Peru!

Jason and I went to Peru in September! We've been wanting to go see Machu Picchu for a few years, so this year we made it happen. We flew from Chicago to New York/ Atlanta, to Lima, and then to Cusco. We've been spoiled living in Chicago where there are often direct flights to so many places, so three legs of a trip felt like A LOT. We were super grateful that all flights both on the way there and on the way home were on time. We had one little hiccup on the way home where the airline had us booked on a flight they canceled, but after an hour of holding our ground the poor airline employee got us rebooked on the right flight, and we were able to leave as planned. It was fun to see our "find my phone" dots in South America (our first visit to that continent!), and to see the Andes Mountains poking through the clouds on our flight in.

We spent some time on both ends of our trip in Cusco. We really enjoyed their Plaza des Armas and spent a lot of time resting and people watching there.

We toured a couple of the main cathedrals in the main square including Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus.

We enjoyed our hotel and loved the view of the city at night!

There were stray dogs all over, and it looked like this one was waiting in line at this market for his turn at the butcher's shop.

It was cool to see the buildings built on ancient foundations!

While waiting for one of our flights we met a lovely Peruvian woman. Jason asked her to tell us the foods we should be sure and eat while we were there, and she wrote us a list! It was a fun little scavenger hunt looking for everything she recommended while we were there. We found and tried them all, and many of them were among the meals that were our favorites.

We enjoyed the ruins of Sacsayhuaman. The rocks were huge and fit together so perfectly, it is mind boggling to imagine them building it. There were 100s of High School aged boys there while we were visiting, practicing some sort of show. It was really cool to see them dance and hear them chant the way their ancestors must have years ago in that very spot!

Another church we visited was the Church of Santa Domingo. So pretty. These last two sites we visited on our last day in country. I had decided to rinse my retainers in the local water the night before ( I was so tired of them not really getting clean!), and my stomach was very unhappy with me about it. We took the day very slowly and took cabs rather than walked, so we were still able to do all the things we had wanted to. It was a hard day, but we managed.