November 11, 2005 PERU

Day one: Trenton took us to the airport at 530 AM. We had an uneventful flight to Dallas, then on to Lima, Peru where we arrived at 9:30 pm. After getting through customs, waiting for the bus, then driving 45 minutes to the Marriot overlooking the ocean we finally got to the room at 11:30 pm then to bed after midnight.

Day two: Breakfast at the nice Marriot Hotel. Then bus ride through the city to a town square where we took pictures of the old buildings, fountains, and pigeons. Then to a museum in a church where we toured the historical catholic church, murals, paintings, edifices, and then through the catacombs. About 25,000 people were buried in the catacombs (underground caves, passageways, tunnels, crypts, etc. Lots and lots and lots of bones arranged in an artistic way, like a circle of skulls, arm bones in between, then smaller circle of skulls, leg bones in between, then little flower arrangement made of skulls. One big painting had a priest blessing the Holy Hamburger. That is exactly what it looked like. He was holding it in his left hand and his right hand was raised over it, obviously blessing it or sprinkling Holy Water on it. Will continue later, they want me to go check out some horses to see if we want to ride them.

Dad-Maury

PERU: Days 2-3

Hi All,

I need to travel with my keyboard. These foreign keyboards are hard to get used to. The keys are in different places.

To resume yesterday, Day 2, afternoon. (day one was travel day) After the museum we drove a ways again through the city (Lima has 8 million people) and visited the Temple. We just walked around the grounds and took pictures. Beautiful building.

We then drove back to the Gold and firearms Museum. They had lots of incredible stuff found in the ruins. You realize Peru was the foremost artificers in gold in the whole world for quite a while. There was a whole suit made from little squares of gold plate that a king wore. All kinds of other things, including a patch on a skull from brain surgery, a gold plate in the head of the skull. I got a picture of it. Many many other things. Also lots of armor, swords, firearms of all kinds from all over the world, saddles with silver inlay, silver spurs, etc, etc, etc. Too much stuff to tell about.

Then we went across town again to the ocean right below our Mariott Hotel. The Marriot is on a cliff overlooking the ocean. There is a seafood restaurant jutting out on a pier into the ocean a couple hundred yards. It is a big fancy restaurant and some of you know my opinion of those. All the time I was thinking of the Ray Stevens Song "You can have your fancy gourmet restaurant. Where the waiters act snooty and they walk kind of fruity and they won't give you what you want....." Anyway, very expensive and food that is supposedly a delicacy but that word is just an excuse to feed you raw fish and very small helpings of other stuff that ain't that good and is garnished with a little bit of parsley. Well, I agree with Ogden Nash "Parsley is Gharsley." Dorenda really enjoyed the atmosphere and chicken (instead of the fish). Took 2 and a half hours to eat. Got to bed after 10. (Mom said it is two hours to visit, not just to eat)

So today we got up at 3 am (didn't matter, I'd been awake for two hours anyway, worrying about getting new tires on the truck --stupid rambling brain). Drove across town to the airport and took an early flight to Cusco, across the top of the Andes. Saw some beautiful mountains and scenery, really neat. Went in a bus for two hours to Urubumba. Ate brunch, then went to church across the street from the hotel. Got in on the last half hour of Priesthood Mtg. The relief society president talked with Dorenda and we invited her and family over to meet with the group this evening. They are doing a humanitarian project for the surrounding communities as a kind of missionary tool. We had her speak to our group and we took up a collection for their efforts. We got about $500 to help them out and will keep in touch to offer help from the states.

We drove 30 miles in the bus to a market, just looked around at all the pretty and neat things and took pictures.

Had a meeting with Shelby tonight where he told us the history of Peru, particularly how 160 Spaniards under Pizzaro conquered a nation of millions, right in the middle of 80,000 armed Inca warriors. Quite the story, basically they kidnapped the emperor and the army dared not attack for fear of killing the emperor.

Had buffet dinner tonight. Finally to bed. So tired.

