Travel

Peru { part 4 }

February 10, 2013 · 4 comments

Incase you missed it, here’s ( part 1 ), ( part 2 ), ( part 3 ).

This post wraps up our trip to Peru, and finally some photos from our trip to Machu Picchu! We got up way before the sun on our last day in Cusco to get on a bus to the train station. While waiting to board the train, we stopped to look around the mini market and to get a cup of coffee to warm up. We then boarded the train, for four hours to get to the bottom of the mountain at Macchu Picchu. The train ride was fun! They served snacks/drinks and our entire car was also filled with people from all over the world, Japan, Columbia, Brazil, Canada, etc.  It was interesting to hear all of the different accents all in one place, all while surrounded by awesome view of the mountains and villages out of our large train windows!

  After arriving at the train station, we walked through the small town right behind our first guide (the guy with the black and red jacket below) to get to the base of the mountain of Machu Picchu.
We ended up getting to the entrance a little earlier than our 2nd guide, so we paid and went in early to take a few pictures before the tour began. This was my first view of Machu Picchu. W-O-W! What an amazing place, and breath taking view. This is also a place I’ve always wanted to see with my own eyes and it was way better than I imagined!
   After snapping a few ton of photos, we headed back to the entrance to meet up with our tour group and our guide. This tour was AWESOME. We also got to see all of Machu Picchu from top to bottom, with a few llamas and viscachas in between. One llama tried to walk through me and my camera to get to another patch of grass. LOL, that made for a pretty funny picture. (see below)
   A view from the top, before we headed back down to leave and grab some lunch. See that mountain behind Machu Picchu? It’s called Huayna Picchu and hopefully, if I ever make it back here, we’re defintely doing that hike. The view from up there is said to be even more amazing! We didn’t make it this time because we were told you have to get special tickets to climb that mountain and that you have to get them usually months in advance.
   From Machu Picchu we went to eat lunch at a nearby hotel in the little town, the lunch was included in our tour price. It was a buffet filled with the freshest veggies and fruit you could imagine and a variety of local dishes. While we ate it began to rain, hard. We were thankful that we left when we did because we would have had a very long walk through the rain. We waited for the rain to die down a little and headed to the train station, stopping to browse the market right outside the gates.
We made it back to our hotel in Cusco around 10pm. We were pretty hungry so we stopped to eat some dinner at a place nearby. I had a pisco sour (YUM!) and the freshest ceviche I’ve ever eaten. Mike decided he had to order the cuy, the specialty in Cusco (a Guinea pig) with a side of potatoes and veggies. Needless to say, I don’t think Mike will order that dish again, but at least we can say we did! (I’ve got the picture to prove it! lol)
The next day around 4 am, we were up, ate a quick breakfast at the hotel and headed to the airport to fly back to Lima. After arriving back at Mike’s aunt’s apartment, we were both exhausted. Mike snuck in a little nap, while I took a quick quiz and did some reading for one of my online classes. We had a nice lunch together with fish, humintas (sort of like a tamale), and salad! We packed up our stuff, said our tearful goodbyes and headed to the airport. We got to spend a little extra time with Mike’s grandparents, as they were also leaving that same day to go back home to Bolivia.
It would be so hard for me to pick a favorite trip of ours, but this one would definitely be up near the top of the list. It was great being around family, being able to relax and go on great adventures all in the same week. We ate great food, delicious drinks, and learned a lot about the culture and history of Peru/Cusco.  With the end of every trip, both of us are left with a yearning to plan more, to see more, to do more. It’s so easy sometimes to get caught up in the day to day routine I think we all forget there’s a huge world outside of that waiting to be seen and learned about. Again, I want to send out the biggest THANK YOU to Mike’s sweet family. We couldn’t feel more loved or more special around you all and enjoyed being able to spend time together! We love you and can’t wait to see you all again (hopefully soon!) XOXOXO!

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Peru { part 3 }

January 30, 2013 · 7 comments

Incase you missed it, here’s how we spent the first half of our trip to Peru: ( part 1 ) and ( part 2 ).The second half of the trip, started with our last full day in Lima with Mike’s family. Before heading out to lunch, I snapped this picture of Mike and his grandpa, it is one of my favorites from the trip :) Lunch was delicious! They took us to an Arabic restaurant, my favorite thing there was actually our drink it was some kind of mint/tea/lemonade mixture (the green drink seen in the pictures below). I’m definitely going to try and find a recipe for this- I think we all went through 3 pitchers of this stuff- YUM!

