Memorial Day Weekend

We spent part of the hot, sunny Memorial Day weekend at the pool.  And the rest of was spent car shopping.   I love the pool!  I hate car shopping!  Luckily, our city has most of the car dealerships all within 2 blocks of each other and within 5 minutes of our house.  So we just worked our way up the street to test drive the three SUVs that I was considering.   I ended up driving 4 cars over 2 days and then bought my first ever brand new vehicle.  

Bye  bye Audi A4

I loved driving my little A4 for the past 6 years.  I loved the fact that it was a compact car for parking and maneuvering.   But it was too small too many times for "stuff" that I wanted to haul.  That day in April when we drove William's new big bike home from the bike shop with its trunk flapping open and drizzle starting put me firmly in the buy an SUV camp!  

But since this is my car to drive every day, I didn't want it to be too big.  We were very surprised at how much we loved the BMW X3, so it made the decision easy!   Our perfect combination of car and SUV.   And we also bought a bike rack that fits on the hitch so we can haul all three bikes for trail riding!  Family fun starts this summer!

Peru - The Amazon

The last part of our trip was three nights/four days in the Amazon Rainforest.   We flew from Cusco to Puerto Maldonado which is a tiny, developing town, on the Madre de Dios River, a tributary of the Amazon River.   From the airport, we were taken in a van to the "port" - more like a dock - to load in our motorized canoe for the 30 minute ride down river to the Inkaterra Reserva Amazonica eco-lodge. 

While I knew there were periods of the day where there would be no electricity (3:30-5:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.-4:30 a.m.), I was spoiled after the free wifi in all of our hotels during the week and it came as a shock to hear on the van ride that we would have no cell reception or wifi once we left the airport area.   Cue panicked text messages to all of the grandparents at home with the kids that we were going off the grid for four days.   I was also disappointed to know I couldn't keep my inbox cleared out.   The grandkids were all fine without us; my inbox and its 450 messages when I got online Friday night was less amazing.

Cabana #9 was our home.  I was initially confused why we weren't issued room keys upon our check in.  Well....because the doors didn't have locks.  The cabana was one big, screened-in room.  One-third was the living room complete with chairs and hammocks.  Behind that was a bi-fold screen that closed off the sleeping area for privacy.  And in the middle of the sleeping area was a king size bed complete with mosquito nets.   Behind the sleeping area was a vanity flanked on one side by a tiled in shower and the other with a toilet room.

 

The view out the front room was the river (and other cabanas).  The view out the shower was the Koudele's cabana!  That made for lots of good jokes as we could clearly keep tabs on each other without cell phones. . . ."Are the Koudeles at lunch?  No; they're sitting on their porch watching a movie on their laptop."  "No, John isn't ready, he's standing at the sink shaving." 

 

Since there was literally no where to go and nothing non-resort related to do, they do provide a number of complimentary excursions into the rainforest.   Most were 8-11 a.m. or 2-5 p.m.   We did several but the most amazing was Hacienda Concepcion where we saw 50+ monkey in the trees.  We also did a jungle walk around the property where saw a sloth that was in the very, very top of a high tree.  And we did a canopy walk on another morning where we climbed stairs 100 feet in the air before working our way across a maze of six suspension bridges and then back down 100 feet of stairs. 

 Our guide Michel on our orientation walk telling us not to touch anything!

 Sloth!

 Rubber tree

 On top of the first platform before we did the canopy walk

 Guess who went first?

 I went second.  This is Keith coming behind me.

 Above the trees

 Monkeys!

 Lagoon tour complete with brown water, more monkey, and asthmatic birds

 

This stop was a once-in-a-lifetime and glad I did it but don't need to do it again adventure.   I loved having an excuse to go to bed at 10 p.m. each night.  And I loved napping and reading in the hammock.  But next time I think I'll do that somewhere without giant mosquitos, fire ants and 100% humidity!   Besides the monkeys, our favorite was a paid excursion for just the four of us to a private island for a bonfire, star-gazing and drinks/snacks. We felt like we we had won the Survivor Reward Challenge!  It was an amazing way to end the trip! 

 

Peru - Machu Picchu

I took nearly 100 pictures at Machu Picchu. It was just as amazing (or more) than what I was expecting.  The only not amazing thing was no bathrooms.   So once we went into the gates at 8 a.m., we had to play a "to hydrate, or not to hydrate" game since we didn't leave until 2 p.m. 

The peak behind us is Wayna Picchu (new peak versus Machu Picchu, old peak), which allows 400 hikers up each day - 200 at 7 a.m. and 200 at 10 a.m.  The next series of pictures is during that hike, which we did from 10:15-12:45.   It took us around 1 1/2 hours to get up, we spent some time up top celebrating, and then another 45 minutes to get ourselves down.   The altitude was a real challenge (Racing heart?  Check!  Out of breath?  Check!), but our guide was great about letting us pace ourselves and take water/breathing breaks.   The hike was not as scary as I was expecting (thanks for the freak out YouTube!) because the entrance/exit paths have been switched in the past few years and the trail up at the top around the "Stairs of Death" is now one way.   There were also some rails in the narrowest/steepest parts to help keep you sure footed.   

This was what we had come for, and it did not disappoint!