Easter Island, Chili and Cusco, Peru Trip

This is looooong over due, but I finally finished it!!

   Easter Island, Chili and Cusco, Peru Trip

May 29 – June 9^th, 2014

In typical Amy fashion, I got it in my head that I wanted to run a marathon, but not just any marathon, I wanted to run a marathon in another country and I chose to do it on Easter Island.  Every year Easter Island has a marathon that allows only 180 people to participate in it (because of the small size of the island).  So, I signed up for the marathon and began my training for it about 3 months before the race.  Training for this thing took up a lot of time and planning.  Every weekend I had to set aside many hours to run my long distances.  Besides the difficult physical aspect, I also got a lot of negative comments about the race from just about everyone.  Here are a few ‘encouraging’ remarks I received:

“Isn’t it going to be really hot down there when you run?” – It’s winter in the southern hemisphere during our May, genius.  And it’s an island in the middle of the Pacific.  It’s like Hawaii all year.

“What happens if you don’t finish?” – I’m sure I wouldn’t be the first person to not finish a marathon, so I suppose I would just be taken back by some vehicle.

“Have you been training?” – No, I didn’t even think about that!

“Don’t you think you picked a difficult marathon to run for your first time?” – Seeing as ALL marathons are the same distance and this one doesn’t have a time limit, then I would say no.

Despite all the negative feedback from everyone I encountered, I ignored it just like usual and trained my butt off until we left GR to head to Easter Island.

Getting to Easter Island was probably the hardest part of our trip!  We had to change planes 5 times:  Gr to Chicago, Chicago to Miami, Miami to Lima, Lima to Santiago and Santiago to Easter Island.  It was hell.  However, our carrier was LAN outside of the US and I have to say, their flights had the most unbelievable service I have ever had on an airplane!  We got wonderful meals, free alcoholic drinks, free movies, free headphones…it was awesome!  And we flew coach too!  The airline service definitely made up for the 30 some hours that we were in the air and the airport during layovers.  

Most of the layovers were because we were doing the side trip to Cusco and because South American flights just do not run like American flights.  They are late and few and far between.  I was actually glad we had long layovers because they do not keep to their schedule very well!  Anyway, after all that time we finally made it to Easter Island Friday evening. 

LAN Airlines had the most amazing meals...and we were in coach!

We made it to Easter Island!

This is the entrance to their only airport

Our hostel Host meeting us at the airport!

The hostel where we were staying at had a guy come and pick us up at the airport.  We were so happy to see him after living in the airport for 2 days!  He got us checked in and got us to our room.  He even had lays for us when we arrived.

Our room at Hostel Petero Atamu

Hostel Petero Atamu

Since Easter Island is in the Mountain time zone, we didn’t have to adjust to any time difference, which was good.  We basically had all Saturday to walk around the little town (Hanga Roa) and figure out where I needed to be for the race Sunday morning. 

We walked around a ton that first Saturday.  As we were trying to find where I needed to meet up for the racer ‘meet and greet’ at 7pm, we decided to hike up to one of the dormant volcanoes that had originally formed the island.  As we walked the road up to the volcano, we encountered a couple of stray dogs that followed us for several miles.  What I found out later, was that Easter Island had once been taken over by some Dutch sheep company that exploited the island for sheep herding.  They brought dogs there to use on the sheep farms.  After the company abandoned the island and took all the sheep with them, they left the dogs behind.  Unfortunately, because Easter Island has no such thing as the Humane Society and most people there are too poor to barely take care of themselves, that stray dogs roam everywhere!  At first, all I wanted to do was pet the dogs.  However, you just can’t.  Besides the fact that probably all of them are not vaccinated against rabies, they are sort-of Ferrell and have resorted to their pack-like instincts.  If you even ‘boop’ one of them on the head in passing, they will instantly think that you are the pack ‘leader’ and follow you for miles.  Or follow you until they reach the boundary that another ‘pack’ owns.  If they are following you and you enter another pack’s territory, they will stop following you as if they have hit an imaginary fence.  Also, because there are a ton of dogs and zero regulations on the amount of vehicles on the island, you will see dogs that have been hit and are wandering around severely injured.  I really was almost in tears when I saw a dog with his hind leg broken and dangling.  It was so upsetting.  And even if I wanted to take him somewhere to have put down so he wasn’t suffering anymore, there was no place to take him.  It’s very, very sad.

The island's laundry service....um, sure.