Dad

PERU: Day 4

Hi All, We drove in the bus for about 45 minutes, the last 15 of which was on a very steep windy road, parked, and then hiked a mile on a rather nice trail built on the side of a very very steep mountain. No rails on the edge, just almost straight down drop for hundreds of feet. Not a place for those with fear of heights. We got to a really really neat ruin, The Temple of the Sun, made by one of the emperors. It was built of stones perfectly fit together without mortar with joints so fine you couldn't see any gap. No roof on it, and walls up maybe to roof height on some rooms but not as high on other rooms. Very slick and smooth stones make up the walls. Other walls in the area were not as fine as the Emperors room. (I'm deliberately not using an apostrophe as I find that it has a bunch of gobbledygook where the apostrophe should be when it comes through on the other end. I'm sending it to myself also)

All of the group with the exception of Dave and Sylvia Rosser (our friends from the Guatemala tour) and us are old, some heavy and very out of shape, so this high altitude, 11,000 foot elevation, trail was very hard on them. Some didn't quite make it there. It is important that we go enjoy some of this stuff while we can, physically. Mom is like a little energizer bunny, running here and there and saying "Take a picture of this, oh, take a picture of this" Weve been here for three days and I think Ive taken almost 500 pictures. Thank goodness for digital cameras. Toward the end of our hike we heard thunder and the big thunderheads built up and spit just a little rain, not much. This is the very start of the rainy season and should get rainier as the week goes on, but so far the weather has just been delightful. Cool evenings, probably 50 or so, with days in the 70s. Sometimes when the wind blows (like it did on some of our hike) it is quite cool, not cold, but when the sun shines with no wind, at this elevation we are hunting shade and some got sunburned. There were all kinds of neat terraces where the ancient Incas had terraced the land for farming, building up walls and making flat places on the mountains. The terraces are all over these mountains, some plots flat, most of them sloped somewhat, going clear to the top of some of these mountains. Elevation at our Hotel is about 8,000, the ruins were about 11,000 feet. There was a big beautiful valley/hillside across the valley with lots of really pretty garden spots or rather small fields being worked by the Peruvians. Corn seems to be the predominant crop. In the valley the corn is beginning to get big with ears and top maturing while higher up the mountain you can see it is much earlier spring. Clear up high they are just now plowing. Even though the elevation is very high they don't get much snow until you get about 15,000 elevation because of being this close to the Equator (we are about 10 degrees south of the equator, near Cusco). There is a big glacier right across the valley from the Hotel, at an elevation of 18,800 feet that we can see from the Hotel Libertador. The top of the mountain by the glacier must be near 20,000 feet elevation.

We rode an hour in the bus and ate at a nice restaurant, under the gazebo type roof with tables underneath. Beautiful gorgeous scenery. Monstrous mountains with huge deep valleys. Very little timber on the mountains, except for eucalyptus which was imported from Australia a hundred years or so ago. They farm the eucalyptus for poles by cutting it off near ground level, then it sends up two or three or a half dozen shoots and when they get 30 feet tall and about 6 inches diameter, then cut them off for building poles and lumber. Almost all construction here is adobe. There are adobe making businesses with stacks of them. Some people making their own adobes and others obviously buying them. The people are reasonably well dressed, most in western clothing but many in the traditional peru clothing. The older and middle aged women typically wear sandals, a black skirt coming to the knees, bright colored blouse or wrap above the waist, long braids with hair to the waist, and a hat that almost looks like a short stovepipe hat, different colors, but mostly white, grey, or black.

Anyway, after the restaurant we drove another half hour to another ruin, really neat. We climbed up the terraces and examined huge stones chiseled perfectly together. I counted the sides on one corner stone and there were 9 sides to it, not counting the turn at the corner, where it joined other stones. Some of the stones were huge, like 10 feet tall, 4 feet thick. We could see across the valley six miles away where they had been cut out of the mountain. I don't know how they could get them across the valley and up this very steep mountain. They had to weigh many tons. They had some of the huge stones lying there showing how they fit together. Some had humps, like the size of a small bucket, on one side while the other stone had corresponding hollows so that they would fit together like a jigsaw and when an earthquake comes they may rattle around a bit but would settle back down into the same place. This is a major earthquake zone. In 1971 a 7.9 earthquake killed 70,000 people, the largest natural disaster in the Americas. So for these walls to stand for hundreds of years (made in about 1500 AD) is quite a feat. There was a massive sculpture across the valley, very crude and not finished, of the Emperors head/face. Their huge granary buildings/ruins were where the emperors back would have been, so it is like he was carrying the grain.

