Our Family Adventures 2018 / 2019

       Well, it is almost December. Now you are probably thinking about Christmas, because it is only 26 days away today. To me it seems closer and at the same time further because it is 3 houses away. Close, but far.        We went to see The Crimes Of Grindelwald in Spanish. It was really cool. I would not recommend going to that theatre in Cusco, it was small and stuffy. Also it was a mall. Chinook centre kind of. Not so big! I would suggest just turning on Spanish subtitles in you own home.        If you know me, you know how much I love Harry Potter movies and books, so of course I am going to end up getting myself the play script when it doesn't cost $81.51 so I can see what happened because I didn't really understand very much in the Spanish movie... 😭 It costs SO much!        We went to some Catacombs yesterday. We were not able to take any pictures of the bones, but it was really cool. We saw he...

Another letter from Terran to his grade 2 class: Dear Mrs. L-J, I am missing you today. Thank you for your letter. “No se cómo me dio insolación” that means “I don’t know how I got heatstroke” in Spanish. I did not get any full size candy bars, but it was very fun. I have touched both the Atlantic in New York! And the Pacific Ocean in Lima, but I didn’t go swimming (those beaches are a little dirty)! I bought a cool wallet made out of leather. I went to the Zoo. I was in the cage of a condor, with the condor. I pet a turtle, I saw a parrot, and I got to hold a hedgehog. I rode a pony, and a parrot sat on my head, and dropped corn on me. I saw a monkey that could steal a cellphone or earrings. I saw an owl at the Zoo. Do you have any questions for me? How snowy is it in Calgary? I miss the snow. What have you learned about Iqaluit? Love, Terran See below for a video, and some pictures.

Since getting a bad sunburn on our trip to the Sacred Valley a couple of Saturdays ago, I have been looking for a good hat.  There are plenty of cheap mass-produced ones here, but a) most of them don't fit my MASSIVE CRANIUM, b) they don't really have much 'feel' to them (whatever that means), and c) many of them have too small of a brim to fully protect my pasty white neck. On Friday night Monica and I were wandering around seriously looking for a hat that worked.  There were a couple options that looked close (a nice traditional felt hat that was just about large enough, and a cloth hat with some nice colors and patterns), but nothing really clicked.  Finally we made it into a small leatherworking shop and saw some beautiful leather hats hanging on the wall.  I tried them on, but they were all a bit too small, and the brims were not quite enough to cover my neck.  The gentleman in the shop informed us that he makes the hats by hand, and that he would be ha...

Tonight for Family Home Evening we visited our last Inca ruin in the Cusco Tourist Ticket. We went to Sacsayhuaman. I'm glad we left a night just for Sacsayhuaman, it was such a beautiful place. One of the guides we spoke to, told us that the city of Cusco was originally made in the shape of a Puma, and that Sacsayhuaman was the head of the Puma. The original citadel was made by the Killke culture around 1100 AD, and later expanded and added to by the Incas. The size of the rocks here is REALLY impressive. The kids can't get enough of the alpacas

On Saturday we said good bye to Lita early in the morning. Now we are on our own; regarding this, Terran asked "what are we going to eat now?! Lita always made the food!" Not entirely true, but I guess that is what the kids saw. It is true however that Lita knew how to shop at markets, how to make good Peruvian food, but I did take notes, and come on I have managed to feed this family for the last 14 years, I think we will be ok. ;) Terran needs to have a little more faith in his mother! I took my Mom to the airport early for her 8 am flight, the kids were determined to come to the airport with me, but they slept right through their alarms. Anyway, after they woke up, a few tears were shed. We will really miss Lita, but I think she will be glad for the break from us, and all the walking here in Cusco ;). We got ready that morning, and decided to continue our goal to see as many sites from our Boleto Turistico. We took a taxi out to Tambomachay, our first Inca Ruin for the d...

