April 12 Ollantaytambo, Peru

Hola amigos,

I´m sitting in the internet center in Ollantaytambo, Peru. I am getting a fast connection, so it´s a good time to write another post!

We are in the Sacred Valley for the second time, this time on the Sacred Valley ruin tour with Steve and Rachel´s 37 Evergreen students. It is a great group of students and everyone is having a blast!

We all have the 10 day boleto turistico, or tourist ticket that is good for 16 ruin sites and museums in the Cuzco and Sacred Valley region. So, we have been visiting ruin sites and hiking around for several days now. I saw many of these sites 14 years ago, but motherhood must have erased them from memory because everything seems fresh and new again. This valley is incredible. It would take years and years to visit all of the ruin sites and hike all the trails!

Some of the highlights are Sacsayhuaman outside of Cuzco, a large ruin site that was thought to be a place of ceremony and ritual, the ruins outside of Pisac, a large complex, larger even than Machu Picchu with 3 separate ¨neighborhoods¨as well as a fine ceremonial complex, the ruins of Moray, a set of concentric circular terraces where agricultural tests were likely performed, and the Salineras, a series of salt pools where salt has been mined for thousands of years. Tomorrow, we will visit the main ruin site here in Ollanta, but the entire area is an archaeological site itself, and anywhere you walk, you stumble upon Incan stonework.

River and Sage are awesome hikers. Little chivitos, mountain goats! They are picking up more and more Spanish everyday. Life is mostly harmonious. I think they will both really enjoy the enrichment school in Cuzco which we will be trying out in a week or so, as they would both love to spend more time with kids their age. But, as long as we get lots of outside time - and there is plenty of that - we are all happy!

The weather has been amazing. Beautiful sunny days, cooling off in the late afternoon. Perfect for hiking. I had forgotten how much I love it down here... I could easily just stay and stay! We return to Cuzco in a couple of days and we´ll be settling down in the city for 3-4 weeks while Steve´s students are in language school, and then returning for another month in the valley, probably in the town of Pisac. I have been resourceful finding possible rental options for March and interesting educational options for the kids. We´ll see how it all pans out!

I´ll post again soon!

Hasta luego!

Annie