Babies of the Family Paracas Tour

These five took a trip to Paracas.

Lonny and I showed up although we told them to certainly not act like they knew us.

They took their own photos.

The resort was beautiful.  Lonny and I lounged around the pool.  The kids we recognized swam and did not properly apply sunscreen.

They did document the experience

and themselves.

There were mountains of sand

and a dune buggy

and posing

and some impressive air after sand boarding on those dunes

and a sunset dinner at the beach.

 I know it sounds romantic:)

They were cute but sandy.

The view from our rooms was pretty great

at night

and all day.

This was my view of those five on the wave runners.  We had planned on visiting the Ballestas Islands where you can see flamingos, penguins and sea lions but the waves were too intense for the boat ride there.  This is the enticing description from the guidebook of the visit we missed:  You're not allowed to walk on shore, but you wouldn't want to-the land is calf-deep in guano (bird droppings).  Bring a hat, as tourist are moving targets for multitudes of guano-dropping seabirds.  Also be prepared for the smell-between the sea lions and the birds the odor can drop you to your knees.  I don't know why I feel bad the boat trip was canceled.

This was a bar.  There are no age limits to be on the premises because those two little girls at the bar having a drink are like five.

These three were tired and sunburned and of course comfortable at the bar as well.  I looked over later and saw one of them nursing a strawberry juice up at the counter and thought, Lonny and I are the best chaperones ever!

The town of Paracas is tiny and unremarkable but it has that beach.

They name their diners after girls but since we have a Jon and Jen in the family I thought we should check this place out.

This dog was pink.  With spots.  And hairless as are all the dogs in Peru.  No beauty pageant winners here.

Paracas is close to Pisco and that means Pisco Sour. Peru's favorite brandy and national pride. If that's your thing then the opportunity to be photographed with some permanent drinking buddies was here and everywhere.

And there is always shopping although there wasn't always tourists in Paracas.  Pisco was the destination of choice until a magnitude 8 earthquake in August of 2007 which they have yet to recover from.

Still we managed to acquire five matching Paracas shirts. 

They never tire of striking a pose for their own camera

but just try getting a respectable

shot of five looking simultaneously with your camera.

Just be satisfied with one looking at a time.

These five are all the babies of their family with no siblings still living at home.  It is just them and all that undiluted parent supervision.  But at least they have each other.

And then we came home to the aloe vera lotion

and lived happily ever after.

The end.

Puno/Lake Titicaca

So this happened.  We don't have much time left to go all the places we want to go and do all the things we want to do before we leave Peru.  This trip to Puno has been on our "places to visit before you live 5000 miles away" list for a while.

And every visit to Peru should be documented authentically.

The natives will wear their traditional dress for a price (2 or 3 soles; 3 soles equals one dollar at the moment) and pose as props for your vacation photos. This little girl does not appear to be thrilled with her job or maybe she is acting.  The alpaca however, appears to be a professional.

This is a baby vicuna.  The wool from a vicuna is the softest yarn, and Emily is verifying that it is softer than baby alpaca.

Emily had two days of no school prior to Easter weekend so we took a short trip to Puno on the edge of Lake Titicaca. I think when people imagine Peru they think llamas and they should. 

 This was the view from our room, Puno in the background and llamas wandering around the parking lot of the hotel.

There are ample llamas for all.  Look at the parade of llamas on that street.

We flew into Juliaca which may or may not have had a paved street. The taxi driver was all over the road just to avoid the spectacular sinkholes that could have swallowed the car. Our jaunt to Puno detoured to Sillustani.

We hiked the Lago Umayo peninsula to visit the ruined towers of the ancient Colla people.

 They buried their nobility in these towers called chullpas.

 The ginormous stones in the back had fallen to the ground.  The guide says the area around Puno does not experience the effects of earthquakes, something else caused the damage. I say Paul Bunyan looking for a pine tree.

The human remains had been removed in case you were wondering if skeletons were lying around .

The hike brought us to this beautiful view of the lake,

and looking back at one of the towers.

The altiplano homesteads had several buildings enclosed behind a wall.  And they all had a llama or two.

 Our second day we took a boat ride (thus the glare) to the floating islands of the Uros tribe.  There are about 50 islands made of reeds that grow in the shallow water of Lake Titicaca.

The Uros people isolated themselves from the Collas and the Incas by living on these islands centuries ago. 

Several hundred people still live on the islands today.

This was our cute guide on the left, he spoke excellent English and ran around all day insuring everyone had a good visit.

The resident family displayed their crafts and then dressed up the tourists.  The gathered felt skirts were not too flattering but could hide a multitude of flaws.

Not only were the islands made of the reeds, but the boats, the houses, the crafts, maybe everything.

The parents, the children and the grandchildren all live together on an island.  Cozy don't you think?

We sailed on the reed boat across to another reed island and then back to our big boat

for our next adventure to visit the Isla Taquile.

This island inhabited for thousands of years was a journey back in time.  The Quecha speaking islanders live mostly without modern conveniences.

It was a long steep climb to the top.  Lake Titicaca is thought to be the world's largest high altitude lake so going higher from there meant breathing was a problem.

The town square was at the top

and the view was lovely.

Back in Puno there was the requisite colonial church on the square

as well as the government buildings.

It was a holiday and could have been a ghost town except for the police standing guard.  The rain was familiar from another place and time, just not in Lima.  I don't think we will be moving to Puno anytime soon but it was an adventure.