peru! round one

well we safely made it to peru! a couple fairly long flights from portland (kids were troopers) and finally landed in lima late. i had arranged a taxi from our hostel to pick us up at the airport and he was there!! the short drive to our hostel was a great intro for the kids on how driving in foreign cities is a bit different as there was a little collision with another car....lucy's eyes got as big as saucers, the driver on the other hand didn't bat an eye.  we basically crashed one night in lima and then took a short flight the next morning down to the southern city of arequipa where we have been hanging out the past few days.

arequipa is a pretty big city but we stuck to the central historic district which was beautiful.  it is called the "white city' as all of the buildings are made from white stone. my favorite fun fact about arequipa is that in the native language of quechuan it means 'let's stay here', which is apparently what some inca ruler said upon arriving.  gotta love a city which basically means 'here's good'.

in the central plaza there were loads of pigeons and if you buy a little sack of rice the pigeons will land all over you......needless to say the kids loved this and we spent a couple evenings here.

we managed to find the farmers market which is always a must for todd.  the kids were blown away (as they should be!!) by the scope of a market in another country. we barely made it out of the fruit section because lucy wanted to buy all of it!

we walked thru a few churches. those catholics know how to build some amazing structures. anyway i don't want to bore you with pictures of churches but both todd and i found this particular painting pretty funny. i don't think davinci's version of the last supper had guinea pig as the main course!

one of the highlights for me was the monestary of santa cantalina. the monestary has been around since the late sixteenth century and has housed hundreds of cloistered nuns in its time. there are actually about thirty nuns still in residence who are sectioned off as the remaining monestary has been opened to the public. it was a stunning place, full of vivid colors and textures. i am not a photographer but my guess is that those folks love this place.

so now we are off to lake titicaca and bolivia! hasta luego!