After a night in Quito our next stop was the Galapagos islands. For the next ten days we would be joined by the whole Hundman family, Kyle Hundman´s friend, Sarah and Jenny´s Mom, so we are now traveling as a group of nine. (Minus the fact that a few of the Hundmans missed their flight due to weather, spent a night in Miami and then Guayaquil before speed boating to catch up to our cruise). So for our 5 days in the Galapagos we all stayed on the Santa Cruz boat so that we could get farther out into the islands and did not have to go back to the main town every day. The cruise was very nice and well run, and more importantly our tour guide Socrates was amazing. We actually found out he was our age, which was crazy! But he was a lot of fun. Randomly too but half the boat was filled with a high school group from Chicago, Il! So the pictures on the Galapagos will explain the trip best so we will just point out a few of the highlights. Basically every day we would go to two different islands, one in the morning one in the afternoon (we never sleep anymore, wake up calls at 5am are a regular occurance). So each day we did various hikes, swimming and snorkeling. It was really interesting because all of the islands have such different looks to them it feels like you are in a different country on every island. They are all volcanic created islands so some have red sand, some black sand and some regular. There are also weird trees and cacti, etc etc. While there we saw lots of the famous land iguanas (the yellow ones), marine iguanas (the black ones), blue footed boobies (the birds with blue feet found only in the galapagos), lava lizards, Galapagos snakes, peguins, fish and starfish, and lots of other birds we failed to learn all the names of (we struggled to pay attention bird after bird). There was also bird which was all black but the males had a huge sack bulging from their necks - from far away it looked like a red balloon attached to a mysterious flying black object! We also saw tons of seals on a daily basis but it was so much cooler than at home because you could get right next to them. None of the animals fear humans because they have never been hunted, so they did not mind you walking right up to them. It was also mating season so we got to see lots of baby seals (one was three days old!), and boobies doing their famous mating dance and guarding their eggs. Our favorite part was the snorkeling. The first time we snorkeled we saw the usual fish etc, but we also got pretty close to a grouping of three sharks and swam right with a young seal. It was so cute and so crazy to be so close to it, check out the video. The second time we snorkeled it was for experienced snorkelers and the goal was to see manta rays. Kyle Hundman convinced Sarah to go even though she had never been snorkeling but it was so rough she spent most of the time on the little boat out there with us. We got to see two huge manta rays (Kyle described them as being as big as a king size bed, they were crazy), and we got to follow one and stay pretty close to it, it was amazing! Our last night on the boat there was live music and dancing, Anita Waxberg was quite the dancer. We actually managed to stay up later for one night and the captain of the boats daughter taught Jenny and Lauren some salsa dancing moves, it was quite the show. Another one of the tour guides Sam, also offered to pay for Lauren to fly back to the Galapagos to teach English, he even tried to get her number. Socrates also brought out his computer and some of the higher schooler tried to teach the soldier boy dance , it was quite the evening. We were all very sad to leave, we got used to living on the rocking boat, the great food and had made friends with a lot of the fellow travelers and the crew. On a side note, there is a super cool vide of a baby seal that swam right up to Jenny so definitely check it out. Don't mind the fact that she is freaking out just a bit in the background, it was screams of excitement muffled with a bit of fear. It's amazing!

Next we were off to Cusco to go see Machu Pichu with the whole group! It did, however, take a few days to get rid of the rocking/swaying feeling of the boat, some of us are still suffering from it.

There are several different trails that people take to get to Macchu Picchu. The most difficult one by far is the famous Inca trail, a 4 day hike through the mountains where porters carry all your stuff for you, in order to get to the top. We opted for a less strenuous method which involved a 3 hour train ride followed by a short bus ride. The ruins at Macchu Picchu were amazing - literally huge rocks some left their by the Incans and some carved by hand - were used to build the most amazing structures. We saw remains of water canals lining the sides of the paths, the kings chambers, meditation rooms, slaves quarters, everything. The only missing element were the bathrooms, apparently scientists have discovered limited evidence to indicate what kind of toilet facilities the Incas had. Its absolutely unvelievable how well preserved most of these structures are. Rocks were perfectly lined up, each rock was carved in exactly the same size, same angles - the Incas are definitely perfectionists and Macchu Picchu is definitely worth the visit.

Also quick note...we added some pictures of us dressed in Peruvian clothing to the Huancayo albums, definitely worth checking out!

This is our last afternoon in Lima where we will be visiting Mira Flores - the nicer (or Gringo part of town as the locals call it. Gringo is the term for white folk in Peru) for quick lunch and stroll. Tomorrow we are off to Hong Kong while everyone else flies back to the US. Love you all, thanks for checking in!

Renee - Once again, Feliz compleanos from all of us here in Lima! Sorry we are late. We miss your cynicism very much, we definitely need some Eliah humor in our lives. Hope you had a fantastic 22nd birthday. Love you!