TTT (The Tara Times)

Today we headed off after eating a wonderful breakfast of fruit, bread, and some kind of meat banana thing. We first headed off to the water falls to hike around and then go to the zip lines.  First we took a taxi from our hotel to the cable car, the cable car was scary because of how high up it was, but the view was amazing and it felt like you were flying. It was open so there was only some small railings on the sides to hold us in. The ride was only about 5 minutes maximum but it felt like 1, and a quick as that we were on the ground again.  The water falls were beautiful but it took a while to get there. The first one we went to was about an hour each way, and was breathtaking. It was huge, it had a stairway up the middle of the first fall up to the second fall. The nice thing too was there were no people they all were at work, since it was a Monday.  Then we took the hour hike back to were the cable car dropped us off and decided to go visit the other water fall, but this hike was

Today we left Otavalo and headed to Quito to find the center of the earth. Funny story on that, they actually think that the memorial site for the equator is wrong. They believe that the actual equator is about 300 meters away from the site. Which is a big deal considering all the money that they put into building the area around the supposed equator line, there are shops and restaurants everywhere! After stopping there to see the equator we headed to Mindo our final destination. We arived at our hotel, and it was beautiful we stayed in a wooded cabin with blue tiled floors, there was a queen bed and a bunk bed inside a room with a bamboo door. There is a large bathroon, and a kitchenet close by. There is a small table and a couch near that as well. There is a really tiny balcony that has a hammock and just enough room for one more person to be in out there.  Outside of the hotel is a breakfast area, more rooms, a game room with a pool table and other various games. There was also swin

Today was a shopping day!!! We went to South America's biggest market today, which only happens on Saturday's. Before that though we went to the animal market, which was aweful........ This market is full of animals, which you think ya that's cool, animals yay. But when you get there you realize that really all these animals are here for is to die, my family thought it was fasinating how there we so many animals in this small market. It was aweful. I couldn't get past the fact that this might be my dinner tonight, or I had her mom for lunch last week. I am seriously considering becoming a vegetarian.  After that aweful sight we headed to the real market. This market was huge you could wander around this thing for hours upon hours you could get really lost in this thing, it's like a corn maze. Anyways there was everything! Toys, blankets, soccer jerseys, notebooks, sweatshirts, leggings, sunglasses, purses, bracelets, necklaces, Everything! After spending about 3 hou

Today we went and saw what they call the indigenous villages. Where they show you how things are made, or just what things are made in that town. We went to four major towns, of which I do not know the names. The first one is a cloth weaving village, where they actually showed us how it is made and how they get the different colors. They got the different colors by taking a piece of a plant, and mixing it around with some lemon juice to make it red, then baking soda to make it purple. Many other ingredients were used to color the piece of plant, and it was very fascinating.  The next village we were supposed to stop at was the hat making town. But that didn't work out so well, we reached the place, and the sign said open but there was no one there and the doors were closed and locked. So we kept moving.  The next one was wood making there we didn't get to see how they made the wood, but all they sold in all of the shops was wood, wood furniture, wood pictures, wood mirrors, eve

Today we visited a crater in Ecuador. We took a bus from Otavelo to the town where the crater is located then took a taxi up to the Crater. Once we reached the top of the crater we started our hike around. It was estimated to take about 4-5 hours to hike all the way around the lake, and that's what we thought it would take, and that we would end up at the restaurant at the bottom of the lake, then take a cab back down to town. Instead once we reached close to the end it just came to a road..........We were very confused and went back to some people picnicking on the grass and asked them were to go. They said that the walk down to town was on the road and was about 3 Kilometers downhill, which is like 1.8 miles. So we stared down.  Just starting down the hill, we all decided that we didn't really want to walk all the way down to the bottom, and it was fortunate that we didn't. We saw a cab and got it as soon as we could. It was six dollars to go down to town, and it was a si

Hi everyone! I miss you all so so much! Today we left Quito and headed to Otavelo. We didn't wake up till about 9:00, and didn't get out of our hotel till 110:00. We headed downstairs and checked out of our hotel, we now headed to lunch, Subway again. It has been a long time, or so it feels since we have had a good salad, and besides the cheese (which was a little weird) it was very good. Riley got a sandwich again and Dad, Mom, and I got salads.  We headed back to our hotel to grab our luggage we had left, so that we didn't have to bring it to or lunch. Once we got there, they again took our bags from our hands and headed down to the cab, or the more expensive version of the cab. The hotel has cabs of their own and they are very nice, we just wanted to take the cab to the bus station to catch a bus to Otavelo. The cab driver from the hotel was going to take us there, but she talked us into letting her take us the whole way. Which I don't even know how that happened, be