After lunch, we went for a walk around the outdoor mall, which felt just like sunny California with all of the beautiful stores and sunshine. We walked all around the mall, had some coconut ice cream and coffee. On the way home, we stopped by the casino, just for fun before heading home to bed to get up early for our 6 am flight to Cusco the next day. Mike and I bet 20 soles (about $8) each, we both lost, then won….then lost again. The casino was packed, they served finger food and drinks while we played, so we had a great time and a lot of laughs.


The next day we were up early for our flight on Peruvian Airlines to Cusco, Peru! The weather was much different in Cusco than in Lima. While we were in Lima the temperatures were between 70-80 degrees, with very high humidity. The heat we’re used to and the humidity too, but air conditioning isn’t as common to have in Lima as it is in Houston. So our cool breeze came from open windows and screen doors overlooking the city. Cusco was almost the opposite weather for only being an hour plane ride away, it was 30-60 degree weather. Thank goodness one of Mike’s gifts from his mom (brought to Lima by his grandparents) was a nice North Face jacket. Mike hadn’t packed a jacket- so it was definitely needed for this trip! I borrowed a sweater from Mike’s aunt (Thank you Sonia!) to layer and keep me warm! We Texans aren’t used to cold weather! ;) We booked the whole Cusco trip through a travel agency in Lima, they bundled up the flight, all tour costs and hired our guide, Pablo, to make sure we had everything we needed. See those tired faces below? We landed, met Pablo, checked into our hotel room and set a few alarms so we wouldn’t be late- we took a little nap before our full day of tours began.

The tours began with us following quickly behind Pablo walking through the main square in Cusco, Plaza de las Armas (seen below) to meet up with our tour guide for the day. He wanted to get there as quickly as possible to ensure that we would be placed in a English language tour. Our first stop was to tour the Cusco Cathedral or the Cathedral of Santo Domingo. There were no cameras allowed on the inside, but I took plenty of the outside- this church is beautiful! There are three sections of this huge church and all of them are filled with gold, silver and a collection of beautiful paintings. It was so interesting to hear about the history of the Incas when the Spanish came to Cusco. Even with all of the Spanish influence, some of the Incan beliefs and customs are still celebrated today. All throughout Cusco and surrounding areas you will see people dressed in traditional outfits asking tourists if they’d like to take a picture with them for tip money. Some even walked around with animals (mostly llamas and baby llamas- also dressed in clothes).

Our next stop was to visit the Qorikancha, located only a few blocks from the main square in Cusco. was the most important temple in the Inca Empire, dedicated primarily to Inti, the Sun God. The temple embraces six sanctuaries that honored six of their gods.We learned a lot about how the Incan people lived and survived. This temple was also filled with beautiful oil paintings and ancient Incan ruins.See those structures below? They made those without using any mortar to seal the stones together- they carved the stone to fit together like puzzle pieces. Which that design turned out to be very wise when it came to earthquakes. They also made flawless pieces, all rocks were very smooth and shaped just perfectly, this part of the tour was very interesting! For all you coffee lovers out there, look! There was even a Starbucks along our walk to the tour bus to head to the next spot!

The last part of our day was spent on four different tours; Saqsayhuaman, Q’enqo, Pukapukara and Tambomachay. These were all filled with Inca ruins, beautiful sights and a whole lot of history. W-O-W! Toward the end of the tour, we snacked on some choclo con queso (corn with cheese- a very salty cheese) Y-U-M! We had a stray dog follow us around after droping a bit on the ground, he stuck around until we finished the entire corn!




After the tour bus dropped us off back in the main plaza, we checked out a few of the markets selling handmade Peruvian souvenirs. We picked up a few for our friends back home and decided to check out a restaurant near our hotel called Chez Maggy. They had quite a menu- Peruvian, Italian and Mexican. We decided to get their trout pizza- mostly because on our last lunch date with Billy last year we had seen a seafood pizza on the menu, to which he replied “who would eat fish on a pizza?” Well, no we did, and the piano man jamming old rock hits on the piano while we ate just made me feel like a small piece of Billy was there in Cusco with us. For the record, trout pizza is delicious, along with a side of guacamole and chips ;)

Stay tuned for part 4 (the last one I promise!) of this trip which covers our day at Machu Picchu! :)

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Peru { part 2 }

January 22, 2013 · 10 comments

When I wrote my last post, we had just landed in Lima, Peru. I also said I would try to update while we were on the trip…SORRY! It was a very packed trip and along with touring we wanted to soak up as much time with Mike’s family as possible. Not only does he have family that lives in Lima, but his grandparents were in town from Bolivia! Also, the WiFi connection for half of the trip wasn’t very stable and took me nearly 15 tries to upload the few photos I did on Instagram. I do have to admit though, it was really nice to have a break from the internet (with the exception of school) and being able to be investing in learning another country’s culture, history, and some great quality time with Mike’s family.

