Peru!

First of all, I just want to thank all of you for your sweet comments and support. For some reason, it means so much to me. Thank you again!

Now, on to happier things... Peru!

Before we were in Peru, the kids and I flew out to Texas to stay with my family for a few days since they were watching the kids while we were in Peru. Justin flew out at the same time we did to Mexico for work. As we unloaded the car to get our luggage out we realized that somehow we left the kids' suitcase at our house (40 min away from the airport) and our flight left in 45 min. There was no way we would make it there and back in time. I know what you are thinking, how could you forget a suitcase?! I have no idea. But we managed to. Justin had to hurry to catch his flight so I was left with both kids at the airport, all alone, and had to figure out what to do. So my sweet mother in law went all the way to our house and brought the suitcase to me (an 1 hr and 30 min trip) while a kind airline attendant got me and the kiddos a later flight at no additional cost. Luckily it all worked out and and the kids were so good to just play for 4 more hours at the airport.

The flight over to TX was horrible though. Ellie has never been very good in an airplane and the fact that she hadn't had a nap all day (it was 3pm) did not help matters. She was super grumpy and cried the whole entire flight. Usually people around you are sympathetic right? I wasn't so lucky this time. I had a lady in front of me who kept giving me dirty looks, ask her husband what time it was and say, "Oh my goodness. I just can't take it anymore!" and would plug her ear with her finger very noticably and then turn her back to me, just like a child would do. It actually was quite comical for me after a while. I couldn't believe someone could be so rude!

Anyways, Ellie finally fell asleep right before we landed and we had a blast at my parents house. I don't know where my pictures went but Ethan had so much fun riding the tractors, playing in the dirt, and torturing the cats. Ellie LOVED all the animals and would spend hours pounding the glass door and squealing with delight at the kitties.

After 4 days at home, it was time to say goodbye to my sweet kiddos and meet Justin in Houston to fly out to Lima, Peru. He had an agricultural expo there for a few days so while he worked, I played :) Sal is the distributor over in Peru and his wife, Silvia, got to babysit me for a few days and show me some of the sights of Lima. It was so fun to chat with her and get to know her better. She is awesome!

I loved how Lima keeps all their parks looking so beautiful! Huge step up from Mexico!

One night we went over to their house, met their two beautiful girls (and rabbit)....

and then enjoyed an amazing Peruvian dinner made by Sal and Silvia. I'm no food connoisseur by any means but Peru most definitely has my most favorite food out of all the countries I've been to. Hands down.

A few days after we arrived, we flew out to Cusco to begin our journey to Machu Picchu. Cusco is 11,000 ft in elevation and actually has the highest amount of UV rays in the entire world. I am now a believer of that after we all got burned from being outside for an hour :)

I love this picture....

Mom and Dad Smith with the Cathedral in the background...

After catching a taxi, we went to Chinchero and saw some ruins seated next to a breathtaking view of the mountains.

This was our tour guide showing us some old Incan water canals. She was actually quite knowledgeable.

We then kept traveling and saw beautiful scenery such as this along the way...

until we arrived at Ollantaytambo.

This was an Incan civilization that dates to the 15th century.

If you look closely right above our heads, you can see the Incan Trail. It was pretty cool. Those Incans definitely lived on the adventurous side of life with those narrow passages and steep drops...

Sal and Silvia

We though these floating stairs were pretty cool. You can find them all over Incan ruins.

After Ollantaytambo, we headed down to the train station (we barely made it on time) to take the 2 hour train ride to Aguascalientes, located right by Machu Picchu.

This river had some crazy rapids. I kept reminding Justin every 5 min or so that "If we fell in there, we would die. There is no way we would live." It was a scary looking river.

We finally arrived in Aguascalientes...

That night we stayed in a cute little homemade hotel and then awoke super early the next morning to catch a bus up to Machu Picchu...

When we got there, it was raining and super misty. That didn't make the best scenery pictures but we did get some good poncho pictures. Those things were so stylish :)

But Dad's was my all time favorite....

Yes, that was actually bought :)

Machu Picchu was AMAZING!

These are some canals that still work today...

Pretty cool huh?

It was so cool to see how they built this place and the ingenious that was behind it. They built trapezoidal windows to balance out the weight and they also had a super cool way of making the rocks fit together so perfectly. It would take too long to explain it. I'm sure you could google it if you are that interested.

This was their sun dial. Apparently, there is a lot of energy in this rock so Justin was getting some much needed energy...

This was our awesome tour guide telling us about these two story lower class houses....

This is how they studied astronomy. They used the reflection of the water. Pretty cool.

This bad boy of a mountain down below is what we hiked. Huayna Picchu. Hard? Probably. Worth it? Oh yeah!

See why it was worth it below....

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful view of Machu Picchu and the surrounding areas...

Justin scared me to death right here. ..

He arrived at that spot before me and as I came around the corner I saw him do this. I started screaming (with lots of tourist around) "Stop! Justin, what are you doing?! Please stop! Come back, please?!" I was almost hysterical and to the brink of crying. It didn't help when he started to be unstable and look like he was going to fall. He then looked at me, smiled, took off his hat and dropped it off the cliff to the wide landing below that I couldn't see from where I was. I didn't know whether to be mad at him or cry, or both. I'm sure the people around thought I was crazy. He's lucky I'm in love him :)

It was quite the adventure getting there. It took a while and was a semi- difficult climb but it was so worth it! Justin's parents actually did it with us. We were so proud of his dad pushing through to the top. We think we just about killed him, but he did it!

When we got back down, the mist had left and we took as many pictures as we could.

We assumed that the llamas were pretty used to having humans around since we could go up to them like this and take pictures....

Justin and I went exploring and took some pretty cool shots. This place is a photographer's dream...

This is a bridge that the Incas built. I'm glad that it was roped off so my adventurous husband wasn't be tempted to cross it...

As we were walking out of Machu Picchu, we saw this....

Perfect way to end the day.

Needless to say, we were exhausted and slept in til 4am to catch a train back to Ollantaytambo, then take a taxi to Cusco, then catch our flight from Cusco to Lima.

But being the adventurous type, we just had to stop by Moray to see how the Incas used different levels of altitude to grow different crops. It was impressive. I think the height between each layer was over 6ft.

In Cusco, we had some time to kill before catching our flight back to Lima so we went and saw the famous 12 angle rock, Justin got his shoes shined, and....

he also kissed a llama. I love how the llama is reaching in for the kill :)

When we got back to Lima, we had about 6 hours until we needed to be at the airport, so we decided to take an open bus city tour! Silvia and Sal set up the whole thing and it was really neat to do!

We stopped by their HUGE city water park. It cost over 13 million to build and is very impressive.

They had a really cool water show using lasers as well...

We then saw some beautiful old buildings around Lima... I dont remember which ones they were but they were sure pretty lit up at night!


After our tour, we left for our 1am flight back to Houston. We were all pretty tired but had an awesome, amazing, incredible trip! My parents met up at the Houston airport with our kids. I sure did miss them but I am also so grateful that with family's help, we are able to see the world! Thank you to all those who so willingly help us and huge thanks to Sal & Silvia for entertaining us for a week! Viva Peru!