These guys followed us for a while hiking around the island.

There are horses and cows roaming around, never in a fenced in area.

One of the volcanos that formed the island.  Now it's a bog.

Some of the Moai

Some of them had little hats!

A naturally formed cave

Sadly there are stray dogs EVERYWHERE! I wish I could save them all!

The hardest part about getting around was that no one really spoke English at all.  But, between the couple of words that I knew in Spanish and the couple of words that they knew in English, somehow we got by.  Plus, getting any kind of data service on the island was impossible, so I really couldn’t use google translator for help.  Thank God I brought my Spanish book to look up words!  Also, there are no road signs anywhere.  Zero.  This wasn’t too much of a problem, since the town is super small anyway, but we did get confused a few time.  So, after walking around a bunch and trying to talk to people at the race booth in town, we finally figured out where we needed to be for me to pick up my race packet and get other information about the race that evening.  

The start of the race!

All the racers met up at this hall just outside of town.  As we were hanging around waiting for the evening event to start, we ran into this girl from California who was running the half marathon name Tanya.  She was there with a group of grad students doing some studies on the island and since she is a track superstar (which I found out later – she actually won the half marathon for the women’s division), she decided to run the race for fun.  She was by herself, so we just hung out with her during the event.  

Once we all sat down, there was a main guy that did announcements and explained were to go and what to do (in English and Spanish).  Afterwards the announcements, we had a spaghetti dinner complete with garlic bread, Tang, and orange Jell-O. Haha.  After dinner, Tanya drove us back to our hostel so we didn’t have to truck back through the pouring rain.  She dropped us off where we thought our hostel was, but because of the dark and the no street signs, we got confused and couldn’t figure out where our hostel was for about 30 minutes.

Gary, me and Super Tonya

The next morning, we got up early and had our homemade breakfast by the Hostel’s owner’s wife, Pina.  Every day during our stay, she would have orange juice, Nescafe, biscuits and jam.  Sometimes she would make us eggs too!  After we ate, we made our way to the starting line.  The race didn’t start until 10am, which I thought was late, but we found out that because the route was going in front of the town’s church, they did not want us running past during Sunday mass. 

So, at 10am I started my 1^st marathon!  Basically, there is one main road from one side of the island to the other.  You ran on that main road to the other side, turned around, and followed that same road back.  The terrain was fairly flat, but I could tell that the road had a gentile incline the whole way.  That was fine with me, because I figured that coming back would be a lot easier since I would be going down hill.  However, about a mile before I reached the point of turning around, there was a super steep hill down to the beach.  I was not looking forward to having to run back up it, but I knew all I had to do was get past that one steep hill and then it was a downward slope to the end from there.  Honestly though, that hill almost broke me.  Between the steepness of the hill, the 1000 mile an hour wind gusts in my face, and I was tired, I seriously was contemplating texting Gary to come and get me!  But, I pushed through and made it to the top of the hill.  I was cresting the hill at the same time that these 2 other guys where, and when we made it to the top I said, “Oh my God, that hill was a bitch!”.  “It sure was!”, chimed in the other guy.  I ran along with them for the next couple of miles.  The one guy talked to me for a little bit, he said he was from Australia and he had run marathons before but was hoping to finish under 5 hours.  I told him this was my first marathon and he was shocked and congratulated me on choosing a hard marathon as my first.  

Anyway, I plotted along.  I really thought I would cramp up at some point, but luckily they had water and Gatorade stations every 5 kilometers.  I don’t know how I didn’t get sick, but I swear I drank gallons every time I reached a station.  Eventually, I reached the little town and I knew I was in the home stretch!  However, in the town limits, the roads are not paved, they are brick and cobblestone.  Running on that kind of terrain after 26 miles feels like running bare foot on shards of glass.  But, I pushed on and eventually crossed the finish line in just under 5 hours!  I almost cried!

The start!

I'm smiling because I'm only 5 miles in.

I made it...alive!

'Good job on not dying, Amy!'

