into peru!

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Hello again!

hurray for improving internet situations!!! all is well! we are happy and in cuzco, peru! since i last wrote we have been to potosi, bolivia... like i said the highest city in the world! it was pretty neat. some things it has going for it are the huge silver mine, some pretty interesting colonial past and a really neat mint! (by the way did you know that bolivias 5 peso coin is made in canada?!.. ) anyway.. needless to say i did a tour of the mint with some of our new friends from the altiplano tour (felicity, nicole and malcom.. all amazingly nice people, we were really lucky to have them on our tour!) aly was feeling a bit sick that day so she opted to stay at the hostel instead (dont worry she is doing better now!)

so from potosi we (all 5 of us) took an overnight bus to la paz. la paz was great, a really beautiful and interesting city.. lots of women in traditional dress (big full skirts, long braids, bowler hats and colourful shawls to carry all of their things in...), tons of street markets selling everything from sock to chocolate donuts to llama fetuses (apparently good luck...).. we also ran into a couple of neat festival-like events, someone told us they were celebration an anniversary... not she what though...but everyone was in their fancy dress and there was a lot of confetti, beer drinking and song singing (fun!)...

from la paz we made our way to copacabana (her name was lola, she was a showgirl.. sing it barry..) ahem, anyway aly, nicole, malcom and i made our way to copa where we caught the worlds slllooowwwwwessssttt boat to isla del sol (island of the sun) where the incas believe the sun was born (kind of a big deal out here).. isla del sol was BEAUTIFUL! i could have stayed there for at least a couple of weeks! we found an amazing hostel after hiking up the ¨inca staircase¨... (read... SO MANY STAIRS! and at over 4000m! equals a ton of huffing an puffing!) it had amazing views of the islands... i will post pictures! the next day we did a day hike across the island to see all of the inca ruins and the rock which birthed the sun... pretty cool and sacred! we then power hiked back to the south part of the island where we said our goodbyes to nicole and malcom and caught the worlds slowest boat back to copa... stayed in copa a night and then caught a terribly painful but somewhat entertaining 13 hours bus ride into cuzco peru... lots of loud locals... a woman cleving lamb for lunch in front of us on the bus, and lots of twisty road!)... so now we are here... cuzco is pretty neat too... we went to a neat shop today which is trying to preserve inca weaving techniques.. the weaving is so beautiful and detailed. they had a great museum there too which expained everything in english too! oh yeah and i googled their website since i am so cranked about it... the websites not great but give it a read... http://www.incas.org/SPChinchero.htm.

we also bought our permits and train tickets to machu picchu for this weekend...exciting!!! so we are headed there on sunday (hurray! quite the pinnacle to finish off such an epic trip!!!) so once again all is well! much love to everyone!!

xo mon!

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