Chris and I departed Lagos on 30 September for our trip to the US and Peru. We had many interesting trips during that time. We flew into Atlanta and drove to Charlotte NC and hung out with Brice for a day. Had lunch with him at his workplace, a very interesting and eclectic place. Next day, we picked up Paige at Charlotte airport and the four of us drove to Roanoke. On our way, we picked up Ashley at Virginia Tech; what a beautiful place it is! We met big Chris at his favorite restaurant for dinner. Had a great weekend with our Patriarca children. It was good having everyone together. We also got to see the house Chris and Ashley are moving into. They live in a cool part of Roanoke and are walking distance to downtown. The Patriarca children planned a surprise birthday for their father which was fun and very thoughtful.
After driving Paige and Brice back to Charlotte we stayed overnight at the edge of town so we could head back to Atlanta first thing Monday morning. On the way to Atlanta, Chris got pulled over for weaving. We are still laughing about that. Made it to Atlanta with room to spare and boarded our flight for Lima about 5:30 pm. Arrived in Lima at 10:30 p.m. and were met at airport and driven to hotel. We only got to sleep about 4 hours and were picked up and driven back to airport.
The flight from Lima to Cusco was very interesting because we could see that all of Peru is mountainous. Upon arrival we had to get out and walk the last six blocks because there was a strike by the farmers over high gas prices that affected us several times on the trip. Thankfully we had help with our luggage! It was all uphill and actually, the whole trip was uphill and it wasn't easy. The hardest part of being at 12-14,000 feet is breathing; then you are expected to breathe and walk at the same time. That's a little much!
We stayed in an old and quaint hotel in Cusco. Chris took some pictures on of the inside about the last day we were there. As soon as we checked in, we were whisked away for our first guided tour in and around Cusco. We had mild rain the first day which made it seem colder than it was.
On the second day, we went to Sacred Valley. It is called sacred for a reason. Many wonderful surprises awaited us. Many gifts, not to mention the gifts from the angry farmers who left everything from pebbles to boulders on the highways. Seemed like we were driving an obstacle course. While there we went to a village and visited the studio of several Peruvian women who walked us through the step-by-step process of taking the Alpaka wool and dying it with natural dyes, then spooling the wool and lastly creating the design and product on the loom. They said they don't sit down with a design in mind but rather just let it come. We purchased a beautiful table runner from the woman who said she spent three months in making it.
We had a fabulous lunch on our drive between stops. There are a lot of advantages of being on tours like being met at airports and prearranged everything including transportation. There are also some disadvantages like never getting to do anything on your own, not being able to stay as long as you would like at some places and having more time at others than might be desirable. It's a trade-off but in a strange land for our first visit, it was probably the only reasonable way.
The Peru trip continues in separate phases, so we will end this phase here.
Thank you to our Patriarca children for being present and making our visit to the Northeast memorable.
Chris & Donnie
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