Home from Peru!

Welp, I'm back. It was such a fantastic trip that I felt none of the usual 'I've been gone long enough, I'll be glad to get home again.' I just feel melancholy.

Jill and Kate on the Amazon.

We saw and heard marvelous creatures in the jungle, oohed and ahhed at pink river dolphins making brief appearances above the surface of the Amazon, walked up and down temples where young girls were sacrificed to old gods, got all our bones jangled in tiny moto-taxis (I called them putt-putts), watched condors wheeling over Colca Canyon and climbed up Machu Picchu (the mountain the city is named after, that is). The food was far better than we were expecting (surprisingly veggie-friendly), and I've never laughed so hard in my life.

So here are some random highlights—I won't start blogging in earnest until next weekend, when I get to download Kate's pictures.

It vants to suck your blood.

Rum is YUM.

[Oh, and for the benefit of those few readers—if any, bwahahaha —who are not related to me, I should clarify that Kate and I went with Kate's boyfriend Elliot, his mother Jill, and his brother Spencer. It was Jill and Kate and I for the first half—when we did a bunch of pre-Incan archaeological sites like Chan Chan and Huaca de la Luna, then spent four days at a jungle lodge on the Amazon—and then we went back to Lima to meet up with Elliot and Spencer, and that's when we did Machu Picchu and all that.]

This is what happens when you fall asleep in the taxi.

At Machu Picchu. I don't know what is going on here.

Spencer, Jill, and Elliot, waiting for our flight to Cuzco. Elliot finished Petty Magic on the trip. I get four and a half stars.

Cool doorknocker in Trujillo, our base for exploring Huaca de la Luna and other archaeological sites. We disapprove of the Spaniards for all the disease and violence they wrought upon the natives, but must admit the colonial architecture is splendid.

I love this doorknocker in particular because of the ring. I wore my grandmother's ring on my finger for most of the trip because Lonely Planet says it's not a bad idea to invent a boyfriend or husband.

Kate: How's your marriage going?
Me: Great! We never fight!

More soon.