) that the town is named for.
We woke up the next morning to pouring rain. Determined that we weren't going to let that stop us we bounded out of bed and caught the 6:00am bus up the mountain to Machu Picchu. Through the mist and rain we saw what we could of a guided tour through the ruins. By the time the tour was over the sun was peaking through.
Next on the agenda was whether or not to climb Waynapicchu. It's the mountain behind Machu Picchu that you see in all the pictures. It's not an easy climb. People have died. Seriously, slipped or been struck by lightening and died. After an animated discussion of the pros and cons of climbing Waynapicchu, we decided that if an 80 year old man from Japan could make it, so could we. About half way up we were rethinking our decision. Never the less, we soldiered on.
It was so very worth the climb. The view from the top was breathtaking. The clouds moved in and out making me feel like we were afforded our view from heaven. Corny, I know, but it was the honestly one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen. The pictures I took don't do it a bit of justice.
After making it back down Waynapicchu, even though our legs were shaking, we hiked over to the Inca Bridge. By the time we got back it was time to catch the bus back down to Aquas Caliente. There we had just enough time to have a bite to eat, grab our bags and catch the train out of town. From there it was a two and a half hour cab drive back to Cusco. We were beat but forced ourselves out the door to the bar next door to toast ourselves. We were, after all rock stars. :)
Needless to say, it was a wonderful trip. I'm so grateful to my friend Ann for hosting me, her husband Rob for being so great about us ditching him and the kids, and her brother Rob, who is definitely in the running for best sport of the year for bunking with the two of us. And, of course, husband of the year...big Brian for coughing up the miles for yet another destination for me that left him home with the boys.
It was a once in a lifetime trip.
Here's hoping that all of you have as much fun in the next 6 months of your life as I've had in the past 6 months of mine!
Happy travels,
peace-
Sandy
