Made it to 12,000 feet - still alive!

i DID NOT SPELL CHECK OR EDIT - TIME TO GO OUT FOR DINNER!!!

Flew from Lima to Cusco, bus to Urubumba/Sacred Valley with stops on the way on a windy gravel road.  12,000 feet and just have a slight headache and now we are staying at 9,000.  Since I often have little headaches it might be my typical "tired headache.

We visited a sanctuary for llamas, alpacas, vicunas and another thing I cannot recall.  The Peruvians are beautiful people in both appearance and manner.  

And for my faithful blog followers I will have to enhance the info later because every day I take notes!!!

Alpaca: - very stringy "hair" and they never wash them because it would destroy the lanolin prior to shearing.

 Ross feeding maybe the llama?

 I called this one King of the Hill!!!

 A local weaver and the products are real, beautiful and expensive!

These two little kids in the back were pushing plastic rings back and forth on a round piece of wood like a broom handle - fantastic idea!!!

 An often seen taxi in the small towns along the way.

 Looking over the Andes from our room.

 And another view.  It is just beautiful here and huge temperature variations depending on night, day, sun, clouds.  Tomorrow we are supposed to bring layers and raincoats to hike the 360 steps up and down to Machu Picchu . I did have a couple small cups of the recommended coca leaf tea for altitude help as did everyone else.  Of course it is illegal in the US and most other places and I am sure you know why.
I am far behind on blogging but as they told us the first hour - it is an "expedition" not a "pleasure trip".  And the trip rating for active level is 4 on a scale of 1 to 4 - so there you go!!!!