{"id":7763,"date":"2015-10-10T08:29:15","date_gmt":"2015-10-10T12:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/?p=7763"},"modified":"2015-10-10T13:53:23","modified_gmt":"2015-10-10T17:53:23","slug":"peru","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/?p=7763","title":{"rendered":"Peru!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peru was an amazing trip! Truly one of the best of my life!
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\nI traveled light. Only 24 lbs in a backpack.
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\nI spent my first night in a hostel in Lima.
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\nEarly the next morning I flew from the capital of Lima to Iquitos, the heart of the Amazon! The Andes mountains were amazing. They looked like islands coming from the clouds.
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\nThe Amazon and its tributaries looked like an anaconda to me.
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\nFrom Iquitos, I traveled over an hour to the little village of El Triunfo–the Triumph! The area reminded me of coastal Kenya near Mombasa. Hot and humid!
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\nI hiked about 2 miles through the jungle to a camp run by a man named Percy Lozano.
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\nPercy noted for natural healing with plants and singing songs of his ancestors called icaros. They were beautiful.<\/p>\n

I was joined at the camp with a doctor from Chicago, a dentist from Oregon and a lady from Ireland.
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\n I lived in a hut that was raised on poles about eight feet off the ground.
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\nThe hardest part about the jungle was the food. Or the lack thereof. We had a very strict diet with no salt, no sugar, no meat, no fruit. This was my meal for seven days: breakfast, lunch and dinner!
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\nI was given oatmeal for two meals as a change up.<\/p>\n

The camp was beautiful! I loved the plants, birds and mushrooms in particular!
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\nI recognized many of the flowers. Interesting to think that this is the area that they came from!
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I enjoyed my hikes in the jungle.
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I didn’t dig ALL the animals. I had a rat that chewed on my stuff, including my soap. Bad luck.
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The river came through the camp. He would pour flowers and aromatic plants on us here. Smelled amazing.
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This is the Maloka, where we would gather to listen to them sing songs.
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\nPercy liked me singing “Baba Oshe” in Yoruba. He’d say, “Hallelujah!”
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\nI didn’t wear a shirt for a week. Too hot.<\/p>\n

It was the Super Moon while I was in the Amazon.
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After a week with nearly no food, I was ready to get back to civilization! Hiked out of the jungle and was picked up my my friend Robert in the “Blue Bullet.” Top speed 40 mph. I think. His speedometer and seat belts didn’t work.
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I couldn’t get over how much the area reminded me of coastal Kenya.
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I stayed in Iquitos overnight and left for Lima and Cusco early the next morning. Beautiful sunset that evening.
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\nIt was great to have electricity and running water again!
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\nThe airport in Lima was just a little too Americanized for me.
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We flew over the Andes mountains on the way to Cusco, 11,340 feet!
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\nThere’s just something about snow capped mountains!
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\nCusco at night was amazing. They were celebrating the birthday of St. San Francisco. Even had fireworks! And parades! My house was at the top of the hill. I walked down and took a taxi back up. The altitude was intense.
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I stayed with an Irish woman and her cousin in Cusco.
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\n I had the loft apartment.
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\nWatch your head! Bonk.
\nI’ve never taken a trip where I had to prepare for the hottest and coldest weather at the same time.
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\nThe view from my house.
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\nCusco was even more beautiful during the day! It was amazing being there during a celebration.
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I visited the market of San Pedro. I loved the cacti they had there. Made me miss my garden.
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\nThe market reminded me of Nairobi.
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I spent most of my afternoon hiking through the ruins around Cusco. These walls were hundreds of years old and earthquake proof.
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\nThe Spaniards built a Cathedral over the ruins of Qoricancha.
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Went above Cusco (over 12,000 ft!) to Sacsayhuaman. The walls were amazing. Some of the stones weighed several tons.
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\nTambomachay was a temple dedicated to water.
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\nThe water always flowed at the same rate irregardless of rain or drought.<\/p>\n

Pukapukara was located in a beautiful spot.
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\nQ’uenko was an underground temple. They mummified the royalty here.<\/p>\n

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\nMan, did I get sunburned that day! Started out cold. Then hot. With no decent hat.
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\nAnother fabulous sunset!
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It was great to get back to real food.
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Say what?
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\nMonday morning, I left Cusco to travel down the Sacred Valley to Ollantaytambo.
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\nThe drive through the mountains was spectacular.
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Gotta love llamas.
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Signs of Incan ruins were everywhere.
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I stayed at the Full Moon Lodge at Ollantaytambo.
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\nMy host was cool.
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\nMy friend Adrian (who looked like the pirate Jack Sparrow) took me on a five mile hike around the valley up into the mountains.
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\n Amazing.
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\nWe stopped to visit with an Quechan family at the top of the mountain.
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\nWhen Elvis left the building, he went to Peru.
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\nAdrian was a fun host.
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\nHe took me to some overlooked ruins.
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An early night’s sleep ready to get up the next morning to ride the train to Machu Picchu!
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\nThe train ride reminded me of Nepal.
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\nMachu Picchu is actually thousands of feet lower than Cusco. The call it the “eyebrow of the jungle.” The train goes through a lot more trees than around the Sacred Valley.
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\nI caught a bus in the town of Machu Picchu to take me on a 30 minute drive up to the ruins.
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One of the Wonders of the World! Macchu Picchu!
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\nThis is the head of the Condor!
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\nI got the stamp in my passport.\"s\"
\nRode the train back to Ollantaytambo. Got home around 9pm. Crashed. Super tired. Up again at 5:30am to pack and then check out the ruins that the town is named for. Fantastic.
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\nAfter visiting the Ollantaytambo ruins, I met up with my taxi driver to take me back to Cusco. Beautiful trip.
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\n We went the alternate route through Pisac, another major archaeological site.
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\nWe stopped at an animal sanctuary on our way back to Cusco. I liked the pumas and condors the best.
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This statue, called the “White Christ” overlooks Cusco.
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\nCaught my flight into Lima and had a great time with a friend of mine Luis Zevallos who is a fan of my podcast Verbal Surgery. Made my long layover at the airport go a lot faster!
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\nAfter a 1:30am flight, I arrived in the ATL around 9am! GREAT to see my girls!
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\nA fantastic “bucket list” trip! THANKS for your prayers and support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peru was an amazing trip! Truly one of the best of my life! I traveled light. Only 24 lbs in a backpack. I spent my first night in a hostel in Lima. Early the next morning I flew from the capital of Lima to Iquitos, the heart of the Amazon! The Andes mountains were amazing. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7763"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7763"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7771,"href":"https:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7763\/revisions\/7771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}