The stream in the valley was channeled so that a small portion of it, about 6 inches wide and 4 inches deep, went into grooves cut in the rock, channeled down to some pools, and forks in the stream cut into the rock changing it to different pools, so that one stream divided three ways to three different pools. A rock placed in at the fork would divert more water one way or the other. Then the water would come down in a little waterfall to the pool. Nice way to take an Inca shower and bath.

Back to the Hotel for the evening where we sat around the pool with Rossers and had tuna and crackers watching the huge full moon coming up over the Andes Mountains. Eat your heart out! They have a fancy restaurant here and we get two meals per day provided by the tour, Shelby Saberon and Liahona Tours. Today was Breakfast and lunch. Most days breakfast and supper. Anyway, got to run have breakfast and catch the bus. Hope I can find internet at the next place.

Dad Maury

PERU: Machu Picchu

Hi all,

We are at Agua Caliente, at the base of Machu Picchu. We are going there in the morning. This was a very interesting day.

We rode in the bus for a while on paved road, then ten miles on gravel road and went to some fascinating ruins/terraces. Actually, the word Andes comes from a Peruvian word that means terraces. There was this very large sinkhole that the Inkas (we spell it Inca, here it is spelled Inka) used for farming with multiple terraces in a coliseum shape. By sinkhole, I mean a big hole in the ground with no outlet. It was at 12,400 feet elevation. All over the plateau (rolling hills, somewhat flat) on this very high plain surrounded by mountains on one side and a huge deep valley on the other, with 20,000 foot peaks on the other side, including our big glacier above our hotel. Clear at the bottom of the sinkhole was a flat area, round, that the final water drained into and they farmed it as a field. Then a circular wall of stones cut in the Inka way so they fit tightly together, then a terrace, then another wall, then a flat terrace, etc climbing up the mountain. The flat areas of the terraces are anywhere from 10 to 100 feet wide, depending on the steepness of the mountain there. The one very large sinkhole could have housed a football stadium and the two smaller ones nearby were still as big as the Delta Center. Of course Mom and I walked all around all three of them while most of the group stood on top looking and a few went to the bottom of the big one. We are the physically fit adventurous ones.

From there we took the bus back across the plateau, where farmers were preparing the ground in this early spring to plant it. This coincides with May in Wyoming, early spring. At 12,000 feet elevation the vegetation is just starting to get green in most places, but corn is rather large in protected areas, really odd. One reason they farmed this sinkhole is that it is protected in a hole and is almost like a hothouse, or at least gives them several more climates to farm. Even though this is high elevation, it doesn't snow, or seldom does at this elevation. Our native tour guide, Ophelia, has lived in Cusco (elevation 11,000) all of her life and has only seen it snow twice. Weird, but that is what you get near the equator.
Mom just interrupted me to tell me that Maurice Richards had a heart attack right after supper. We just finished supper at a swanky restaurant and walked up the hill where I stopped in at this internet cafe. Maurice "Bud" Richards is about 85 years old, a lawyer and former county attorney in Utah and is married to a gal from Mexico who looks to be about 35 years old, really sweet gal and in introducing themselves to the group say they have been married for about 6 years and are very very happy. I sure hope it is a mild heart attack. This altitude at Agua Caliente is about 7,000 feet, but we came down from 12,500 feet today. Bud and Patricia were dancing a bit at the dinner. We had a Peru group singing, playing guitar, violin, pan flutes (really popular here), and other instruments, and singing. Of course Mom and I started off the dancing to some of their music.

Anyway, after the sinkhole the bus took a shortcut across the fields on a little dirt road for about 8 miles and we passed farmers plowing with their cattle and sowing seeds. We did see a couple of tractors, but most of the field work is done with two cows pulling a wooden plow which looks more like a sharpened stick on the end of a pole than a plow. The cows are typically thin and some are Holsteins, but smaller and skinnier. We also saw some Andean Falcons, which are really a unique bird. They are one of the few hawks that run across the ground. The males are black and white and the females are brown. While I am at it I will mention some other animals. This time of year, in the early spring, a lot of the animals run loose trying to get whatever they can, but usually someone is watching them, a boy or woman mostly, as the men are working the fields. Some are tethered by a rope to their leg and tied to a rock, tree, or post. We see cows, bulls, new calves, quite a few donkeys which are used as pack animals, turkeys, pigs are very common with their new litters, and the occasional llama or alpaca. At our hotel they had a llama, an alpaca, and an ostrich. I got to be friends with them, but the ostrich would threaten me, unless I had some vegetation in my hand and he would take it from me. They fed them green fresh cut alfalfa.