We spent the first few days of our trip relaxing with Mike’s family. We stayed with his Aunt Sonia, who lives right above his Great Aunt Julia in a nice apartment building in Lima. Mike’s grandparents were also visiting from their home in La Paz, Bolivia. They stayed with Tia Julia, it was nice to be staying so close together- we walked downstairs each morning first thing for morning hugs and kisses in our pj’s before getting ready for the day.

Within the first 10 minutes of arriving we celebrated Christmas together. I felt a bit like Santa because we brought gifts from Mike’s other family here in Houston and from us. We received gifts from the family in Peru and from Mike’s mom in Bolivia who was not able to make this trip. Hopefully we will see you soon Marlene! Our mornings, staying with Sonia, started out with breakfast mixed with fresh fruit- bananas, papayas, apples, mangos, avocados paired with fresh bread and cheese. By fresh bread, I mean literally fresh from the bakery either that morning, or the day before! Y-U-M!

Our first lunch was Peruvian food, some local beer, toasted choclo (toasted corn), the freshest octopus I’ve ever tasted- which is what I’m taking a picture of down there, battered fish, fresh veggies and french fries. I believe Mike ordered the same plate for lunch, but with chicken instead of fish. This restaurant was very hard to find, along with Mike’s cousin Sergio, we took a cab to meet the rest of the family at the restaurant. The cab driver told us he knew where the restaurant was, only to find out that after circling the block a few times, he did not. It was well worth the wait though, and we were grateful for that cab driver to diligently find the restaurant. If that were in the US, we would have paid a lot of extra money for all of those miles driving around lost…in Peru, a cab is a flat rate, that is negotiated before the ride is taken. Lima is a very big city and from what I could see, the street signs can be very hard to find/non existent. Also, any hour of the day or night can be very high traffic! I saw that using turn signals is not favored, but honking the horn is very much so. If you focus on what’s happening outside of your window, the buildings/people/views instead of looking out the front windshield the car rides will be a much more enjoyable time. Watching through the windshield and seeing just how close the cars get to each other, and constant game of chicken is likely to leave you gripping onto the cushion of your seat. I was absolutely amazed that we didn’t get into any accidents/see very many accidents. People of Lima, you all should be race car drivers and win big money for those driving skills you’ve got!After lunch, we all went back to the apartments to read/relax and spend time together. Lunch was always our biggest meal, and usually we were not really hungry for dinner at all. The school semester also started the week we were in Peru, so we did have to dedicate some time to staying up on assignments and even a few quizzes had to be squeezed in. Thank goodness his family had great Wifi connections for us to be able to keep up with our classes! We did a lot of studying at night while the family was catching up on news and tv.

The next day we decided to go to eat Haiti, a very classic cafe in Miraflores with great food, a beautiful view of the parks filled with colorful flowers and the colorful bull you see below. They are called Toritos de Pucara and believed to keep the house safe with a blessing to the “Apus” (the Inca mountain gods) and ensure health, wealth, and unity for the occupants of the house. You can sometimes see a pair of them on the tops of houses/buildings accompanied with a cross in between them. We saw a lot of them on our trip to Cusco, Peru.

Back to cafe Haiti, the food/drink pictures below are from our lunch there. The caprese sandwich, french fries and Inca Cola (a local soda, which resembled what I know as cream soda from the US) was a delicious lunch, but I had my eye on Sonia’s fresh caprese salad! Doesn’t that look delicious?! The drink next to my Inca Cola below is called Chicha Morada, it is a sweet cold drink made from purple corn, pineapple, cinnamon, clove, and sugar. It is delicious! I recommend trying everything new you can while traveling. The food/drinks in Peru haven’t disappointed me yet! Peru is filled with so many new flavors and recipes I’d never tried before. I can’t wait to start experimenting at home with some of my own Peruvian inspired dishes! After our lunch, we walked down the street to Pinkberry! They have Pinkberry in Peru! They had some of the usual flavors, Original and Mango, but they also had some local fruit flavors too Lúcma and Granada (which I believe means Pomegranate). I got granada and Mike got lúcma, I couldn’t pick a favorite- they were both delicious! Thank you for treating us Abulita Tere!

