Or hotel is nice enough. Nothing extravagant, but we didn´t expect it to be. And the food here is GREAT! We did decide to buy a cheap electric kettle and hairdryer, and we´ll probably buy a little heater. The room is a little chilly and the hotel can´t do anything about it, but these things are cheap here. Less than $20 each.

We had a small, formal reception last night. Oh, and wow! The architecture is so beautiful, of course. Colonial here in Trujillo. Been reading the Peru guidebook and we´re really excited about all we see and hear.

Lots of nice performers. Generally the people are very friendly, but Anna had to get a bit aggressive today with a guy trying to sell her something on the street. I wasn´t with her, and I think that may have been the problem. Single, blonde woman, macho culture.

So the first round of the competition ended last night, and we now have 18 people in the second stage, which starts tomorrow. I´d expected that Anna would get bombarded with requests for her to accompany, but actually she got a pretty even split with one of the other accompanists, a very, very sweet woman from Argentina. Still, even the people who are playing with the Argentinian pianist are just heaping compliments on Anna about her playing.

We signed up today for a tour of one of the local ruined cities on Saturday and we´re going to see a temple from a different, slightly later civilization on Friday afternoon. We also decided to hit the archeological museum here on Friday morning. We´ve been taking lots of pictures of the modern city of Trujillo, with its really nice Colonial architecture and stuff, but seeing the ancient stuff will take more time. We´re kicking around the idea of visiting another, more distant archeological site on Sunday, but that would be an all day affair, and the alternative is to go to Lima on that day and start seeing Lima. Anna won´t have any work to do after Thursday.

Anna went a little crazy today on clothes here. Okay, just a pair of shoes and a jacket. They really are cheap here, even from top brands. I may even get something. We seem to have adjusted to the temperature, so we decided to forego the heater. Of the people who made it to the second stage, we have the Canadian, the Russian, 2 Americans and some other people who we really like a lot. No Peruvians unfortunately.

Yesterday I mentioned taking a tour of ¨Chan Chan¨ a PRE-Incan city on Saturday. That plan has slightly changed because the director of the competition invited to take us herself! We´re also going with the Argentinian pianist. It´s great because they´re all such nice people and I´m sure the director will give us a more personal experience of the place.

Not much going on today.

Tomorrow morning we´re finally going to have time to go to the archeological museum here, then to the ¨Temple of the Moon¨ here. It´s pre-Incan, but I can´t remember at the moment what the name of the civilization is. [Moche, 200BC - 850AD]The day after tomorrow, as I mentioned, we´re going to the ruins of a pre-Incan city called ¨Chan Chan¨. It´s a different pre-Incan civilization, but again I can´t remember the name [Chimu, 850AD - 1470], nor which one came first. Peru´s history is really fascinating! I had no idea so much went on here before the Incas! [Go to this page for details.]

And the winner is... the Canadian woman, Patric. We´ve very much enjoyed socializing with her, so that just makes the future brighter. Anna will be performing with the her sometime next year in England, so it will be a pleasure to work again with someone she already likes.

Day after tomorrow we move to Lima, then a couple days after that we take off for Cuzco, which is the first stop on our big tour.

Tomorrow we´re flying to Lima where we´ll make contact with the travel agency where we´ve booked our tour. We won´t be leaving Lima until a couple days after that though. Lots of interesting things to see in Lima of course too.

We have no responsibilities today or tomorrow until evening, so we´ll do a little sightseeing but mostly rest.We´re staying in a pretty nice hotel in the very centre of Lima. The main street is nearby (and every other store sells shoes).

Tomorrow we´re meeting people from the travel agency which is organizing our trip, and the final concert is in the evening.

July 26, 27 & 28 Cuzco

July 29 & 30 Puno

July 31 Arequipa

Aug 1 Colca

Aug 2 in the evening Arequipa

overnight on the bus

Aug 3 in the morning Nazca

Aug 4 - not sure yet but we´ll be in touch before then

We´re getting on the plane on August 5th at 1:00 AM, so no hotel for Aug. 4th.

You asked about safety, and we do feel ¨fairly¨ safe here, but Anna and I have learned about how to be cautious from previous travels.

Did some museums [Museo de Oro (Nearly all gold and jewelry. Wish we'd gone to the Museo de la Nacion for a more complete representation instead.) and the catacombs under San Francisco monastery] today and the stomach problems are getting better, though still not gone yet.

Machu Picchu is extrordinary, and an archaeological treasure, but it's important to know that it wasn't anything particularly special to the Incas. Building cities on the tops of mountains was NORMAL for them, partly for religious reasons, but also to save precious agricultural space on the valley floors. Machu Picchu is unique to us because it was never destroyed by the conquistadors.

