Jess and Craig:

First off, sorry for being such crummy bloggers in the end. We are back in the states now. The adventure is over. Our next step is to re-join the rat race...pick a new town, find new home, and get a new job. It has been an amazing year, and 8 amazing months of travel. I highly recommend that everyone try to find a way to take time out of life to truly enjoy themselves. I am incredibly grateful for the experience we have had. It has made me a much more relaxed person and given me a new attitude about the importance of just enjoying life. I could go on and on, but I am not sure I am articulate enough to really get my point across without sounding like a dork. In the end, we made a lot of memories, met a lot of great people, and had a really good time. Lastly, we are incredibly thankful to everyone who took the time to read our blog and checked in with us, it always made us feel closer to home.

I think I will start this entry with some final statistics and follow with a quick description of our last few weeks in Peru.

STATS....

10 Countries visited (Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal, Turkey, Egypt, Tanzania, Qatar, Peru), 11 if you include our N. American stint in NYC.

3700 miles on our bicycles (Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia) plus a very tough mountain bike ride in Peru

Longest ride 106 miles

22 days of backpacking (Nepal, Turkey, Peru)

Highest climb 16,400

32 scuba dives (Andaman Sea, Mediterranean, Red Sea, Indian Ocean)

Deepest dive 105 feet

1 pizza oven built

1 wedding

1 day of food poisoning

1 week of head colds

scattered days of upset stomachs

A quick summary of Peru...

Back to Lima 8/29/09

We headed back to Lima for a day before catching a flight to Cuzco. We decided not to stay in the same thieving hotel as last time despite the offer of a free room. One fun story from that day in Lima is that we arrived at about 5am...an inconvenient time, when guest houses have yet to open and the dark streets of Lima are a little to dicey for loitering on. We met an English couple on the bus who suggested we head to a casino as alternative to sitting in the doorway of our guesthouse. It was an awesome suggestion. We spent a little over an hour there, drinking free coffee. Craig played blackjack at the 5 soles table (about a 1 dollar 30) and managed to win us a whole twenty soles!! I was very impressed and completely re energized by the gambling despite having been awake all night the bus.

Cuzco  8/30/09

Our main reason for coming to Peru was to attend our friends Chris and Shelby's wedding. We are so thankful that they decided to get married in Cuzco, because we loved loved loved Peru, and had a great time in Cuzco. Our other friends Todd and Jen were down there for the wedding as wells which made the time even more fantastic. The day we arrived we met up with everyone and Craig quickly arranged to tag along on an all day motorcycle ride with Todd and Shelby's family. I know he had a great time...so great he is now threatening to get a motorcycle licence in the US for future trips (a plan that is not going over so well with his wife). I can't give much detail on his day but I know that they toured through the whole of the sacred valley and had a blast. I spent the day with the girls shopping, a perfect day for me too.

The next few days were spent hanging out with Jen and Todd and celebrating the Howe's marriage. They had a great rehearsal dinner at a local restaurant and then an absolutely beautiful wedding at the Monasterio hotel (An old monastery that has been transformed into a 5 star hotel but still has the original chapel and architecture). They served us an amazing meal that evening for sure in the top 3 off the trip.

The day following the wedding Grant (Craig's brother) and his girlfriend Caitlin arrived in Cuzco. With them we traveled to Oletatambo and explored the Incan ruins there. From there we took the train to Aguas Caliente and hiked up to the famous Machu Pichu. Machu Pichu was as spectacular as everyone has always said, namely because of it's unbelievable location in the mountains.

Puno    8/5/09

We next headed to Puno, a small city on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Sadly, Grant got sick for this portion of the trip Grant did manage to rally on our second day there to join us on a tour of the reed islands. There are people who live on the lake on man-made islands built of reeds, pretty cool.

Arequipa 8/7/09

Our last stop before Grant and Caitlin left was the city of Arequipa. Grant was still in recovery at this point so we decided it was best to stick around and just enjoy the town. It was a beautiful colonial Spanish city sitting at the base of two huge volcanoes. While there we celebrated Craig's 32nd birthday with a fabulous Italian meal.

Colca Canyon 8/11/09

After saying goodbye to Grant and Caitlin we headed to Colca canyon for a quick visit. This is the second deepest canyon in the world. The deepest is only a few miles away and is about 150meters deeper. We only had a day to spend in this canyon, but it was a great time. We stayed the night in a really small village at the mouth of the canyon called Yanque. Just outside the village were natural hotsprings and a pool where you could pay a dollar fifty to bathe-awesome. Our bath was followed by the discovery that there was a celebration going on in the village and the whole town was out dancing and parading in the central square. Of course we had to laugh the next morning when the tour buses came through this little village and the town put on the "local" dance show, which by comparison seemed painfully contrived and touristy. That next day we head to the Cruz del Condor, high point on the canyon wall where Andean Condors (the largest flying bird in the world) flocked. This was a spectacular scene. There were probably 20 or 30 of them and they swoop right over your head and just the sound from their wings through the air was enough to startle you. And like an airplane in the distance there size did not seem diminish as they flew away from you. It was an amazing sight.

Nazca  8/13/09

Now we get to it, a major trip highlight. We left Arequipa and headed to the coast to the town of Nazca. Nazca is a nothing town but around it's outskirts are the Nazca lines. Huge drawings in the ground that are so large they can only be seen from the sky. The images include geometric shapes and animals, like monkeys and humming birds, and my favorite and huge waving alien on the side of mountain. We took a flight to see them and it was AWESOME. Please look it up online. They don't know why they were made. Some say it was a calendar or agricultural guide others day it was a communication with aliens. I say aliens. After seeing it, I believe in aliens.

Pisco  8/14/09

For anyone who has been to Peru, you have for sure had the famous Pisco Sour. Turns out there is also city called Pisco, perhaps where the drink was born. This is a coast town that was 75% destroyed in an earthquake a few years back, and, sadly, corruption has kept redevelopment at a slow pace. Lot's of temporary buildings and torn up streets. The draw to visiting this area is the Islas Ballestas, small islands just off the coast that are the home to an abundance of wildlife. They call it the poorman's Galapagos. On the way out to them we saw dolphins and a humpback whale. The islands themselves were covered...and I mean covered...with BIRDS...all sorts. Blue footed boobies, penguins, pelicans, and a whole lot more. Every inch of land had a bird sitting on it. Surrounding the islands on the rock outcroppings were sea lions (sea wolfs in spanish) and their pups. It was quite the scene. Classically, on our trip back to shore our boot ran out of gas, seems they forgot to fill up before leaving. So we were stuck at sea for a bit waiting for rescue.

Cerro Azul  8/16/09

The famous surfing beach and our last stop of the trip. Craig did his research and this was clearly the beach most famous for it's waves, so we of course assumed it would be no problem for Craig to get set up with surf gear once we were there. What we found was a super sleepy little fishing village with no surf shops and definitely no other tourists. After asking around, Craig eventually found a guy that had a surf board that he would rent for Craig when he got home from work. Luckily that ended up working out well and Craig spent half the next day in the water and even caught a few waves. The village itself was great. Incredibly friendly and safe (an improvement on Pisco which was a bit sketchy). We even had the treat of discovering the saturday night festivities where everyone in town comes to the central plaza for charcoal grilled chicken, corn, fried dough, and, of course, pisco sours. A fabulous end to a fabulous trip.

THE END