Peru Day 8-White Water Rafting in the Sacred Valley

We pulled out of the home stay this morning and decended overy 1500m down in to the valley to go white water rafting.

 During the rainy season this river is a level 5 out of 5. Today it i's a level 3. Yeah, I'm down with that!

We hit the water with very little previous experience and a bit lot of fear in our hearts.

 We did 45 minutes of easy rafting to get used to not drowning.

 The second 45 minutes consisted of trying in earnest not to drown. We did one level 3 rapid and some level 2s. It was a tremendous amount of fun!

After rafting we checked in to our newest hotel and grabbed some lunch. I was so thrilled to be able to easily order ketogenic food again.

It was quite difficult for me to eat up in the mountains as their traditional foods include a lot of potatoes, quinoa, rice and carrots. I was glad to have come prepared with a lot of my own food.

As we left lunch we saw 2 bulls being guided through the street...as you do of course.

I will be honest with you, dear readers, for a quick moment. We got and stayed dirty in the mountains. The showers were the only place that hot water could be found, but they were located in a tiny hut outside. So even thoughthe water itself was warm, the air surrounding said water and said naked flesh was somewhere between -5 and about 9. Nope. Hard nope.

So Dave was the only one ofthe 7 of us who showered and we all just collectively accepted that this is how it was going to go. It will come as no surprise that I hit the shower almost instantly after lunch.  The white face cloth that I used came up grey!!! There was a lot of dust on that mountain.

We spent the afternoon wandering around the local market. It was mostly the same stuff we've been seeing everywhere else. We stumbled in to a chocolate museum and learned about chocolate while sampling the end product.

Dave is getting really good at Spanish. For those moments when the 20 words/phrases he knows don't serve our purposes we use Google translate. Here the clerk at the museum is typing in her answer to Dave's question. Technology is grand!

We are packing tonight for our morning journey to Macchu Picchu. That's right! Tomorrow is the big day!!!

Day 7- Second day in Mismanay

Today we were in for a bit of surprise.  Our listed activities included 'tree planting and a short walk to a viewpoint'. We should have known better when our tools included not only baby trees and shovels,  by also pick axes. Pick axes with Peruvian length handles...not built for the WB family's stature.

We headed down to a small field with our tools in hand,  only to find that we weren't planting the trees in the soft,  smooth field,  but rather the hardened,  rocky border to the roadway. They showed us how to dig into the unforgiving 'soil' to get started. The work was significantly harder than anticipated.  In this instance it would seem that the size of the tools one was working with did, in fact, matter.

The boys eagerly added fertilizer and water that had been carried in large buckets by the women, including the 72 year-old eldest host lady.

All-in-all we planted out two dozen or so trees in the hour and a half that we toiled in the warm,  bright sun. It seems that this was not enough for our hosts.

The clincher though was when they asked after lunch if any of us wanted to come back to plant the rest. After holding back a chuckle,  we let them know that we were on holiday and we're much more interested in a brief siesta followed by the walk to the lookout.

The change in elevation made even a few hundred meters a challenge. Deep breaths and open chests made the climb easier. We were greeted with a stunning view of the surrounding mountains and the gorgeous valley down below.

On our return we came across a French tour group who complimented Saje on the quality of her French (no Canadian accent)!

Look! We just climbed that!!

After some dancing and stories around the campfire,  where the entire W clan joined in and towered over their dancing partners,  we retired for the night under a blanket of stars (including the Southern Cross!).

 Apparently the local packs of dogs and the neighbourhood donkey didn't get the memo that it was sleep time as they howled and brayed throughout the night

Peru Day 6-Mismanay

When we left NZ I really felt like we wouldn't be seeing the southern cross again for a very long time. It made me sad.

We have been in major cities for our entire time in Peru. Cities bigger and busier than any I have ever seen in my life. Where the advice to get used to the elevation is to take deep breaths to give your body more oxygen, but you're convinced that you may be taking in more carbon monoxide than anything else really.

Today we took a mini coach and then a hike to a rural village called Mismanay. You can get here by mini coach we just chose to hike because we have lost some brain cells due to carbon monoxide and were not given all of the proper facts coming in, we didn't listen properly.

They fed us and then brought us out in a field to teach us to plow. They explained their ways of communal living and the sharing of helping hands. Watching 3 western boys be utterly unable to pull off collaboration and team work, despite coaching from adults. I am a failure as a parent, pisco sour samples be damned.

We then got to see the ladies make dye and yarn and then dye it. It turns out that this is just one other area that separates me from my female Peruvian counterparts. We were already struggling in the face of my stature, pasty white skin and inability to speak Spanish. We are now faced with the fact that I am about equal division of labour and having some time in the day spent comfortably on my backside.

The ladies gave us these friendship bracelets as a gift.

The village itself is absolutely beautiful as are the people. The village is also cold AF with no real heat source. Other factors working against it include the fact that we are at an even higher elevation than before (we are now over 4000m). Surprisingly, we are all coping well with that.