Our trip today took us up above 12,000 feet today for our last stop, and tomorrow we´ll start the part of our trip which is all above 12,000. Hopefully we´ve adjusted enough to the altitude here (9000 ft) that it won´t be a problem, but even so, the most physically demanding part of our tour is over. We hiked up to the top of 2 sites today, about an hour each time, round trip, which is about what we did yesterday at Machu Picchu.

As you can see from the pictures of Machu Picchu and here, the Incas built terraces on the sides of the mountains for agriculture (as well as using the valley floors). Throughout the Sacred Valley and much of the Andes, there are thousands of terraces still used today out of the hundreds of thousands that were built by the Incas and their Andean predecessors. The circular terraces of Moray are perhaps the most technically advanced example. "This is a major engineering work, and the most surprising thing about it is that it was used to modify certain varieties of local agricultural products to make them more resistant to the climate. The different ecological levels created in the terraces, below ground level, were intended for controlling the environmental temperature, and it is presumed that each terrace was covered with soil coming from various locations in the Tahuantinsuyu [Inca empire]." From "Discovering Peru".

Lake Titicaca was very nice, of course. Our first stop was the ¨Floating Islands of the Uros¨, which was the best part. They really are villages floating on thick reed platforms which the people have constructed. Apparently it all started way back at the beginning of Inca times, to try to keep out of the way of the Incas and another group they were warring with at the time. The other stop was Tequile Island, where the people still live very similarly to their native ways. Lots of interesting native costumes, 1 dance and various customs to observe. Other than that, the lake itself is very picturesque, with clear blue skies and distant snow-capped peaks. We went through 2 rolls of film today.

It´s really a good thing we didn´t try to bring Laura along, as much as we miss her. We get up early very frequently, then have hours-long rides to the sites. The sites are interesting to us, but it´s all just looking and listening to guides, which would bore Laura to tears. Then there´s the environmental adjustments and the fact that in many places the trail can be a bit precarious.

The picture on the left is a hilarious example of "Cuzquenan" art, the Colonial product of native Peruvian artists being ordered by the Spanish to recreate European styles or works of art. More innocent examples include exquisite Baroque-ish facades which incorporate Peruvian plant and animal shapes instead of European ones. This example however, hanging in the cathedral in Cuzco, has Christ and the 12 Apostles sitting down to the "Last Supper" with a main dish of what one fellow tourist described as "unleavened guinea pig". Very un-Old-World corn and squash also decorate the table.

We have been so happy to hear about all the fun things you´ve been doing

and the great things you´ve been learning. We really are proud of you, not

just about your swimming, but also about your painting, vegetable eating,

and how very helpful you´ve been to Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma says

you´ve been a very good girl, and we know it´s true.

I´m sure you know, because you´ve been counting, but in only 2 more days

you will be going to the airport with Grandma and Grandpa to pick us up. I

hope our airplane won´t be even 1 minute late, because we are very excited

to see you. As soon as we get to Colorado, we promise we won´t be going

anywhere without you, and of course you´ll get millions of hugs and kisses.

I´m glad we can write today, but I´m not sure if we´ll be able to write

tomorrow again, but we´ll be thinking about you all the time. When we get

back to Poland, we´ll show you all the pictures of the things we´ve seen

on this trip, including the very, very big birds (Andean Condors flying 10

feet away!) we saw this morning. I think you´ll like the pictures.

We love you very much, and miss you BARDZO (Just pronounce it like it´s

spelled.)!

Love,

Mommy and Daddy.

Today we went flight-seeing over the ¨geoglyphs¨ called the Nazca Lines. The trip was preceded by a video which answered the question of why and how they were made quite thoroughly, which I enjoyed, and flying over them was fun too. [This page and this one have good pictures of the lines, but don't bother with their explanation. A good breakdown of the prevailing theories can be found here.] Unfortunately, the rest of the day was a real chore. Yesterday, coming back from Colca Canyon, we spent about 10 hours on the bus [See the funny picture of the toilet on the bus.], then we had a few hours in Arequipa (again) before getting on an overnight bus to Nazca, another 9 and a half hours. Then after flight-seeing, we had another couple hours and got BACK on a bus for Paracas, where we are now, which took another 3 hours. I am SO sick of busses. On the plus side, Paracas turned out to be a GORGEOUS, quiet, safe little beach town, and tomorrow we´re taking a boat trip out to the Ballestas Islands, which have been refered to as the ¨poor man's Gallapagos¨ because of their wildlife, so that should be great!.