I'm Back!

Happy Belated Holidays and New Year!

It has been a while since my last post. I've been with my family exploring parts of Chile and Peru, and since I was with the people who I really write the blog for, I took a bit of a vacation for the winter holidays.

But after a wonderful excursion to Macchu Picchu with my sister, my brother, and my parents (complete with all the together time this implies), my family once again split up to our respective lives, my sister going back to California, my brother and Dad heading off to watch Stanford compete in the Fiesta Bowl, and my mom to hold down the fort back home in Virginia. I headed off for Guatemala. After a round of hugging in the El Salvador airport, I took a quick flight to Guatemala (and when I say quick, I mean barely half an hour).

Peru was spectacular, and when I say Peru, I mostly mean Machu Picchu. Even after 2 days exploring the ruins and the surrounding area, there was so much I missed. (Photos on Facebook coming soon so that you can see what I explored in Peru). My only comment is that Hiram Bingham (the "discoverer" of Machu Picchu) was not as cool as he thought he was. Apparently, he hired some farmers to show him the area and they brought him to the ruins which THE LOCALS ALREADY KNEW ABOUT. So yeah, maybe not deserving of as much credit as we tend to give him (not that he doesn't deserve any credit, I mean it is pretty cool that the world knows about it now).

We also spent some time as a family in Lima, Peru near the Huaca Pucllana (which my parents and I thought was really cool, but my siblings found boring: http://www.mirafloresperu.com/en/tourist-miraflores-lima-peru/huaca-pucllana.php. I would say if your in Lima and you have a couple of free hours check it out) ruins in the middle of Miraflores (a mostly touristic part of town). Be warned, though, a visit to Lima is a whole new experience of traffic. Just getting in a out of their centro historico could take you 1-2 hours (not counting the actually sightseeing) and the air pollution from the cars is barely breathable.

So now I'm here, in Guatemala, at my friend Alej's house (a good friend from college who is originally from the country).