Gary was there to greet me and we walked back to our hostel to get cleaned up.  While I was trying not to die for 5 hours, Gary had spent the day drinking, eating and wandering around looking at the Moai (The head statues).  As soon as I stopped running, my body seized up a little big, but not as bad as I thought it would.  We made it back to the hostel, and a group of people saw that I finished the marathon.  They congratulated me and one of the guys in the group said that he had finished a while ago.  That didn’t make me feel awesome, but oh well! Lol.  Anyway, we got ready and then went off to dinner at this little hole-in-the-wall restaurant (actually, that explains every restaurant on the island, but this one was on the water and across from the cemetery – how romantic! Lol).  After running all day, I have to say it was the best meal I had ever had!  I know a lot of weird things can happen to your body during and after running for that long, and I only had one weird thing happen.  About 30 minutes after stopping running, I think I peed about 100 times.  And it was gallons!  I don’t know if my body was holding on to water like a camel or what, but I was starting to get concerned after the 10^th time I peed at dinner.  It stopped about an hour or so, but it was really strange.

The next day, I was shockingly not as sore as I thought I would be.  Our plan was to rent a scooter and drive around the island looking at all the Moai.  We walked downtown, got the scooter, and headed out on our way.  We took the road that went along the coast.  It was the most amazing time!  The water, the scenery, the statues, the sunny weather….it was awesome!  

Gary on the 'hog' we took around the island.

The quarry where the 'hats' for the Moai were made

I believe this is the only set of Moai that are not along the coast - Ahu Akivi

Sadly, most of the Moai look like this. They were tipped over when Europeans took over the island.

2 random guys fishing...no poles, just with lines

Gary decided to defile ancient ruins and walk next to it so I could get a picture for size comparison. This one was actually small compared to most.

Most of the sites were labeled like this

All of these were tipped over by Europeans and never repaired.

Me fighting the map in 1000mph wind

They eventually get out of the way.....

Cows and horses just kind of wander around

At the top of the hill is this lake...it's just so weird and almost magical.

The hill with all the Moai

The longest row of Moai....across the road from the hill

The coast was all lava, but the water was amazing

Tuesday, June 3^rd was our last full day on the island before we were scheduled to fly back to the mainland to go to Cusco, Peru.  It was pouring rain on and off that day, but we decided to rent the scooter again anyway because there were a few Moai that we hadn’t gotten to the day before.  Specifically, there was a famous row of Moai on the opposite side of the island that were right on the beach that we were determined to get to.  We got the scooter and drove the one main road that goes to the other side of the island.  Just when we were almost to the beach, it began to down pour!  I mean, torrential rains!  We made it to the beach and took cover under a pavilion and tried to dry out.  After an hour or so, it let up enough for us to run out from under our pavilion and take a few pictures of the Moai and their red hats.  There also happened to be a tour group there as well, so we glommed on to that to listen to some of the history of the Moai.

The break in the rain did not last long and it started to pour again.  I was just too cold and wet to want to ride on a scooter in the rain anymore, so we decided to head back to our hostel.  The drive back was insane.  Because the island is mostly volcanic rock, there is not a lot of top soil.  Which means, that rain really has nowhere to go.  Even though it was pouring, it’s not like it had been raining for 40 days and 40 nights, but already the roads were flooding.  At one point, we had to walk the scooter along the road because so much water and rocks and debris were being swept into the roadway.  When we finally made it back into town, a few roads were flooded with at least a foot of water.  We had to stop and take a video because it was so unbelievable. 

Now I understand why they have such large drainage ditches

Once we made it back to the hostel, we realized that we had lost electricity.  I started laying out all our things to dry and Gary went to return the scooter.  After a while, he came back…but with the scooter.  He said that all of downtown was out of electricity and everything was closed!  So, we decided to hang out in the room for a while until the power came back and it stopped raining.  We waited and waited and waited.  The entire night it never stopped raining and we never got power back on!  Luckily, Gary and I had packed a bunch of food for traveling, so we were able to snack on some stuff, but other then that we couldn’t do anything the rest of the night.

The next morning, we still didn’t have electricity and we had to pack our stuff up to get to the airport.  As I packed, Gary ran the scooter back in to town.  When he came back, he said that everything was still closed because the electricity was still out, so he left the scooter there and tossed the keys under the driveway fence.  Once he got back, we changed into our last remaining dry and clean clothes and communicated to Pina that we were ready to go to the airport so her husband could drive us there in his van.  Before we had left Michigan, I had packed a couple of little things to give as gifts to our hostel hosts.  Just some windmill cookies, some maple syrup and a card to say thanks.  I figured they would like getting something from the States.  So, before we left we gave Pina the little gift.  She just lit up and started speaking in Spanish so fast!  I can’t speak Spanish at all, but I did catch a few words…she kept saying thanks for the gift…that much I got.  She quickly ran off with her son and a few moments later they came back with little gifts for us!  They gave each of us a little Moai pin and a shell necklace.  They were so sweet and so appreciative of our gift to them.  We hugged and said goodbye and Pina’s husband took us to the airport.