Anyway, then we went to another place, very large church with murals and altars and gold work and all kinds of fancy but old stuff and out back of the church was some terraces which are being restored. Then we drove an hour and got out of the bus and on a train. The train took us for at least an hour, maybe more, down the Urubumba River to the town of Agua Caliente. The river has some real serious rapids as it falls fast in a rocky gorge, but the most spectacular thing of the trip was the incredible mountains towering above us, rising straight up out of the river. They were literally 7,000 or more feet straight up, perhaps 10,000 feet straight up, as some of them were snowcapped and you have to get above 15,000 feet to have snow. I mean, these mountains were only a half mile to the top in a horizontal direction, but 10,000 feet vertical. Incredible. You would have to see it to believe it. Think of the deepest gorge you can think of, the Grand Canyon, and then double that to the top of the mountain from the river, and do it in a half mile. Indescribable, even though I just did it.
And in that thirty mile train trip we completely changed climates. We were at about 9,000 feet where we got on the train in a high desert, very little vegetation on the mountains and some eucalyptus trees in the bottom with corn. Now we are in a tropical climate with banana trees and the mountains are heavily wooded, small trees, but very thick with vines and shrubs and flowers. A tropical jungle in many respects. The big muddy Urubumba River joins a clear mountain stream right here at Agua Caliente.

Anyway, in a fairly nice hotel, but out our window in the neighboring yard are chickens and rabbits and a big junk pile. Well, take care. I have to go see what happened with Bro Richards.

Love, Dad Jonesy

PERU: Day 5 or 6?

Hi Gang,

I hope someone is forwarding this on. If you get it please reply back to jonesy@svwy.net so I will know it is going through.

Had a fantastic trip yesterday, day 5, or 6? The days run together. We went to Machu Picchu, the famous ruins high in the Andes, built on top of a mountain, and I mean it is on top of a mountain! We left Agua Caliente by bus and it is probably 6 miles or so to the ruins up an incredibly steep mountain with hairpin switchbacks. The ruins are all they say, a city on a mountain top, but the real story is the high peak towering above the ruins. 8 of us climbed it and we took it slow. It is incredibly steep, almost going up a cliff and they have built steps out of stone and some steps chiseled into the rock. Many places have a cable or rope along the edge for you to hold on to and help pull yourself up. There are a bunch of ruins at the top of the peak, and we kept wondering why on earth anyone would build anything there. It is literally cliffs all around it. The cliff on the east side goes straight down to the Urubumba River and a person could almost swan dive into the river, but it is at least 2,000 feet below, probably more. We stood right on top of the peak, along with a bunch of other people, and took pictures. It took us an hour and a half climbing to the top, about 45 minutes to come down.

There is a herd of wild llamas there at Machu Picchu but they are tame like the Yellowstone animals. They put on a show by chasing each other around and basically having a good time. I got up close and personal with them, taking pictures. I got close enough to touch one of them as he walked down a path where all the humans are.

One thing I forgot to mention about the animals here is that they stake out their cows, donkeys, sheep, and pigs with a rope tied around their leg or horns so they can eat but not get into the corn. Anyway, it was a hot day at Machu Picchu and with the exertion of climbing the mountain, and a four hour train ride at the end of the day to get back to Cusco, we were totally beat, as in dog tired. Crashed last night and writing the report this morning. I think this is Friday, but I'm not sure. Maybe Thursday.

The train ride to Cusco was nice. The train seldom goes over about 30 miles an hour, probably because there are lots of animals grazing around and the tracks are not all that great and there is a lot of up and down. How do you get a train out of a steep canyon? It can't make hairpin turns for switchbacks, as the turn would be too wide on a steep mountainside. I had never thought of it. So what they do is they go straight forward, past a switch, stop while a railroad worker gets out and switches the track, then they back up a mile or so past the next switch where they stop and one guy gets out and changes that switch, then they go forward a mile or so and repeat the process,, sometimes 10 times to get up a hill. We came over a pass into Cusco and it was about 10 switchbacks down the mountain through the outskirts of Cusco, population 300,000 and elevation 11,000, to the train station. We went through some beautiful countryside.

