Confession!

As most of you have probably figured out already, we are just a few weeks behind on the blog. Shocking, I know. Even more shocking is that in these few weeks not only did we close out Australia with a week in Sydney, but we have now arrived in Cusco, Peru (after making stops in London, Belfast, New York, Long Island, Charlotte, Atlanta, and Lima)! We were so excited to see all of our family and friends along the way and thank you to everyone who made an effort to spend some time with us, even though we appear to be jumping all over the place! Here is a taste of our various stops around Europe and America. I promise to send a quick recap of our last week and a half in Sydney in the next blog, but for now we are on to South America!!

Belfast.....

London....

New York....

Charlotte.... (we randomly went to a Bobcats game while we were visiting the city. It was Paddy´s first NBA game. The stadium was empty but they won, wohoo! Also Brooks and Charlotte were nice enough to entertain us for a couple of nights and show us around.)

Atlanta....

We started our South American adventure in Lima. We arrived at 5:30 in the morning from Atlanta and had quite a bit of time to kill before we were able to check into our room and take a nap. As such, we decided to take a private tour with our taxi driver of the city. Lima is a massive city with over 8 million people. There are beaches all along the west side of the city although the dark pebbles that lined the coast line did not make the beaches very inticing. The streets our crowded with privately run buses (because there is no public transportation), stray dogs and street vendors selling local food that they make on the side of the street. Despite the overcrowding and pollution, the city was clean and had a lot of beautiful colonial buildings. Our tour guide took us to all of the major sites around the city which made for a great inroduction to Lima. We have included some highlights of the tour in the pictures below.

Once our tour was over we were able to check into our room and take a much needed nap. We were staying at a very nice boutique hotel in Miraflores called Antigua Hotel Miraflores. It was exactly what we wanted, a relatively inexpensive hotel with Peruvian flare and a safe location. The walls were tastefully decorated with art from local artist. I was extremely tempted to buy some but decided that a large frame would not be the easiest thing to carry on the Inca Trail.

After our nap we headed out to lunch at a place called Pesgados Capitales which was recommended to me by a friend. It is one of the best recommendations I have ever received as the food was incredible (all Peruvian cuisine of course) and we were the only foreigners there. We loved it. We tried the pisco sour (a favorite drink among Peruvians that is very similar to a Margarita but stronger!) and the tiraditos which is thinly sliced fish cooked in lime juice and spices. We had a long relaxing lunch and then took a taxi back to the coast to do a bit of browsing around town. That night we kept it pretty low key as we had an early flight the next morning. We had dinner in the hotel which was delicous and than got a decent night sleep.

So, now we find our selves in Cuzco, Peru bundled up in fleeces and long trousers as it is rainy season here and drinking lots of coca tea in order to fight off the altitude sickness. The city sits over 4,000 meters above sea level. You don´t really feel the affects of the altitude until you try to go for a leisurely stroll and after just 20 steps or so you are panting as if you did a sprint. None the less we are fighting through and exploring the city.

The view flying into Cusco (we got upgraded to first class as well! WOHOO!).

Our first night in Cusco we stayed at hotel called Ninos Hotel 2. It is very quaint hotel with a large courtyard where you can enjoy the afternoon sun, have a drink and chat to fellow travellers. The hotel was started by a Dutch woman who after one visit to the city decided to move here to help the street kids and ended up adopting 12 children and helping hundreds more. She started two hotels to help with these efforts and the hotel profits go towards providing daily hot meals, education, medical attention, and a dentist to over 300 of the poorest kids in all of Cusco. Needless to say, this woman is pretty incredible and we really enjoyed our stay.