Well, it's official--both of our kids are now surly teenagers. Given this, it sometimes makes me wonder why we ever decided to take another trip together and subject ourselves to a whole month of extreme family togetherness. If it goes anything like the last few months, it will be a month filled with know-it-all attitude, plenty of eye rolling and pretending that they don't know us.
On the other hand, with the kids getting older and their future summers likely to be filled with jobs and other committments, we can't help but think that this might be our last opportunity to travel together as a family. And in a few more years they'll have both flown the coop. So we'd better go while we can.
This year Peru edged out Ireland as our destination of choice. I'm not really sure what closed the deal for South America--I guess it was the chance to see something totally different. That's what we love so much about travel--the chance to get a little glimpse into a world outside our own. We may also have chosen Peru because Courtney has been fixated on seeing Macchu Picchu ever since she recently learned to pronounce it correctly.
We'll start off with a few days in the big city, Lima. Next we'll fly to Arequipa, the country's second largest city. We'll take in the city's sights and then head off for a 3-day trek in the Colca Canyon. This canyon is famous for being deeper than the Grand Canyon and for the giant condors that can be seen riding the thermals near its rim.
After the trek, we'll celebrate Hal's birthday with a Peruvian cooking class and then hop a bus to Lake Titicaca, where we'll tour the islands for a few days before heading on to Cusco, the Inca capital. From Cusco, its on to Macchu Picchu followed by a few days of R&R among the ruins in Ollantaytambo.
No trip to Peru would be complete without a dip into the Amazon basin, so we'll spend the next five days in the Manu National Park taking in the sights and sounds of the jungle. From there it's back to the Sacred Valley for a couple of days to reflect on all we've seen before hopping back to Lima for our flight home.
We leave a week from today and plan to post to this site every few days along the way.
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