Megan (Miraflor) Stephanie, Katie, Carmen, Isabel, Francisco, & I are ready to board a plane for Peru.
We're on our way!
Parque del amor (Love Park) in Lima.
Katie, Carmen, Isabel, me, Francisco, Stephanie, & Megan in front of lookalike Gaudi benches.
Overlooking the Pacific Ocean
Blowing kisses from Love Park
I almost broke my neck for this pose!
This woman was walking in traffic trying to sell coca leaves.
This chair is in a monastery in Lima. Family (& friends) sit in this chair to pray for leniency before their relative goes before the judge to be sentenced.
A wall in the monastery in Lima is tiles made in Sevilla, Spain in 1606. A wealthy family ordered the tiles. 
This street of booths is part of the post office in Lima. They sell stamps & posters.
Lima, Peru
Katie makes friends everywhere she goes.
Katie posing with palace guards.
This church looks alot like the one that Emily & Luis were married in in Guatemala.
These beautiful flowers are called "angels trumpets."
One of our meals - white fish with a spinach sauce on top of mashed potatoes. Good eating!
Purple corn & a drink they make with the boiled corn & lime juice. Not real tasty (but free!)
This photo is for Chelse - Do It!
Coca products are supposed to help with altitude sickness - they put coca in everything! And they even chew the dried leaves by themselves.
This quartet greeted us at the airport in Lima.
These ladies were in the airport parking lot selling their chullas (hats)
The view from our hotel in Cuzco.
Room service in Cuzco. We had bowls of delicious chicken noodle soup delivered.
I bought Jerry a new hat in Cuzco! It will be perfect for boating or mowing - no sun on his face, ears or the back of his neck!
This is a common site around the landmarks - women, children wanting you to hold their lambs for a picture & then pay them 1 sol (about 33 cents)
Looking out a window at our hotel in Cuzco.
A cathedral in Cuzco.
As the Peruvians call it "Sexy Woman." It's an Incan ruin.
Katie, Carmen, & Isabel at Sacsaywaman.
We shopped at this store for alpaca products. The proceeds, split evenly, help several different communities.
Unfortunately, we didn't purchase these attractive hats.
Our entertainment during dinner in Cuzco.
Edwin (below) worked at our hotel during the day & his cousin ran a print shop. He offered to bring tshirts to our room. We spread the word & many from our group came to shop.
Katie & Edwin. One night when she was sick, he brought an extra heater & blankets to our room. He also brought her a large doll in appreciation for getting so many together to buy from him.
Some of the scenery on the way to Macchu Pichu.
Shopping fever! We were wheelin' & dealin'!
A good bargain!
A normal road in a small village in the country. Notice the water channel running at the base of the rock wall. 
This bathroom was built in the side of a mountain.
Lookin' pretty peppy before the climb to the top!
Taking a break in a "closet."
Looking down over the village from the top of the ruin.
At most of the mountain ruins, there are medicos available to get free oxygen because of the high altitude. Although Katie wasn't suffering, she thought this was a perfect opportunity to teach her students about it.
This is her feeling "muy mal" (very bad!)
Ahhh - finally feeling the rush of oxygen!
Many homes in the villages have these symbols attached to their roofs. The crosses keep evil from the homes, while the bulls promote fertility.
The red flag on homes indicates that corn beer is brewed there & can be purchased. It's brewed from the purple corn that is grown there.
Notice the llama in the background. We ate lunch on these grounds.
A cuyeria is the factory where they slaughter & prepare the guinea pigs for market.
The morning mist rising off a lake in the countryside.
Our guide, Ralph Moser. (His father is German & mother is Peruvian.) Ralph is checking out the choclo con queso. (Basically, field corn w/ a slice of cheese beside it - actually very tasty)
Cynthia - joined us 2 days late in Cuzco. On the morning we left, she couldn't find her passport.
We actually made it to the top of Macchu Pichu. There were a million stone steps & high altitude. MP is the only ruin that is at least 70% intact. There were approximately 700 people living there when it was an active city.
Oh, yeah - good to be on top!
Isabel, Francisco, Cynthia, Carmen, Miraflor & Stephanie.
Katie & I enjoyed alpaca, french fries, and grilled veggies. Alpaca tasted just like lean steak - yummy! We did learn that you can't eat llama - it will cause seizures!
Katie took a couple passion fruit & a bunch of bananas from a buffet.
My first taste of passion fruit. Like sucking slimy eggwhites with seeds.
Katie really did try it! 
The river at Aguas Calientes near Macchu Pichu.
These sweet little girls were selling finger puppets. The youngest is 3 years old.
The best worst massages we've ever had. We paid $10 for an hour & worried the whole time that they'd steal our clothes! There were crosses cut in the blankets to put our faces in - I watched my hip pack the whole time - I had it snapped around the table leg.
Our massage therapists. Their "shop" was in a little aisle deep inside the flea market. 
Moochies with the cuy!
When you order a cuy, they bring it to your table intact. After you take pictures & look him over, they take it back & carve it up to eat.
This is cuy (guinea pig) - a national "treat" in Peru. (I really think they just deep fry a rat & serve it to Americans for $20 each!) Notice the pepper in its mouth. Cuy is very highly regarded as a food, it has been a delicacy in the Andres for over a thousand years and Cuzco painters included cuy at the Last Supper in the large canvas hanging in the cathedral there!
Notice the teeth on this baby!
I really did try the cuy! Katie & I took 6 students to Peru for 9 days in July 2009. We met up with a group of 23 from Nevada & 3 from Baltimore. Aside from having incredibly bad luck with our flights (every single one was delayed or cancelled & we spent hours in airports) we had a fantastic trip.
Lima is like any other city of 9 million people with 1 million vehicles - crazy! We enjoyed sightseeing there along with some great food.
We moved on to Cuzco. It's a much smaller town than Lima & much more to my liking. The views were stunning & the people everywhere were very courteous. One evening our tour guide, Carlos, hooked me up with a shaman. A shaman is someone that has been struck by lightening & is said to have special powers. Umberto asked for my name, birthdate, street name & the nearest mountain. Peruvians believe that mountains have spirits that can help you. Of course if you live in IL, I was kinda hard-pressed to come up with a mountain. (I finally said East Peoria!) He read the coca leaves & gave me lots of information - some of it was very far-fetched & some of it was amazingly insightful. When I told him that I take sleeping pills, he said that was very, very bad for me. His recipe??? Get fresh milk from a cow, add some aloe & honey and I will sleep like a dead donkey! As soon as I hook up with a cow, I'll let you know how it goes!
Katie did get sick one day - we missed the white water rafting. (OK, I admit it - I didn't really miss it very much!) After some antibiotics, she was raring to go again.
On the day we left Lima, the bus drivers were having a strike. The government had raised fares 400% & they had a planned protest for one day. Traffic was horrific that day but they ended their strike at 5 pm. Very strange.
We had a very memorable trip to Peru. If any one is thinking about going, DO IT!
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