Dear Grandma

Grandma,

Please come back and bring more bubbles. The P-A-R-K is not the same without you. Mom doesn't let me do anything fun. She hid my kazoos and won't let me climb on the table. Also, you made the best snacks.

Love,
Abby

Charlotte

I hate spiders, which is why it is so ironic that I am fiercely protective of this one....

This is sweet Charlotte. She is our industrious and faithful family pet who built a rather large and indestructible web outside our kitchen window. It has been fascinating to watch her work.
Abby loves to stand underneath her beautiful web. She knows where Charlotte lives and loves to call our 'SPIDER' every time we come up our walkway.

Jeremy's not afraid to go in for a high five.

Laughing at Kim

In conclusion, here is a delightful picture Kim took of me on the plane. Notice I took the middle seat so the stranger on my left didn't have to worry about the crazy eye patch lady. I tried to do a good thing and this is how she repays me.

Well, in return, I will write down some of the more funnier things I said about her eye patch over that day. Feel free to laugh at her expense.

(After Kim offered to drive me to Target) -- I don't know if I want to be a passenger in an eye-patch operated vehicle.

(While Kim was winking at a kid near us) -- Winking loses its effectiveness when one eye is covered by an eye patch. At some point you have to give in and just call it blinking.

(To an annoying guy who wouldn't stop staring at Kim's eye patch) -- Quit staring at my friend. You're super fat and she hasn't looked at you with her good or bad eye.

(While I was changing) -- Close your eyes. Wait, make that eye.

(While second guessing Kim) -- Two eyes against one. With that crappy eye patch you'll always be outnumbered.

(In response to someone saying her eye looks better today) -- Why? Does her eye patch look more white?

Inca Trail -- Day Four

My day four started at 3 AM. I was seriously tired and feeling super sore from yesterday. There was nothing to do but put on my 'fun' hats and get to trekking. I was super excited to get to Machu Picchu!

Kim's day also started at 3 AM. Unfortunately, Kim's throat was rubbed raw and her sinuses were completely jacked. Her eye was totally puffed up and running non stop down her face. She could no longer see out of that eye at all.

Let's write a 'happy' list of things Kim woke up to -- afraid of heights and we're camping on the side of a mountain, slight vertigo, leaving at 3 AM so we're trekking in the dark, can only see out of one eye, it's been raining all night so everything is slick and wet, Kim forgot her head torch, etc. I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

Needless to say, Kim sucked it up -- much better than I would have -- and we started the final climb to the hidden Inca city of Machu Picchu.

It's so fun to sit like a llama.

Could it possibly be....?

Here was our first view of Machu Picchu.

I'd take Kim's eye patch over my face breaking out like a teenager. Seriously.

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu

Kim was able to see the doctor. Her throat infection turned into a sinus infection, which eventually turned into conjunctivitis in her eye. This was followed a day later by explosive diarrhea and vomiting.

In all honesty, I still had diarrhea and vomiting for six days after I got home as well. I am also going on day four of a stiff neck.

And somehow I now have dandruff. What's up with that?

Anyhow....

Machu Picchu

This is the final shot of our group. We came, we saw and we TOTALLY conquered. We may be down an eye, but we've crossed off one more goal off our bucket list.

Does life get any better than this?

Inca Trail -- Day Three

Day three started out with a jolly hike up and then about six hours of nearly straight down. Down is not my favorite. It tears apart your hamstrings and you have to work the crap out of your core to keep your body upright. It probably wouldn't stink so bad if I had abs instead of a muffin top.

This is a fun little village we pasted on the way.

Here I am violating the Code of Ethics and sitting on the Inca wall. Bad form makes for a great picture. It rained for most of the night so it was still all misty and cold when we ventured out this morning.

This is where we entered the high jungle rain forest. The temperature was so much better than the blazing sun of the earlier trail. I'm pretty used to being moist all the time -- as disgusting as that sounds -- from the Japanese humidity.

I was perched on a seriously unstable ledge to get this shot. I hope it was worth it.

Kimmy :)


Kim's eye started to hurt a little while after we took this photo. She already had a sore throat and her allergies were really kicking into high gear. The hikers in front of us were kicking up some dust and we were pretty certain that's what was causing her eye to puff out and run.

I look like I'm hiking in the Alps. Maybe next year.

More Inca ruins.

Artsy shots of Inca ruins.

Inca ruins that look like a shield.

Stick a fork in Kim; she's done! Notice how red her nose/eye/mouth is. Looking good.

We had about an hour more to hike at this point. Kim went right to the tent and off to bed. I stayed up and had dinner. The porters made us a fabulous last supper, complete with a cake they made over the fire.

Sometime during the night Kim went out of the bathroom and she came back to me stretched all over the tent. I had somehow crawled over to her sleeping bag and was drooling all over her backpack. Needless to say, she was pretty happy that was our last night in the tent together.

Inca Trail -- Day Two

This is our opening shot of day two. This is our the 11 hikers, plus our two guides, two cooks and 14 porters. The porters are basically in charge of running ahead of us -- literally -- with all our crap, putting up our eating and sleeping tents, boiling water, and all the other odds and ends that made our trip so enjoyable. They were phenomenal. The cooks were amazing. We devoured everything they made. I couldn't have asked for better service. GAP is a seriously amazing company to travel with and I would certainly recommend them to anyone and I would not hesitate to use them again.

Today's hike was exhausting. We had to clear a summit of 13,650 feet, which is about 100 feet higher than Mt. Fuji. We started out in a with some small hills and rested in a valley that was full of llamas (Alpacas? Who can tell the difference, really), wild deer, hummingbirds, etc. Then we hightailed it nearly straight up for the rest of the way.

