What the Blog?

For lunch, we stopped at this beautiful restaurant and were treated to the best buffet.  Then we got back on the bus and headed to Ollataytambo. 

Phil was excited to see the face in the mountain.  This stop, I did more kid wrangling and taking pictures, while Phil did more listening and exploring. The kids and I decided not to try climbing to the top with Phil, but instead went and looked at Llamas and the water temple. 

Pisaq was our first stop.  And it was here that Phil and I realized, we would have to google the locations we visited.  After being so patient sitting on the bus, the kids were in no mood to stay close to the tour guide.  So what you see, is what our visit was like.  A lot of running, climbing, exploring and Mom making people take pictures. Mark was losing his cool and finally communicated he was too hot.  We stripped him down to undershirt and boxers and he was good to go.

This one was not happy about being woken up early.  Too funny. You can't really tell, but on the table behind Mary there is a green can, looks a bit like a hairspray can.  That was our can of oxygen.  I wish I would have taken a picture. 

Breakfast was tricky.  They served two varieties of fruit that didn't have much flavor, some sliced ham and stale rolls.  My kids were troopers and ate the ham and rolls.

We got on a bus with seven other tourists.  Two from Australia, five more from Germany.  We began our tour of the sacred valley.  After about a half-hour on the bus we stopped at this market to get souvenirs.  This poor girl in the picture.  It was so hot and she stood there waiting for tourists to come and pay to take her picture.  She didn't change her expression the whole time we were there. 

Paul immediately spotted these black jaguar statues and knew they were what he wanted to take home to give to his cousin Porter.  He also chose one for himself.

Mary spent most of the stop collecting/throwing rocks.  

Vera chose the fluffiest llama in the world. "It's so fluffy, I'm going to die!"

Emma with her sophisticated llama. 

We arrived in Cusco in the afternoon.  We got our room.  While I was unpacking, I began to feel really lightheaded.  Phil had been in Cusco in March and got altitude sickness.  Since we were wary of this happening again, Phil was awesome and took over setting up.  I immediately got in bed with Mary and we slept for three hours.  When I woke up, I felt fine. It was 5 pm by then and we knew daylight was burning.  We hurried to get out and explore.  The roads in Cusco are very narrow, and you have to walk on these curbs/sidewalks, sometimes pressing yourself against the wall as a car approaches.  It was an adventure to walk to the main square with all the kids in single file. 

This can not be stated enough, I am so grateful Phil was great about holding Mary everywhere. Exhausting!

While we were walking to the square, we got ambushed by this group.  Before we knew what was happening, they had handed Vera this baby Llama.  We agreed on a price and I quickly tried to snap some pics.  It was all of five minutes.  Crazy.

I love this one of Vera, but I wish I was better prepared, I had my f/stop too low to capture all the details. Oh well!

We had time, so we explored the cathedral behind us. AMAZING!! the kids were so enthralled.  They had so many qustions and loved finding the crypt and the secret passage to the bell tower. 

Then we walked and found this great restaurant that served pizzas and pasta. It had this amazing balconies that looked over the square.