Another site on our Boleto Touristico is the  Centro Qosqo de Arte Nativo .  This is a theater which performs traditional dances from various cultures around the Cusco area.  They have a live band providing music, which play all sorts of traditional instruments, including flutes, violins, guitars, and mandolins.  The dancers wear traditional outfits from the area in which the dance originated.  The same dancers perform each song - I can only imagine how fast they need to change in between acts! I took a couple of videos during the performance... the quality is not great but it hopefully gives you a feel of what the experience is like.

Since we purchased them on Saturday for the Sacred Valley tour, our Boleto Touristicos (Tourist Tickets) are valid for this week, and we figured that we should take full advantage of them.  There are 16 archeological sites and museums which are included with these passes.  Today we visited one of them: Tipón. Tipón shares some similarities with many other Inca ruins, in that it has multiple terraces, thought to have been built for agricultural purposes.  These are different, though, in that they are all at right angles, rather than following the natural curve of the mountains like other sites. Also unlike the other sites in the Sacred Valley, Tipón is very quiet and peaceful.  Perhaps it was just the day we visited (Wednesday, rather than Saturday), but there were maybe 30 people other than us in the entire site; compare this to last Saturday where you could not turn around without bumping into someone.

I wanted to share a little about our everyday life here in Cusco. Although so much of it is new to us, we are trying to keep some things similar to our routine back in Calgary. The first thing we do when arriving to any new city, and or new area is find community, and for us the best way to do that is to find our local church. We are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and luckily for us the church community here is fairly large, actually is it large over most of South America, especially in Peru.

Dear Class, I am in Cusco right now. I am safe and happy. Cusco is under Machu Picchu. There are SO many dogs in Cusco. Most of them have green collars, which means they have had their rabies shot. So if I get bit by one with a green collar, I will not need 2 extra shots.

Saturday our family took a trip down to the Sacred Valley of the Incas. The tour covered four different ruins, and a Salt Mine. The cost of this trip, in case you are interested in visiting, was 70 Soles/person plus the Boleto Turistico. Way cheaper than purchasing this "experience" through Airbnb. On the topic of Airbnb, we are extremely fortunate to have amazing Airbnb hosts, not only do they respond to all our needs and inquiries in minutes, but they are also able to set up tour excursions for our family. If you are ever travelling to Cusco I HIGHLY recommend staying with Herber and his family. We would be happy to share Herber's listing, he is pretty awesome.  Our host took us to La Plaza de Armas nice and early (6:45 am) where we met our guide, and transport, and headed to Chinchero. Our guide Raul was like a walking encyclopedia. He was knowledgeable, and offered his tour in both English, and Spanish.  Chinchero was breath taking. We visited both ruins, and a ...

It has been 15 months since my last haircut (at which time I just shaved myself bald), and things are getting pretty shaggy.  With the low water pressure in most (all?) Peruvian showers, it was getting annoying to wash it, so I decided to get it cut. Just down the street from our apartment is a peluquería (hair salon).  Monica had previously asked about the price of a men's haircut, and had been told 6 soles (about $2.50).  I figured at that price you can't go wrong; if I hated it I could just shave it bald again. When we walked in today, we were greeted by the smell of pot and a tele novella playing on the TV.  I asked how much, and was told 10 soles.  Monica haggled them down to 6 again, and the hair dresser sat me down. The 'before' glamour shot

Terran wrote a letter to his class yesterday, here is a picture of his letter. I also included the text in case it is hard to read. Terran’s journal entry “Dear. Mrs. LJ, Since the last time I talked to you, I slept through an earthquake (4.0 tremor), stepped in 2 countries, 7 cities. We rode 4 planes, 22 trains including subways, 2 ferries. I was scared on the ferry because the wind was so strong, but it was worth it because I saw the Statue of Liberty. I was sad when I got heat stroke in NJ. I am in Cusco now. There are a lot of dogs here, they are friendly. I wonder if I will go to Machu Picchu. I ate a small banana.  *life size picture included* Love, Terran “ The bananas are called “plátanos de la Isla” or bananas of the island.