Later, the same day, we went to visit the Museo de Oro, a museum with an extensive collection of gold, weapons, textiles, uniforms and a ton of history from all over the world. There were even a few mummies and skulls! Those things were creepy! Walking through the rooms with them next to you was really eery! The gold collection was just amazingly beautiful! Filled with turquoise and made in all shapes and sizes. They made clothes and blankets with gold thread, gold jewelry, gloves, cups, vases, tools, weapons and various figures of cultural symbols.
(via)
Also learning about the Tumi knife was very interesting. I had a major surgery on my skull shortly after I was born, I have now grown to have a new respect for modern tools and medicine. Some of the skulls on display showed where they had surgery by the Tumi knife. Ouch! I’ve seen some x-rays of my skull- we’ve come a long way from the times of the Tumi. In other rooms were a variety of different guns and military uniforms from all over the world throughout different times in history. This was quite a collection, Mike and I kept thinking that Billy would have loved checking out those rooms!
After the museum, we sat down to rest. I have fallen in love with the photos I took within this brief 15 minutes. Here’s a few of my favorite of Mike with his sweet grandparents.
While helping to set the table at Tia Julia’s house that night for tea, I saw that they had one of my favorite games on a shelf near the table! Rummikub! I also learned that Mike had never played before! What?! If you’ve never played, pick this game up next time you see it- I love boardgames, and this one is definitely in my top 3! Unfortunatly, I lost pretty badly after one extremely difficult round- for those of you who have played- I couldn’t even play! I had 168 points worth in my tray and no way to play the tiles! Tia Julia beat us (Mike, Abuelita Tere and me) pretty badly, I believe she won 5 out of 8 rounds!

Hope all is well in your world, along with unpacking and catching up with school and work, I’ll also be catching up on my emails and my 400+ blog updates to read in my Bloglovin’ feed! Wow! My favorites have been busy! I’m excited to see what you all have been up to while I was out!

Rikunakusun or Adiós until part 3!

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Hola From Peru! { part 1 }

January 13, 2013 · 6 comments

Hi! We’re checking in this morning from Lima, Peru! We got to fly on one if the new 787 planes to get here too, such an awesome plane!! They had a wide variety of tv shows, movies, music and games to make the hours seem like minutes. For. Free.
I chose to spend nearly the entire flight catching up on all of the Mad Men episodes I’ve missed! I was also introduced to the tv show Girls. There was only one episode available, and I thought it was hilarious. I will definitely have to see if I can catch up on that show when we get back.

We landed in Lima a little after 11pm Saturday. Once we met up with Mike’s family, and got our huge hugs and kisses, we were all too excited to sleep so we celebrated Christmas instead. It is now 2am, and we are off to bed. It feels so great to be here with so much love from Mike’s sweet family! They also have wifi here, so I hope to update SWAK throughout the trip! (Thanks again for my iPad mini Michael)

Hope you are having a great weekend!

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People Let Me Tell You ‘Bout My Best Friend…and her Bachelorette Party!

January 10, 2013

Back in November I flew out to sunny California to see my friend Anna, who I hadn’t seen in 10+ years! It was also a special trip because I was invited to her bachelorette party! With so much to celebrate in one weekend, I’m thankful/surprised we all made it back home in one piece! She [...]

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Cancun { part 3 }

December 27, 2012

In case you missed them here’s Part 1 and Part 2 of our trip to Cancun. This is the last part of our story and a bit of a short one too because our flight back to Houston was set to depart late afternoon. We decided to spend the last of our trip on the [...]

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Cancun { part 2 }

December 21, 2012

As mentioned in Part 1 we ate a lot of good food on this trip, so it is really no surprise that our second day started out with a HUGE buffet styled breakfast! As if those two, yes, TWO dinners we had the night before weren’t enough! But seriously, it was mostly fruit and healthy [...]

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Cancun { part 1 }

December 13, 2012

HEY! HI! How are ya?! Sorry I’ve been missing in action my friends! First I was a traveling fool, then I picked up a nasty viral infection which robbed me of my voice (which is still not 100% back yet!) and I just finished up all of my finals! THIS SEMESTER IS OVER *insert happy [...]

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Here, There, Everywhere

November 15, 2012

Hi! If you’re over here visiting from Girls Love Fried Pickles- heyo! HIYA! Thanks for stopping by! Thank you again to Dusty for featuring me as a Hot Tamale this week! I feel so honored, and lucky to call that pretty lady my friend! I’m currently at the airport ready for another weekend adventure today! [...]

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Roadtrippin’, Rockin’, Family, & Basketball…what a weekend.

November 6, 2012

This past weekend was spent in two different cities in Texas, with close to 8 hours of driving time in the mix. It was also one of the best weekends because I finally got to visit my sister and her new family in their new house here in Texas! I left right after work on [...]

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