Once we were there, it was no longer raining and we had a few hours to kill.  So, we decided to take one last walk around to look at the scenery and to check and see if the scooter place was open.  We made it to the scooter place and made sure that everything was ok.  The lady there was not happy that we left the scooter unattended.  I’m not sure why she would be worried about someone steeling it….they live on an island and there are only 1000 people that live there!  Anyways, once we squared everything up with her, it started to rain again.  So, in our last dry clothes, we had to walk about 2 miles back to the airport.  Once there, I tried to dry my clothes using the hand dryer in the bathroom, which helped a little, but we were still damp all over.

It rained and poured, but we got to see a rainbow :)

Finally, around 2pm, the one lonely airplane arrived to take us back to the mainland.  Even tho we were wet and tired, we at least had an awesome flight!  They treat you like Kings on LAN airlines!  We got pillows and blankets and a wonderful meal for our flight back to Santiago. 

We arrived in Santiago around 9 or 10pm.  Unfortunately, we had a 12 hours layover before our flight to Lima left.  It was too dark and late to try and sight see, so we both started feverishly trying to find a hostel that had 24-hour reception and laundry.  I eventually found one in downtown Santiago just a 15 minute drive away.  So we gathered our luggage and got a cab to take us there.  Once we got there, we checked into our room to dump our stuff and start laundry.  However, one hard lesson we learned was that apparently no hostel ever has heat.  Ever.  On Easter Island it was fine because the weather was warm, but here in Santiago it was in the low 40’s at night and we were freezing.  And so was our room. We knew it must never get warm in the hostel when we saw the guy at reception wearing a winter coat, gloves and a hat. And another thing hostels don’t have is hot water. It’s more like luke-warm water.  So we take our luke-warm showers, gather up all our cold, wet, dirty clothes and head to the laundry area.  The one good thing was that there was a very large space heater in the common room.  We decided since it was freezing in the room we just paid for, we decided to camp out in the common room where the heat was.  By this time, it was about midnight, so there was no one else using the common room.  We were able to watch TV, check on our laundry and get our hiking boots dry by the space heater.  Around 4 or 5 am, we had the front desk get us a taxi to take us back to the airport.  Between paying for 2 taxi rides and a freezing room we didn’t use, it had to have been the most I have ever spent on laundry and a shower.  But I swear it was so worth it because we were that desperate!

In the common room of our hotel in Santiago, Chili...staying warm by the only space heater in the entire country I'm pretty sure.

After a few more plane rides and a few more layovers, we finally made it to Cusco, Peru.

Cusco is listed as one of the highest elevation cities in the world and it is very apparent as soon as you get off the airplane.  I instantly felt dizzy and lightheaded and just completely out of it…more-so then usual!  It was just a really weird feeling in your head that you couldn’t shake…Like a haze or a cloud hanging in your brain.  We gathered our luggage and met our taxi driver who took us to our hostel, which was just off the main old-town square, Plaza de Armas.  We got our room and settled in and decided to walk around a bit.  Since we had arrived early afternoon, we decided to walk around a bit.  However, because May/June is the start of their winter, it got dark and very cold at about 6pm.  I would say that as soon as the sun went down, it got colder in Cusco then it was in Santiago.  We completely did not anticipate how cold it would get at night.  Especially since our hostel did not have heat (again!).  That evening we took semi-warm showers and huddled under 3 heavy alpaca blankets. 

This is how the Hostel usually meets you

Outside our hostel doors

In the common area of our Hostel

Our freezing, little room

The street outside our hostel

Plaza de Armas

We ate here for our first dinner....we knew we were at a 'local' place when we realized we were the only white people there

I got sachi papas....which apparently means sliced bologna on french fries.  It was good!

