Peru

Neil feeding the camelids.

Baby Alpaca...

Guinea pigs raised in a local home. Um, um, good!

Snow-covered mountains in the distance Andes.

Abra La Raya is the pass between Cuzco and the lake Titicaca. It culminates at 14147 ft.

Wiraqocha Temple

Church in Raqchi. We're now at 11,500 ft. of altitude.

Another church, another village

School children, let out of the classroom, storm the main square.

It was nice to see how much focus there was on education throughout the country. Even the smallest villages had a nice school.

This same village, Andahuaylillas, had several of these beautiful 400 yr. old trees, native to the rainforests.

On the way to Puno, we stopped at several small villages. I can't even remember all the names. This one is Andahuaylillas. It had a beautiful adobe church built in the 16th and early 17th century with painted murals inside on the walls and ceilings.

Neil remembers that it had a Moorish ceiling with painting restoration going on and as "the scarily falling-down church with the holy family in [cowboy] hats" and the "scary Jesus."

A view from the inside: http://www.qosqo.com/images/andahuay.jpg

The "scary Jesus" was an identical sculpture to the "Lord of Earthquakes" that was in the Cusco cathedral. http://www.qosqo.com/images/temblore.jpg

Also cool, to the right as you walk in, is the baptistery. On the wall to the entrance is the text, "I baptize him in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen," written in five different languages: Latin, Spanish, Quechua, Pukina and Aymara (now Pukina is a dead language).