My strategy was to keep to the middle of the pack and stop at every large rock I could find. It worked pretty well. I made it to the top with energy to spare.

This is no way does the experience justice. We were totally thrilled to have reached the summit, but we were so exhausted it was hard to enjoy it. It was also freezing up there. I also know, from Fuji, that is is MUCH harder to hike down a mountain than up it. I was dreading the next five hours or so.

That's where we came from.

Some random Llama or Alpaca. It stank and was covered in dingle berries.

Why no photos of the way down? About 10 minutes into our descent it started to rain. Then it started to hail chunks of ice that pelted us like BB pelts. It was a miserable and cold next few hours. I fell down the rocky terrain not once, but three times. My camera also broke in half again. Boo.

The highlight to this part of the adventure was playing 20 questions with Ozzie. He wanted us to pick a vegetable, mineral or animal. He was so funny to trick. He had no idea it was illegal to ask questions like: what letter does it start with? He would also waste his questions by repeating them. To be fair to us, he would always pick a random Peruvian bird, like the Andean Condor, when it was his turn. Who the crap -- outside of Peru -- would have any idea what that is? I didn't want to say that of course, so usually I just pretended that I already guessed that bird and he must not have heard me. I am so competitive; I never lose.

It rained all night, so we ate and went right to bed. Morning comes early in the Andes and you have to take every advantage sleep can provide.

Inca Trail -- Day One

I woke up a tad nervous but ready for my four-day hike to Machu Picchu. Kim woke up with a nearly unbearable altitude headache. She did her best to shake it off, but it became clear that medicine was going to be needed. Luckily, Ozzie --our awesome tour guide, carries liquid magic in his bag that Kim was advised to huff. Immediately she felt better. They wouldn't tell her what was it in, but I snooped around and found the main ingredient was alcohol. Who knew you could snort alcohol? I could have saved a ton of money on cups in high school.

Here is our starting photograph.

Mount Veronica loomed in the background.

We followed this river for a good half of the morning. It was beautiful.

About three hours into our hike, Craig's hiking boots fell apart. The soles totally pulled away from the shoe. He had to hike the rest of the five hours that day in his sandals. The Peruvian porters were able to stick the sole back on and it held for the rest of the trip. They have mad skills and can fix anything.

No matter where I go in the world -- including the middle of nowhere Peru -- I will stumble across a group of over-excited Japanese tourists. The picture above is where they found me. I heard them snapping photos and yelling 'HI" a good quarter-mile away.

This is what our unpolitically correct tour guide Rosa told us: I am so happy I am not leading that group. They would want to stop every two minutes to take a pictures. We always have to hike so slow with them because they only go single file. I would have to spend most of my time practicing English grammar and explaining words. Also, it takes about 30 minutes for them to put on Geisha makeup.

They followed us for about four hours. Every time they would come across something cool we would hear them scream "ooohhh" and "aaahhh" in the distance. Crack me up.

Shots along the path.

While everyone was oogling the fruit trees I happened to look down and spotted this tarantula. I do not like spiders. This one looked dead but I didn't get close enough to double check. This was especially disturbing when later that night we discovered out tent didn't zip up and anything could crawl in and kick it with us while we slept.

I'm sure you're wondering why I took so many photos of animals near the end of the day. I'll be blunt: I had severe tummy troubles that required me to spend a lot of time in the bushes with the wildlife. Food wasn't going in and anything that did came right back out.

I did manage to get some energy chewing on cocoa leaves. They basically make your face numb and give you crazy energy. They were super disgusting and I couldn't stand the way they made me feel or how they tasted. I found out later that after chewing them you can test positive for cocaine up to a week later. YIKES. I had no idea. They put them in everything in Peru so I didn't realize they were a big deal.

We finished out the night with a grand game of soccer -- porters versus trekkers. I cheered everyone on from my tent. I have no idea where they found the energy.

Sacred Valley and Ollantaytambo

We left at the crack of dawn to drive to the Sacred Valley and Ollantaytambo. The bus ride was awesome.

Local farmers doing their thing.

Our first stop was to a near-by village. We got a chance to chat it up with the locals and see how they made their traditional crafts.

Now, let me just say that I am extremely skeptical of "authentic" crafts, as I made all the "authentic" crafts on the Indian reservation near my house. I'm as much Native as I am Japanese. Although, to my credit, I can make a better dream catcher than a bowl of rice any day of the week.

But I digress....

The yarn that they made was brilliant. I love the colors.

They get the different colors by steaming the yarn for hours with local leaves, flowers and plants.

I dug the Llamas.

The Sacred Valley.

In the middle of our "one-hour" hike.

Our guide thought it would be a good idea to take us on an "easy one-hour hike" to get us accustomed to the altitude. Ha. It was well over three hours and not even close to easy. This is where I learned that hiking is relative -- what's fun for one person is pure hell for the other!

Our guide referred to this section of the trail as "hilly." Someone needs to get this dude a dictionary.

Here I am getting a much needed break.

We are pretty high up on the "hill."

Dear sweet Kim. Poor Kim had a terrible time with the altitude. She started getting blue lips and finger tips during this trek. She also experienced some slight vertigo. I helped her out by standing in front of her and forcing the on coming traffic to take the cliff-side path while she hugged the mountain. She was a real trooper.

Here's some more Inca ruins.

I really hate tour groups and details. I just can't stand in one place and listen to people go on and on about history stuff. So this is all I remember: Inca people made this, circle-looking things are usually temples, anything stuck together without clay is probably religious building, everything else if for the locals.

And it's really old.

I'm sure you could find anything else you wanted to know about it by Googling. I probably won't.

A dude with a crown.

An Inca Warrior

An untouched Inca road.

A city street in Ollantaytambo.