Confessions of the Deathcab's Cutie

Peru: Day Eight - Part Two

Okay folks, here it is: the final blog post. Thanks for sticking with me for the almost year that it took me to finish all these posts. I apologize.

After returning to Lima, we went to the temple! I'm sad that we didn't have time to do a session in the temple (plus Bergs said there might not be any workers that spoke English), but it was still such a blessing to see the temple. I really love that the spirit is the same on any temple grounds you visit. We walked around for a while and took some pictures, noticing that the ground workers had started putting up Christmas lights and a manger scene. They also have, at this temple, a hotel for members to stay in while attending the temple. That was built since Bergs was there on her mission.

Ecstatic that I could drink the water.

The visitor hotel.

The beginning of the manger scene.

Christmas lights!

After the temple, we headed to the local Papa John's for a nice American Thanksgiving meal. We ordered a pizza, and then took these exciting "carving" pictures.

Our sending off event was a visit to the "water park", as the Peruvians called it. It's a large area with a variety of water fountains, each with a different design. It was really cool, and there was a laser show at the end! It was a lot like World of Color at Disneyland, but like from the eighties.

After that, it was off to a very late flight out of Lima. The flight home was long... We went through customs in Dallas and had to declare what we had spent, but it turns out that it's way easier to get into the country when you're from here. We got to skip all the long lines.

From there, we flew home to Salt Lake, where my dad and brother were waiting for us. And thus ends one of the most exciting adventures of my life.

Peru: Day Eight - Part One

This was our last day in Peru, and also Thanksgiving. We had some time before our flight back to Lima, so after a lovely breakfast at the hotel, we checked out and wandered around Cusco with our backpacks on, which was quite the adventure. We went to the center of town and walked around, looking for touristy things to do. The first place we wandered into was the monastery of La Merced, which had a gorgeous collection of painting of the life of St Peter (not the St Peter; this was one from the 15th century, I believe). They also had some really interesting Catholic artifacts. I tried to find a website so you could see pictures of the non-photographables, but apparently they're really serious about that. The pictures are gorgeous, the artifacts are gorgeous. The most amazing part was the hand painted cloister. It was really a sight to see. We were able to take pictures of the courtyard in the middle, though.

A tiny door in Cusco. This is fairly common in Peru.

After that lovely bit of history, we wandered into what was quite possibly the most horrifying museum I had ever been to. There were many terribly taxidermied animals displayed in a small room. I took a lot of pictures, but I no longer feel comfortable sharing all of them (let me know if you're interested in the scary ones, and I'll share them with you). There was also a wide variety of native potatoes, etc.

After the museum of terror, walked by the beautiful church, and found a lovely bench to sit and enjoy the warmth of the day. It had been fairly cool that week, so I was really enjoying one last taste of sunshine before heading back to winter. My team lead had told me before leaving that I needed to take a moment and just drink everything in, so we did and I'm really glad we took time for that. We watched people walking by, and I took an opportunity to do an Emperor's New Groove move, because Cusco.

Peru: Day Seven

Machu Picchu!!! This is the day I had been waiting for all week. There are so many interesting things about Machu Picchu, so I really recommend you read the Wikipedia article. There are also some cool long distance shots on the article, including one of the road the bus takes up to Machu Picchu.

We took a train to the town just outside Machu Picchu, as no roads are allowed through the canyon. It was a three hour ride, featuring some really cool zig-zag railroad technology to get through the canyon. At one point, the train went backwards and forwards to go lower in the canyon. It was really interesting, and a really pretty ride.

Once we arrived at the base town, if you will, we had buy our tickets, which were really expensive. About 150 American dollars, which was practically more than we had paid for the rest of the trip since landing. I believe we bought a ticket for Machu Picchu, and then a separate one for the bus (the blue picture below) Totally worth it, though. We took the bus up to Machu Picchu, which took about twenty minutes. This was also a gorgeous ride. Machu Picchu is located in a very rainforest-y area.

We arrived at Machu Picchu, and Bergs found us an English speaking guide to take us through. His name was Alain, and he was quite fantastic. He took us over to a table and stamped a Machu Picchu stamp in my passport, which I thought was pretty cool.

Before I go to the pictures, I'll just finish out the day. We were pretty exhausted, so we just went back to hotel and had a dinner of granola bars and crackers (we did that a lot on the trip), and I washed my hair, which was wonderful.

I know it's a ton of pictures, but it was all so fantastic.

Dramatic llama looks out over his kingdom...

Alain was really cool about taking pictures for us. He even pointed out all the great spots for photos.

This is the embalming room. The Incas believed in rebirth, so they buried their bodies in the fetal position.

They believe this to be a baptismal font, just below the temple.

These were used to track the position of the sun.

More embalming room...I think.

The condor, which was the messenger to the upper world. The Incas also believed that the jaguar ruled the earth we live on, and that the snake was for the world below.