Travelling on the local bus system is the best way to experience the every day Peruvian person's life – how they engage in commerce, parenting, going to school, driving, getting around, etc. And what they smell like when collectively jammed together (18 people in a small van)! And, because collectivos and buses usually wait until they are full, and I mean FULL, one can end up sitting and watching life happen for long stretches of time. Many people take tou...

The Incas couldn't have had bad knees. They must have been a very mighty people to have built all these structures, worked and lived amongst them and fought to protect them as well as conquer other groups of people. We are in awe. Before we came here we saw pictures and watched some videos and none of those enabled us to understand what we now have experienced. As I write this blog entry I am sitting on a rooftop deck of the hostal in which we are staying. I am...

I love trains! We took a train up to Aguas Caliente from Cusco and saw amazing vistas. We stayed the night there and unfortunately got some wicked bites on our lower legs that had both Jim and I in a scratching frenzy. It seems like there are so few places in the world where one can escape some type of biting, itch-inducing and indeed very annoying bug! In order to enter Machu Picchu before the masses of tourists arrived and to see the sun rise above the surrou...

The funniest thing happened after our last post when I was whinging… We got up at 4:45am to make a hasty trip to the Piura, Peru airport. The Taca website instructions were to be at the airport 3 hours prior to our domestic flight. Really?! We figured 2.5 hours would be fine so we arrived at 5:30. Much to our chagrin, the gates to the airport complex didn't even open until 6:00 so we had to wait on the street. We boarded our plane late at about 8:30, settl...