The door to our room is an indication of one of the reasons why my immigration application will summarily be declined. Both Dave and I just about ended up flat on our backs with birds flying around our heads when we rang our bells off it the first time attempting to cross it's threshold.

Tonight we are sleeping high up in the mountains with hot water bottles in our beds. The stars in the sky are amazing. Hello again Southern cross. It's so good to see you again.

P.S. a baby donkey is called a burrito. Life. Changed

.

A word on Peruvian plumbing

The plumbing is sensitive. As in, you can flush a single sheet of one ply toilet paper in some locations (such as our air bnb in Lima). Most of the rando washrooms we've visited in tourist locations have solved this issue by simply not providing toilet paper.

As with any washroom there are criteria that you look for to distinguish the caliber of the facilities.

1-a toilet seat. I shit you not, at least 3/4 of the facilities we have frequented have not had this option. My squat game, luckily, is strong

2-toilet paper. This one is an acceptable option as it is something much easier than the first criteria to provide on my own. Usually if there is no toilet seat, expect that there will be no toilet paper either.

3-soap. This one I can easily overcome with hand sanitizer (thank you Jesus for the fine people at the purel corporation). This reminded us of other rando bathrooms in Australia.

4-light. A nice option to have, but not required. I've owned these same parts for closing in 4 decades and I'm familiar enough with them to use them with ease without being able to see what I am doing.

5- ventilation. Spin the big wheel. Sometimes you get it. Other times not so much. When you do have ventilation,  it can be more of a blessing than a curse (see above).

Cusco Day 5 - cooking class and a free afternoon

We had a bit of drama last night with the front desk. Someone in the hotel was being quite noisy and someone else decided it was coming from the children's room. At 10pm our room phone rang to inform us of the accusation and to ask us to recitfy the situation. I let them know that we and the boys were fast asleep and not partying in any way. The rearranging of furniture and general room remodeling continued for some time and then started up again in earnest at 4:20. I have to say that I have found the hotels to be very noisy, noisier than hostels or airbnbs have been.

Today is our cooking lesson. We started that off by going to the local market and buying all of the ingredients. We saw all sorts of new things.

The boys were keen to run off and take photos with my phone. They are clearly my children!

We bought tea, salt, chocolate, maca powder and some grapes. It was so awesome!!

Here we are with the other tour family from the UK, our guide and our host chef. It was so awesome that we cooked and ate the meal in her home.

The group had a great time chopping and preparing the food.

We found it intriguing as to why there was a large,  flat rock next to the tables and cutting boards that were assembled outdoors for us to work at. Any guesses???

Turns out it's used for smashing the garlic to remove the skin! As cool as this tool is, it would manage somehow to send of of us to the hospital if it existed in our house. Hard nope.

The boys were overjoyed to play with the guinea pigs and kittens (conejillo de Indias and gattitos) at the home where we had our cooking experience. Truly I'm not sure if the kittens or the kids enjoyed it more.

 The cats are pets, the guinea pigs will become a Sunday dinner at one stage.

Shhhhh....don't tell C that they eat guinea pig here as a delicacy (editors note: we have already made a reservation at a restaurant here in Cusco for when we return prior to our flight so that we can enjoy this delicacy as a family).

We made soup, a main course (below), a passion fruit drink and a purple corn/prune/ peach pudding dessert.

We left so very, very full of Peruvian goodness.

We had the afternoon to ourselves and happily relaxed. I did a bit of laundry. I have three pairs of pants and these two pairs are currently soaked. The shorts and dresses I packed have sat unused.

 Let's hope these dry or the Peruvians are going to be seeing a lot of pasty Canadian skin.

Peru Day 4- Cusco and surrounding sites Part 2

Okay, where was I? Oh right ALPACAS!!!

These animals are so cute and soft!!! Also, hungry like the two Labradors that we left at home!

I was quite taken with them and they were quite taken with the alfalfa that everyone was feeding them...so yeah,the feeling was totally mutual.

I put several baby alpacas in my pockets and we went to an archeological site called Pukapukara and saw where both animal and human sacrifices were made. A bit further down there is a photo of the boys heading through a carved tunnel. The Inca would carry a mummified body through these tunnels to their final resting spot.

We also got to see more parts of the Inca trail. I can't imagine hiking it. We were not able to hike it because C isn't quite old enough. I have half heartedly feigned disappointment at that but it's all for show. I'm looking forward to taking the train up!

We took down down time and then grabbed a delicious dinner of alpaca times 3 (what?) and meat lasagna for C who seems to have decided we are all barbarians. I'm a bit worried that he may decide to become a vegetarian once he puts all of these cute animals=food links together.

After dinner we sat in a gorgeous park looking at the Cusco skyline. We grabbed some street meat on a stick and grabbed a photo of the "Batman bus". This is the actual name of a bus line. All of the bus lines in town have superhero names.