misc fun pics:locations vary

above: um, not much to say...hehehe...we celebrated halloween early...i dressed up like josh!  the funny part, is the fake beard, well, it was pretty hard to find.  not too many salon shops w/ wigs...thus, when this one was found (it was a beard, mustache, shoulder length hair set) we took it, even though the hair was red-ish.  sidenote: i love my family!

above: my first trip outside of cusco w/ some of the limeños!  pancho & sylvia, gargula, lolo, and myself.  it was a pretty cramped drive...one in the front, 4 in the back!  we stopped here for the view...what we found out, was that though the view was amazing (typically the snow covered mnts in the bkgrnd are covered by clouds), it was also quite windy/chilly.

above: this is near where the journal entry from yesterday took place.  that's chaufa (human) and kucho (kick ass dog, english staffordshire). breathtaking, to be so close to the city, but not feel any of its restraints.  i loved coming out here.

above: a detail shot of a hot spring in the town, aguas caliente.  aguas is the town travelers must stay in to get to machu picchu.  the town itself, has a concrete feeling to it, seeing as they're continuously expanding to make space available for the hungry machu seeking tourists!  anyway, according to claire and the girls (and what i observed) not the cleanest looking spring.  of course, we had been to the springs in lares, and that was unbelievably beautiful.

anyway, i thought this little bird thing was kind of amusing, so i took a picture of him. 

sidenote: i tried finding a good picture of the place, but they all seem to be on random flickr sites (and not very good).  i should stop giving you info on the place, seeing as i'll be posting image of the place a little bit later.  :)

above: on wayna picchu (the big mnt. in the typical postcard bkgrnd of machu picchu), it takes about 1-1 1/2 hrs to hike up there, and it's not for just young people!  there was an extreme variety of people (shapes/sizes/ages) inching their way to the top.

helpful hint 1: if you go to machu picchu...make sure to take the earliest bus, b/c that's when you get the coolest view of the place. (the clouds rise in the morning, and it looks like super fast moving fog!). 

helpful hint 2: also, go up wayna picchu as soon as you can, b/c 1: they only allow 400 people up the mnt (conservation purposes); and 2: if you go later in the day, it can be hotter, and then it's just a bit unpleasant.