 The next day, we got up, ate and decided to go to one of the ruins….Saksaywaman.  On our way there, we stopped at a ‘hiking’ shop to stock up on long underwear! (Well, I did anyway).  We found out that Cusco is known for a lot of travelers hiking and camping in the surrounding areas.  There are soooooo many hiking and camping shops in town, and they all advertise that they sell North Face….or a China-North-Face look-alike since their “North Face” jackets were running about 20 American dollars.  Anyway, after buying winter clothes, we headed for the ruins.  The ruins are at the highest point in the city, so we had to climb a lot of stairs and steep roads.  Because of the altitude, you would have thought that we were the most unfit humans on the planet.  We were barely exerting ourselves, but you sweat like crazy and just feel like you can’t catch your breath….in addition to feeling that hazy fog in your brain.  Luckily, after about 24-hours, the fuzzy brain feeling goes away, but you still feel like you can’t catch your breath.  And Gary and I both commented to each other that that first night our hearts felt ‘fluttery’ and we both had a weird feeling in our throats….like we couldn’t swallow or had a hard time swallowing.  It was just really weird.  Anyway, we made it to the top and saw the ruins, a local farmer and his alpacas and the great Blanco Christo.

Where do those stairs go....they go up!

On the way up, we saw guys working on a thatched roof.

The red, clay tiles of the homes of Cusco

We walked up and up and up

Panorama at the top

The ruins weren't that interesting...I know that sounds bad!

me at the ruins

The llamas or alpacas were more fun to see.

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People sliding down these 'natural' stone slides

Blanco Christo was across the way

Me and the great and powerful Oz

I swear this was the steepest street in Cuzco...and the rocks were worn and super slippery

Afterwards, we headed back into town and walked around.  We visited this San Pedro outdoor market where you can buy trinkets and bobbles, buy a snack or any kind of food you want.  However, I’m pretty sure no American would be able to stomach any of the food there.  There were booths where they prepared meat and hung it on hooks right there….no refrigeration…no fly protection…and the smell was something else.  The seafood booths were no better, although there was a lot less blood and bone cracking.  Gary and I got a couple of these fruit drinks which they heavily advertise as being “100% fruit and no water”.  I thought for sure we were bound to get sick, but somehow we did not the entire time we were there.

The outdoor market

Yeah, that's meat just hanging out in the open

All these ladies sold the exact same thing....a juice smoothie

We ate fruit and didn't get sick!

The market had everything

All these cheeses...and no refrigeration!

At the back of the market was were you could sit and eat.....most people got some kind of soup

The next day we had planned on going to Macchu Picchu for the day.  It was quite an adventure just getting there.  We had the hostel get us a taxi and take us to the train station.  Frank was our taxi driver.  He could not speak English at all, but we both used Google translate on our phones, my Spanish book and my very limited Spanish knowledge to communicate with him.  He gave us his card and told us to give us a call if we needed a ride later when we got back.  Once we got settled in on the train, we had a 4-hour train ride thru the mountains and countryside on our way to Macchu Picchu.  At one point, in order to make the altitude change, the train does this back and forth on tracks that switch back along the mountain side.  The crazy thing is that Cusco is at such a high altitude you actually have to go downhill in order to get to Machhu Picchu.  Which is good because since we came down in altitude from Cusco, we didn’t have any altitude problems while we were there for the day.  After the 4-hour train ride, we arrived to the town of Macchu Picchu, which is at the base of the mountain where the Inca ruins are.  After the train station, we then needed to navigate through some outdoor market and to the center of town to some ticket office to get bus tickets to go up to the ruins.  After we got our tickets, we then walked back to the bus station to wait in line to get on a bus for the 30 minute drive up continuous switchbacks up to the Inca ruins.  I swear I don’t know how we managed to do it because it was so confusing, but somehow we did. 

our wonderful little meal on the train!

Once at the top of Macchu Picchu, we just followed the paths and walked around.  It was so surreal to be there and see these famous ruins.  Unfortunately, this place has been turned into a tourist trap.  There’s even a restaurant and gift shop at the top of the mountain right next to these 1000 year old ruins.  All that crap kind of ruins, no pun intended, the ruins.  Easter Island was nothing like Macchu Picchu, and I think that is because it’s so remote, expensive and a pain in the butt to get to.  There were hardly any tourists on all of Easter Island and here at M.P. there were so many tourists you could hardly move.  It was so saturated that we basically walked around for a couple of hours and then we were like, “well, now what?”.  We still had several hours before our 4 hour train ride home.  So, we took one of the busses back down to the town to MP, and walked around for a bit.  And what I say next is going to sound sort-of bad probably, but it was very true.  If you have ever been to Mexico, you will understand what I am about to say.  In Mexico, the people will completely hound you to come into their stores or restaurants and buy their things.  It has to been comparable to how famous people must feel being hounded by the paparazzi.  Well, I have to say, that the towns of Cusco and MP out Mexicaned any Mexican city I have ever been to.  It’s so bad you can hardly walk down the street, have a conversation and enjoy yourself.  The only way to avoid being bothered is to get away from the tourist areas.  So we got off the beaten tourist path and walked up and down the areas where the locals were.  It was really odd to see how poorly they all lived.  Here they all lived such modest, simple lives and one block over is a slew of white tourists with all their money staying at a 5 star hotel.