After work today Monica, Maija, and I went for a walk.  The plan was to get to Templo de la Luna, some ruins a couple km from our house.  We ended up just exploring along the way, but I do want to try to get there again tomorrow. As Cusco is in a valley, if you want to walk out of Cusco you need to do a bunch of climbing.  My phone claims the walk was 46 floors up; I am not sure if it was quite that much, but it was a pretty good climb.  The view is amazing, though! On the way up the side of the valley. A natural lookout point gives a view of the entire city

So today was Wyatt's last day off for a while, so tomorrow we start our routine of school, work, and simply living in Peru. In order to get set up, we visited the Mercado (the street market), which is where most people get their groceries, and such. Back home in Calgary, I usually make a list, and shop for the week, or perhaps even longer, but according to what my Mom tells me, people here shop either daily or every two days. Daily shopping is something that I will need to get used to, I personally find it to be too time consuming, but one of our goals here was so eat like locals, so I will give it a try for a few weeks, and then see how to adjust it according to how our family eats. Going to the market was fun, I love all the different fruits, and vegetables available, but after going through the meat market, I think I might consider a diet with less meat. I remember as a child, I hated going to the market, and now I remembered why. The meat section makes me a bit queasy. They ha...

Hello everyone! This is my first blog post. We are in Cusco now. We have a nice little apartment on a quiet street. There is a lot of off-leash dogs roaming the premises. We saw at least 15 of them! Roaming dog We ate at a Chinese restaurant for lunch today. We ate noodles, rice and won-ton soup. It was not the same as the Calgary kind. This had chicken and won-ton wrappers separate. For supper, "arroz con pollo" (rice with chicken). We miss everyone! Hope to hear from you! ~Maija~

Our time in Lima was cut in half, but we did mange to see a little bit of the city. As mentioned in our last post we stayed in the Miraflores district of Lima.  Miraflores is very safe from a crime point of view - there are security guards and cameras everywhere.  From a traffic point of view it is a bit less safe; it is very busy, and everybody seems to drive. We left late in the morning in order to let the kids sleep a little, and headed down the street to meet my Mom. She took us to a restaurant called "La Lucha Sandwiches". The sandwiches were really good, nice bread and the fruit juices were delicious. Wyatt and I shared a pineapple smoothie, while the kids enjoyed a strawberry smoothie. The food was delicious, but I did find "Chicharron (fried Pork) Sandwiches to be a little heavy for so early in the morning. even I have my limits ;) Don't expect things to be as cheap in Miraflores as what you read about in blogs about Peru. We found a lot of American chain...

Despite the airport issues, we made it to Lima, only a day late. Kudos to United for taking care of us - they put us on the next available flight to Houston, and the next day we got on a flight to Lima.  When we were booked on the Lima flight we were not all sitting together (understandably, as we were added only the day before).  When I talked to the gate agent about letting us board early so that we could help Terran get situated, he went so far as to re-arrange seating to give some others seat upgrades so that we could sit with the kids.  Thanks, United! Upon arrival we went through customs and talked with the nicest customs agent ever (I am used to the American style where they sit you down in a dark room, shine a spotlight in your face and ask you about your whereabouts on November 22 1963).  We then proceeded on to the official taxis, whereupon we got a ride to our first AirBnB in the Miraflores district of Lima (this is around 1:00 AM at this point). ...

Let me begin by saying that we were on time, we were actually early, but we were completely out of it, and we trusted the United app, big mistake! Wyatt had signed up for text alerts in case there were any changes to our flight. Well those things are not to be trusted! We were waiting by the wrong gate, and by the time we realized all this they would not let us on the plane. I don’t blame the airline though, we should have checked the screens! Lesson learned. United re-routed us through Houston, and now here we are hoping that everything goes well, and we get the right gate this time, and eventually make it to Lima.... Waiting at the Houston airport. 

