Here are a few teaser pictures from our trip to Peru.

#1 Our first destination was Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca where we visited the floating reed islands of the Uros Islands. Our bilingual guide introduced us to a local family. Their 18 yr old daughter "Mirabelle" [sp] dressed us up in some of their clothes. That's her house behind us which she shares with her parents and younger brother.

#2 From the Uros Islands we boated out to Tequile Island where we stayed with a local family in their house. Here's their house and courtyard. We slept in the top left room.

#3 At one of the breakfasts, their young son sat with us, next to Buz (our traveling companion).

#4 Before we left, Diane played kick-ball with the young son and daughter in the courtyard.

#5 Here we are on the Inca Trek. This is taken at the first of 3 passes that we had to ascend. This one is Dead Women's Pass, a little over 14,000 ft elevation. All of our porters waited for us at the top to huff and puff our way up to the top so they could applaud us as we crested the pass. Then they got up and scurried off on down the trail. Next we had to descend all the way down into the valley behind us and then ascend the 2nd pass which is the lighter-colored ridgeline just to the left of Diane's head. Then we again descended into the valley beyond that and had to climb to the top of the 3rd pass. This was all done in one day!

#6 This is Dave at the top of the 2nd pass. The rock mattress was very comfortable!

#7 Our last breakfast on the trail. We had camped on the top of an Andean mountain peak that evening. When we awoke we could watch the sunrise and slowly illuminate the surrounding snow-covered peaks, like the one behind us.

#8 Here we are at Intipunku, where Inca Trail trekkers get their first view of Machu Picchu just behind and to the left of Diane's head. The "white" ribbon you see snaking up the hill behind us is the road built for the tourist buses.

#9 Here we are at Machu Picchu! Yah !!! With our Center Hiking Club T-shirts. The darker peak behind Machu Picchu is Wayna Picchu. The next day we climbed to it's tippy top for the view in the other direction.

#10 Here's the 3 of us on top of Wayna Picchu.

#11 Here's the two of us on the train back to Cusco. The 4 days of high altitude hiking up and down the mountain passes had taken its toll.

#12 One of the Peruvian delicacies is called Cuy (or in English: Guinea Pig!) Here's several roasted just waiting for a hungry customer to scarf them up. Buz ordered one in a restaurant later and ate it. Diane and Dave just tried small pieces of meat that Buz gave us. Tasted like chicken. :-)

#13 After the mountains near Machu Picchu, we flew to Puerto Maldonado where we boarded motorboats like the one shown below for a 2.5 hour ride up the river to our jungle lodge (Amazonia Refugio) in the Peruvian rainforest.

#14 We hiked thru the jungle a lot. The trails were VERY muddy. They gave us rubber boots to wear instead of our usual hiking boots. We saw lots of beautiful birds, flowers, some monkeys, and strange trees.

#15 This was the sleeping portion of the lodge. Diane is standing at the curtained "door" to our room. The walls between rooms were just thin bamboo walls that only extended about 10 feet high. Everything you said could easily be heard by your next door neighbors and vice-a-versa.

#16 This was the interior of our room. One wall is "missing". It's open to the jungle! The bathroom was off to the left. The beds had mosquito nets that were lowered for sleeping in the evening.

More pictures, and of course the full-fledged website, will be coming as soon as I can write-up 2 weeks worth of trip memories and sort thru the 1,000+ pictures that we took..

The End