These dumb guys just hung around to beg for food from the tourists.
But this guy looked majestic as hell!

I don't think this place is OSHA approved

Somehow I actually managed NOT to fall

the switch back road that goes from the town to the ruins

The town of Machhu Picchu

  Eventually, it got close to our time to get back to the train station to head home.  I had barely any battery left, so as I was quickly trying to text and email Frank to let him know when our train would be arriving back at the station, Gary was looking up words for me in my Spanish book.  As I shot off a couple of texts and emails into cyber space, I prayed that Frank would get them and just be there at the station when we arrived.

Once on the train, we talked a little with our seat mates, Gage and Harry.  They were going back to Cusco too and the next day they were planning on going on a week-long camping excursion out into the back country of Peru.  They didn’t have a plan on how they would get back to Cusco, so we told them that we ‘hopefully’ had a taxi waiting for us and they could ride with us.  Once we got back to the train station, we walked into the lobby and there was Frank with a small sign that said ‘Amy Dickinson’ on it.  We were all like, “FRANK!!!!” and we hugged him….so glad that he was there and we didn’t have to worry about getting home.  So, we all piled into the cab and headed back to Cusco.  Gage and Harry didn’t know exactly where their hostel was, but somehow we just happen to drive right by it!  We dropped them off and Frank took us back to our hostel.  We told him that we wanted him to take us to the airport in two days when our trip was over.  Somehow, between me speaking terrible Spanish and using our google-translate on our phones, we understood each other. 

The next day was our last day of our trip before heading home.  I’m not sure what exactly was going on in the city, but there was some kind of celebration going on all day.  The center square had a large stadium thing set up for, what looked like, dignitaries or maybe political leaders.  All of the locals were dressed up in their traditional clothing.  Everyone from the very young to the very old.  They all lined up to be in this parade that seemed to go all day long.  It looked like each group of people may have been representing their specific school or group, because the leader of each group would have a banner saying something.  We wandered around the main square watching everyone for a while…it was absolutely packed there.  We sat down on a park bench in square just to people watch, but we really could not enjoy ourselves because every 5 minutes someone would come up to us and try to sell us something, or try to fix our shoes, or try to pin a ribbon on us.  I was actually starting to get pissed because we could not relax.  I yelled at a couple of people and yelled NO to them very loudly and shooed them away.  But, since that really didn’t deter them from hounding us, we had to take off from where we were sitting.  We decided to just head out in the city and walk around.  

The area where the dignitaries or political people sat

It was common for the women to carry their children on their backs using these woven fabrics

This little girl was sitting down for her mom to take a picture....she was adorable!

There was this brewery that I thought maybe we could tour….so we headed in that direction.  We walked and saw a lot of the city outside of the tourist areas.  We never found the brewery….but we did eventually find this outdoor market, that was similar to the one that was near the tourist area.  However, this one was WAY different.  This outdoor market catered to the locals and not really the tourists.  We were the only white people there and it was odd because no one paid any attention to us.  We walked around for a bit, but the smell of the meat was really getting to us, so we took off quickly.  Then, it must have been time for that area to get ready for their parade because all the locals lined up and there was a car with a radio strapped to it blaring music for them to walk to.  It was quite a scene!

The interesting thing is that the flag of Cusco is what we would consider to be the gay pride flag

The entrance to the local market

eggs are never refrigerated

yeah...those are chickens

In the same market are hairdressers getting the girls ready for the parade.
To make their hair super long, they braid black yarn into their hair.

The yellow car was blaring some kind of Spanish music

We had arranged for Frank to take us to the airport for our flight home.  Right on time, Frank showed up to take us to the airport.  On the ride there, Gary and I decided that Frank would be the perfect person to give our other gift to.  So, when he dropped us off, we gave him the little gift from back home.  He was so appreciative!  We said our goodbyes, and started our long journey home.

Overall, it was a difficult adventure, but it was awesome just the same!

Me and Frank! He saved the day!