Oh, our friend Bud Richards recovered nicely from whatever it was, a mild heart attack or something. Anyway, he had fainted and they took him to the hospital, but he is okay now. He is 85. Dorenda reminds me he is the father of the guy that was killed on a tour in Guatemala two years ago. Bandits stopped their tour bus and were abusing a woman and Bud's son tried to intervene and got shot. Bud was there at the time.

Today we see some sights of Cusco, then fly to Lima. Fly to the Amazon tomorrow.

Love Dad Jonesy

PERU: The Amazon

Hi Gang,

Got to type fast. I'm in the Amazon and it is $3 for each 10 minutes. Could be an expensive report.Yesterday we went to three ruins sites near Cusco and an old church. Saw some amazing stone work, including rocks weighing an estimated 120 tons standing 10 feet tall or more and huge. Cut at very fine joints on all edges to adjoin the other stones. A cave with altars where they sacrificed llamas and other things (no humans that we know of). Then flew to Lima. some concern about getting off the ground with the plane as it was very hot and at 11,500 feet at the airport the runway was too hot and didn't have much lift. We all had connecting flights, so had to go then. We all said a silent prayer for rain (it was clouding up) and about a half hour before the flight we had a nice little rain shower, so no problem, although I'm not used to taking off at that altitude and it took us forever to get off the ground. Fortunately they have a very long runway and we made it.

Got to Lima after dark, went to the Marriot, rough night with Montezuma visiting us, or actually in Peru it is Pachacutec's Revenge. His son was the emperor which Pizarro conquered and finally burned at the stake.

Got up at 2:30 AM and flew to Iquitos on the Amazon. Our flight was originally set for 8 AM but they changed it to 6 AM and with the long drive across Lima and allowing time for emergencies and us being on our own (Shelby and most of the group went to Lake Titicaca) we left the hotel at 3:45 AM. Nice flight, saw a couple of huge snow-capped peaks, then the view of the jungle (all the same look from the air, just tree tops) and a nice view of the Amazon river winding around in circles 2,300 miles from the ocean. I don't know if that is air miles or river miles. If it is air miles then it is about 10,000 river miles as the river goes in lots of hairpin turns.

Met our guide at the airport, drove in an old rickety bus across town where all the windows were clear down and even the driver's windshield tilted up so that the driver had no glass in his face, just "Natural air conditioning" according to our tour guide who told us of the city. Literally thousands of three-wheeled motorbike taxis that hold three passengers. They call them "City Mosquitos of Iquitos". We boarded their boat and headed 45 minutes down the Amazon river. a two motor boat with about 20 seats, 12 passengers in all and about 5 crew/employees of Explorama Lodges Ceiba Tops. Look it up on the internet. The Amazon River is about a mile wide and flowing at about 3 miles per hour. Lots of drift wood and debris in it, as the rains have started. Beautiful jungle on all sides.

We got here, had orientation, and then went to our air conditioned rooms for a nap. Just before lunch at 12:30 a heavy rain shower with big drops for about an hour. Then we went on a two hour hike through the woods with our guide, Luis, and saw lots of vegetation, real interesting plants, and a neat toad that looked just like a leaf.

