Day 7: May 5 (Derek)

[After a long period of intermittent email access, we finally have a chance to post some things we've been meaning to put up over the past week or so. Cristina has asked me to post some of the emails I've written, especially regarding the time period when she was in the hospital ... but more about that in a couple of posts.]

Bye bye, Lima

The kids are mostly back to normal. Maia was feeling under the weather at the end of the day yesterday; she went to sleep early and was sick twice in the night. However, this could have just been the result of overexertion yesterday, since she is doing fine this morning. We'll keep an eye on her to see how today goes.

Yesterday was the first day 'back' on our itinerary, and it was great to be out with the kids feeling better. Walking around yesterday, there were a lot of things that reminded us of Mexico city. Lima is big, busy, messy, fascinating, and full of wild (and often violent) history, from the Inca to the Spanish conquest to modern times. Way too much traffic, though I found the buses really fun to ride. However, our neighborhood, Miraflores, has some lovely bits. Every house seems to have a little garden with cacti of all sorts, jade plants, aloe vera, bougainvillia, and all sorts of flowering vines crawling over the walls, so that you are smelling flowers in bloom every block or so. The seaside part is perched on top of a winding wall of cliffs which are studded with tiny parks, some of them quite stunning, and all of them peaceful with the sound of the waves rolling in below. Part of me could imagine us living here for a time, if we had jobs that took us to Peru, though it is grey and foggy in winter, and I'd miss the snow.

On the other hand, we've lost four days of our itinerary here, and are going to have to skip one leg of our trip, including hiking in the Colca Canyon. Even though Lima is a fascinating city, and our hotel is very nice (especially the staff), there are a few things that make us want to move on. For one, our hotel is on a noisy street, and it would be nice to have peaceful evenings for a change (there are quiet streets two blocks over, but that doesn't help when the kids are in bed!). I am also excited to get into the mountains and do some hiking. So, tomorrow, if all goes well, we will be
flying to Cusco, the city nearest to Machu Picchu. We'll be going two days early, but since we'll be going directly to Cusco (which is 3300 m or so in altitude), instead of moving gradually upward via Arequipa, we'll need some extra time to acclimatize. I am not sure what to expect, since Cusco is Peru's most touristy city, full of Inca ruins, and so also full of people trying to cash in on the tourism industry by selling stuff to tourists. But we will have our own apartment there, with a quiet courtyard and a kitchen to cook in. Plus, there are lots of options for escaping to the countryside to hike, ride horses, or whatever. We also plan to spend a few days staying with a Peruvian family in a small town in the mountains, where we will take a traditional weaving class, visit farms, and hike up to Inca ruins. Anyway, we'll see what happens, since we're beginning to realize we can't necesarily plan too far ahead.