A little herb never hurt!

Wow-today was an amazing day. The phrase, ¨simply amazing¨ must have run through my mind a hundred times. I took an extreme mountain biking excursion through the guy who owns the hostel I´m staying at. He´s from the States but moved here 5 years ago. I met a family from Portland and a couple from Colorado. One thing I knew would happen here that didn´t in Asia is that I am running into many Americans. It´s not all bad, as I´m meeting nice people(many educators), but I loved not running into any while in Thailand. Anywho, the kids of this family were 13 and 16 and great. We stuck together for most of the tour as the parents held back a bit. However, I give their mom credit because I KNOW Sheila wouldn´t have been caught dead doing this. It reminds me of our family rafting excursion where the phrase ¨Shut up and row¨ became commonplace.

The trip began at the Moray an Inca research center of sorts. Their work is of perfection. The fact that they could create something so vast and near perfect is quite astounding. They did it by hand!

Within the first few minutes I took a headed after my tire got caught in a crevace. Besides a skinned knee, I was fine and back down the trail. These sites reminded me a bit of Glacier in Montana but the difference is that the mountains are covered with pastures and crops and little towns in the valleys. There were steep parts and easier parts. The most challenging were the steep switchbacks, and there were many. I kept my back break close to constantly on as I jerked my handlebars to the left and immediately to the right. I should mention that some of these turns were on about 4 feet of trail with mountain on one side of me and cliff on the other side. Don´t worry Mom, I made it down safely. My tourmates were kind enough to take pictures to prove I´m alive. It took us about 4 hours or more to make it down the mountain. At the end of our journey we made it to the salt mines. Families own pools, like owning a plot of land. They mine the salt for your table. If you have Peruvian Pink Salt, I saw it being mined today. One of the most interesting things I learned today is that in the valley that houses Ollyantaytambo, where I´m staying, was one of the only, if not only, places that the Inca defeated the Spanish.

Finally today, we saw many children. Excuse me while I pontificate for a moment. I always love seeing the children of the world. These kids don´t know what Nintendo Wii is or have iPods or cell phones. But what I notice is how happy they are or seem. They don´t know what they are missing. I love Guitar Hero too, don´t worry, but these kids don´t know that. I prefer to beleive that they are happy with what they have. We saw two boys running along with us. Their feet were black with dirt, jutting out of their leather sandles. One boy had a wire and a wheel. His older companion, Arnesto as we found out, kept trying to kick the wheel off the wire. I must mention that this was on the steep switchbacks. The little boy never once lost control of his wheel as the two of them laughed and giggled the entire way.

What I love about seeing the children is that it makes me not feel sorry for them. That´s not to say there are not children in this world that do have it rough and I do feel sorry for, but the children I encounter are happy. They don´t know what they don´t have and I sometimes think that is better. But I do wonder what they think as the foreign tourists come into their lives. Do they wish they had the bikes that we were on? Do we make their lives better by bringing much needed money to them? Or, are we taking away their innosence? I choose to believe the former. At least I hope so.

The herb I refer to in the title of course is coco. It is illegal to bring back to the States, but´I´m sure if I could get some back, it would do wonders. It looks much like a small bay leaf and they put it directly in hot water for tea. I´m guessing, if it is illegal in the States, we could figure out another use. : ) I´m just saying.... I have been drinking the tea three times a day as it is supposed to help with altitude sickness. At least that is what they say.

Tonight I had burritos for dinner. They were much like a fejita with everything coming in a separate bowl. The tortillas were much like a Swedish pancack. I am also loving that soups like pumpkin and squash are so huge here. I´m taking a cooking class tomorrow, so I hope to learn the tricks!

I´m about 24 hours away from Machu Picchu. I´m trying not to look at all the posters, post cards, books, etc. with the famous site on them. Although I have seen those pictures many, many times, I want the image to be fresh in my mind. I remember when my brother did a report on MP, I was in 3rd or 4th grade perhaps. Since then I have wanted to visit. I´ve been waiting over 20 years for Sunday and it is almost here!!

Please leave comments. It keeps me connected to all of you. I see it is quite hot in Chicago these days. It is really cold here in the morning, around 40 and at night around 40. During the day it is about 65 or 70 degrees. Lovely!