When getting off the boat we saw a black agouti, a rodent the size of a good sized rabbit, right in the resort. At the end of our walk we spotted a three-toed sloth way up in a tree, right at the resort, then we saw a Razor-billed ? that is a very pretty bird, the size of a small turkey, very black shiny body and really unusual shaped beak which is fiery red. Look it up. That Razor-Bill followed Mom into the veranda where Mom got on a hammock and the bird got on the neighboring hammock. When I went back with her a day later, the bird followed us, got on a hammock. I went and picked a banana (they hang bunches of them around for the pickin', and the bird hurried over so I could feed him a banana. Now we know why he hangs around the hammocks. Also saw a caracas (sp ? brown bird like a pheasant), and then we saw a red Macaw right over the swimming pool sitting in plain sight on a palm tree eating the fruit. I got some pictures of it through my binoculars through my digital camera on 3 power. I think they came out pretty good. Then we saw a tapir, big black pig-like animal weighing about 400 pounds, the shape of a pig, related to cows, with a prehensile snout, and really weird feet, kind of like a pig but very splayed and spread out for walking in the rain forest.
All in all a great day and absolutely everything anyone could want in the Amazon.
In Trenton, they say there are 6 foot long Amazon catfish. I asked if we could go fishing and they said we can probably catch piranha but the catfish are hard to catch as the river is so big you don't know where to fish. Our guide has a chunk out of his leg where a piranha bit him many years ago. anyway, will report later. Only want to pay $6 for this email.

Love, Dad

PERU: The Amazon River

Hi Gang,

We are having such a great time! First thing this morning, 6 AM, we went bird watching. (sorry, Grant, I've joined the envirowackos and got out my binoculars and looked for birds.) We took their long open-topped power boat canoe and went across the Amazon River to a tributary, up it a ways, then into a small lake. Saw lots of beautiful birds. Two little kids came to the banks and one of them had a baby capybara, about the size of a large rabbit. When full grown this largest of rodents is 4 feet long. The little boy had a pet baby three-toed sloth. We held them and petted them and took a lot of pictures and gave the kids some candy bars and some money. The rest of their family stood up on the bank and watched. I guess those kids earn money for the family by showing off their pets. Came back to the hotel and had breakfast, then went on anther boat ride. We saw some river dolphins, including a rather rare pink dolphin. Neat to watch them.

Then to visit a primitive Indian tribe. While there I danced with a naked lady. Well, it is the Amazon and we went to see this backwards Indian tribe, the Yagua. They still live in primitive thatched huts, use blowguns, and are in a state of semi-nudity, and if we lived there and had to sweat every day like they do, we would shed clothes, too. We are always wringing wet with sweat. We were in this big thatched convention hunt, the main hut of the village, and the men started playing their drums and flutes and the women started dancing and this one woman, bare from the waist up, came up to me and grabbed me by the hand and said "dance with me". I looked at Mom sitting beside me and said, "do I have to dance with a naked lady?" She said, "you always wanted to." So the gal took me by the arm and we kind of danced with others of our group and their partners who had grabbed them to dance. They had all kinds of cute little kids and pets such as a kinkajou. We tried out their blowguns and bought some little ones from them, as well as necklaces and other things. Very primitive but very laid-back existence. They don't need money. Much fruit nearby, bananas, papayas, mango, potatoes, fish in the river, manioc root, etc.

Don't need money this afternoon after a long nap we went up river in the flat-nosed skiff and went to the "black water" (a side channel with very black water) and fished for piranha. We caught three of them, but very very small, like 4 inches. We walked a little ways through the woods and saw a small lake with huge and I mean huge lilly pads, like 4 foot diameter, with huge white flowers. Also a lot of banana trees growing. A man and woman and little boy brought their pet sloth and tree python to show us and we took pictures and held them (yes, I have a picture of Mom holding a 5 foot python). We bought a few things from them to thank them. The sloth was really neat, too.

Then back to camp across the rough river, wind blowing. Now going out to see if we can see some tarantulas in the dark. Will report later.

Jonesy

PERU: Tarantula Hunting

Hi,

We went tarantula hunting and actually found one. Got pictures of him. also saw a big tree frog, very unique camouflage, looked like a dry leaf on top and his legs looked like sticks. Had a great time. Very very humid, quite warm.

Take care, Dad

PERU: The Amazon Continued

Hi,

Today we started early at 6 AM and took an hour and a half boat ride down the Amazon for a half hour and up one of its tributaries for an hour in a very fast boat, going 45 or 50 miles per hour. the driver was dodging driftwood and debris all the way. River very smooth, so the driver was basically having fun zipping in and out of the obstacles.