Tonight was our last night here in New Jersey. It feels like we were back home a long time ago, but also that we blinked and our week was done. We spend a little bit of time at home in the evening taking pictures, and saying goodbye. I met my brother Carlos for the first time. This part of the trip has been pretty emotional for me. Meeting so many family members has been a wonderful experience. Meeting my Sister Pilar was just an amazing experience. She is so hard working, intelligent, kind. I see how much love she gives as she takes care of everyone around her, specially her parents. I can see why she fits so well in the medical industry, she is a doctor, and a remarkable individual. Pilar has inspired me to be a better person. The kids are excited to continue this journey, but were really sad to say goodbye. We learned about Abuelito's life. He worked as an explorer for various oil companies in Peru. He told the kids about his work for Shell in Peru, about going into the Peruvi...

Today we hit one of Monica's bucket list items, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (a.k.a. "the Met").  This museum has tons of exhibits, ranging from Monica's favourites (the Neoclassical European painters) to Maija's (Greek statues) and mine (various musical instruments and assorted woodworking and intarsia artifacts).  It unfortunately did not have much in the way of trains for Terran, but he did see a Stradivari violin which was pretty neat. Monica may have swooned a little at the sight of this Goya painting.  She has studied Goya extensively as part of her art history degree.

Today we visited the Museum of Natural History. We took the number 1 subway again, and were ready for a good day of walking. Museums in New York are so massive, but the cool thing about this one is that is it is on a "Pay what you Like" system, which works out great when you are a family. The Museum has so many cool exhibits, here is a small snapshot of what we saw.

Sunday was a nice relaxing day. My sister Pilar was with us, and continued to take amazing care of us. We all had breakfast together. Wyatt took a couple of pictures of the kids with my Dad; my Dad and Terran could be twins. Abuelito Roman And Terran, can you not see the family resemblances?!

Two of my cousins and their families came to meet my family tonight. My cousin Alejandro (Tio Adolfo's son), and my cousin Emilio (Tio Carlos' son), the last time I saw those guys they were just young adults, now they are grown men with successful careers, and more importantly beautiful families.

Today we headed back to Manhattan, this time we took the subway all the way to Lower Manhattan, the goal for the day was to get a good view of the Statue of Liberty, and explore the city a bit more. Taking the subway is actually fairly simple, and we found out the Staten Island Ferry is actually a cool, and free way to see the Statue of Liberty up close. Finally riding the subway!

We have been so blessed to meet so many family members here! My Tio Carlos, and his wife Maria Luisa came to visit us. The Baca family here in New Jersey are very close, and they make sure to make you feel like you are one of the group. Tia Maria Luisa, Tio Carlos, Monica and Wyatt

Tonight Pilar took us to visit one of my favorite people in NJ, my Tio Adolfo (mi brother). Here is a picture of the get together, I'm sorry that the picture is not great, I am getting to know my phone, also Tio Adolfo did not make it to any of them. He was busy feeding us Pizza, Chicha Morada, Jugo de Maracuya..mmm.... My Tio Adolfo has a wonderful family, they are all super smart, and hard working. My cousin Ana, Wyatt, Maija, Monica, Terran, and my Tia Ana

On Friday afternoon my nephew Marco took us around NJ. One of the many good things about staying with family is that they of course are local to the area, and can show you things that you would never otherwise see. We visited Paterson, NJ which is the heart of the Peruvian Community here. Terran by Paterson Great Falls (Passaic River)

As I have mentioned before it has been around 20 years since the last time I visited my Baca family, but they have all welcomed me, and my family with open arms, gracias mi Querida familia! That evening we had the pleasure of getting together with my cousin Hector, and meeting his sweet family. Thank you Pilar for arranging all these get togethers for us. Hector, Hector Junior, Carmen, Maritza, Baby Isabel, Monica, Maija, and Terran

Today dear friends I wish all of you had come with us. What a day! We walked so much! Times Square, Central Park, and Wyatt made the day even more fantastic by suggesting we go see a play!! “Look! An Amtrack!”