We stopped at another resort owned by Explorama (see them at www.explorama.com ) and had breakfast, then a long hour walk through the hot humid jungle to the Jungle Tree Top Canopy Walkway. It is a walkway of 14 platforms, from 50 yards to 100 yards apart, up in the top of the big trees of the jungle as high as 118 feet, so you can get a look at the jungle from up there. Very very fun and neat and interesting, except for the heat and humidity. The last two days have been about 95 and humidity in the 90s. Very sweaty all day. Rained the first day, hasn't rained since on us, although it has rained on places around us. We saw lots of neat plants and birds, but the most interesting thing we saw was a "helicopter dragonfly". It is huge, like 8 inches across and about that long, bigger than your outspread hand. It has 8 wings, 4 on each side, in double deckers, that is two wings sticking out per side with two wings under them per side, like a bi-plane with two wings. The wings were transparent with one big bright yellow spot on the end of each wing. So neat. I tried to get pictures of it, but I'm afraid I only got the spot from one wing on the close-up and the farther pic may not come out.

Anyway, had lunch there, then a canoe ride on their little river for a half hour, dugout canoes made from a tree, hollowed out, like you see on the National Geographic specials. With five adults in our big canoe and three adults in the little canoe, each of them only had an inch or two clearance to the water. Not kidding!! In Piranha infested waters, no less. Well, this wasn't black water infested with piranhas, just the brown water that has an occasional piranha. comforting. We had to be very careful not to tip the canoe.

At the resort we saw some pigmy marmosets, the world's smallest monkey, like the size of our squirrels in Wyoming. Very cute and very hard to see, but they were only 10 yards away. The resort puts food out for them so they will come. I also petted a half-grown capybara, and we fed their parrots on our hands. Had a great time.

Uneventful but very beautiful ride on the river back here to Ceiba Tops resort. The Amazon river cannot be described adequately. Ranging from two miles (where the side river joined) to about 3/4 of a mile at the resort, muddy brown, flowing about 2-3 miles per hour, glassy smooth except when windy. Absolutely spectacular. Stats on the Amazon, the world's largest river; 4,000 miles long, widest spot three miles, deepest spot 720 feet, maximum flow almost a million cubic feet per second (923,000). And we are enjoying it to the fullest, except for the heat and humidity. Tomorrow the last day. Will be home Tuesday night.

Love, Dad Jonesy

PERU: Last Day

Right after breakfast we went down to the village, Indiana. It is about two miles below Ceiba Tops resort. Surprisingly, the village was somewhat neat, with cement streets, sidewalks, and well-manicured lawn and flower beds in the town square and in the middle of the street. People still live in very shabby looking mud huts. Beautiful flowers. A "river bus" was docking there, with a bunch of people from Luis' village, coming to market. Had a monkey, some bananas and other goods, three horses in the "hold" (second deck). People were kind of sandwiched in, heat and humidity and all.

Came back, had lunch and a cool shower, then loaded up on the Amazon Queen, a very large boat, to go back upriver to Iquitos. 2 1/2 hour boat ride up to Cusco. Very enjoyable boat. We were up on the top deck, the third deck, open sides with benches to enjoy the view of the river and river banks going by on the sides. We watched a storm gather, then dump on us. Heavy torrential rains in the Amazon Rain Forest. Poor little boats fishing out on the Amazon were bailing for all they were worth. Really neat rainstorm. In Iquitos the "Mosquitos", those small three wheeled motorbike taxis, had their "windshields" up for the rain. Just a tarp they pull up from the front wheel, secure it just below the roof, and look through the 4 inch slit between roof and tarp. Looks really funny seeing this three-wheeled taxi with the front all tarp except for a slit through which the driver looks. They did look like giant mosquitos.

No problem getting on the plane. It made a stop at a village an hour away, armed guards every so far down the runway. I asked the lady sitting next to me, why the armed guards? She shrugged and said, "Because this is Peru". You forget that it is a somewhat unstable South American country. We saw a couple of Mission Mormonaries walking down the dirt road next to the runway. Just before landing in Lima we saw the most incredible sunset I have ever seen in my life. The most vivid orange/red/pink/purple sunset you can ever imagine.

Arrived in Lima, waited for 5 hours for our plane, then flew to Dallas, three hour layover, then arrived safely in Salt Lake. Saw our mountains in Colorado, near Circle K Ranch, from a distance (flew over Grand Junction). Drove home to Wyoming where it is good to breath the cool/cold fresh air.

A fantastic vacation!!