Yay! We received 5 hours of sleep. I am not actually that tired, but it was good to get some sleep. Today we got to explore around Quito and our hotel. Since we arrived so early this morning we really didn't have much time to look around. It is a BIG hotel, and probably the nicest I have ever stayed in. There are two beds with a desk, a TV, a mini bar, a closet, a bathroom, and a coffee maker. It is very nice, although I am not sure about the butlers. They follow you around helping you with everything. When we arrived this morning there was food and drinks on a small table near the desk, Riley wanted some so went over to the table, and over came a butler pouring her a drink and handing her a piece of bread. It was very strange.  When I woke up I went to go take a shower, the shower head was on the ceiling, and the shower was so big, I swear you could fit at least 10 maybe 15 people in there. After a shower and a little bit of Spanish TV we headed to lunch. I was really craving a sa

Sorry it's been a crazy busy day, and I would have posted this yesterday but just didn't get around to finishing it. Yesterday we visited three places: the salt mines, Chinchero, and Moray. The most exciting one was the salt mines, but I will tell you a little about all of them.  Chinchero was the fist place we visited, we took a cab from our hotel to Chinchero. This was basically the same as the others, ruins. But it was a great view from the top, and you didn't even have to hike that far. After a 5 minute hike to the ruins, you can walk up a few stairs to a church with a courtyard; which has shops and little markets spread around it. After looking around a bit, we headed back to the cab to head to the salt mines. 25 minutes in the car and we are there, well almost there. You can see the mines, but you have to take a step road down to the bottom, which in someplaces only has room for one car to pass. We headed down the road, praying that our taxi driver knew what he was do

Today we were going to go to Olyantombo, but ended up changing our plans due to weather. Our parents surprised us by making reservations to a chocolate museum, which has a hands on activity to do with chocolate.  We made the reservation for 1:30, and headed out to look around the town. First we went to a shopping/food street and walked around there for about 30 minutes. By that time we were all starving, so we headed to lunch. We all felt like having something fast and easy, but ended up not being so fast and easy.  We went to McDonald's, which we decided was a very bad choice after we got there. We ordered a cheeseburger, 2 fries, a drink, and a salad. After we ordered we sat around for about 25 minutes waiting for our food to come. We watched people who were way behind us in the line grabbing there food. One couple was just waiting for 2 coffees and ended up getting the bottom of the pot coffee, they said it wasn't even warm. Once seated finally with our food, we started to e

Hey everyone!! How is your day? My day has been fantastic, I hope yours has too! Anyways today we took a bus to Pisac; were they have a big market every Sunday. There is also ruins up there but that's not as important, at least I don't think.  After the one hour drive to Pisac we headed into the market, because Riley was getting a little motion sickness from the bus. We walked in the market for about 20 minutes, and Riley was feeling good enough to take a taxi to the ruins.  Once we reached the ruins at the top of the hill, we got out and walked around for about an hour. I have to say the ruins never impressed me much, but the views were amazing; absolutely beautiful!! You could see most of the town from the top, and unlike Machu Picchu only took about 25 minutes to walk up to the top (not including picture breaks).  Once back down in town we walked around a little bit before finding lunch, it was a nice restaurant and was highly rated. Ri and I had spaghetti and dad had some b

Today we started off by getting up at 8:00 to eat breakfast then catch a bus to the horse riding place. The first law of many we broke today was 4 people in the backseat where only 3 can legally sit. Then after about a 5 minute ride up the hill, we broke yet another law by climbing under barbed wire. After a 3 minute walk to the farm we saw all of the horses and we're ready to ride.  We each recived a horse, and started riding away. These horses are not calm they are skittish and extreamly forceful. We took our horses about an hour uphill, we reached Tambomachay and Puka Pukara. Basically they are two Inca ruins that aren't quite as big as Machu Picchu, but are very amazing to see what they did.  We got back on our horses and headed to Sacsayhuamán (which for some weird reason the tourists pronounce sexy woman). Anyways this was the biggest of the three ruins we saw today, it was a spectacular view of the city, and was built to perfection. Some of the stones in Sacsayhuamán wei

Sorry guys I haven't been writing much, I am having a great time here! Today we had most of the morning to sleep in, until breakfast time of course. We (Riley and I) slept till about 8:30, we then got up to go to breakfast, it was wonderful. But since breakfast starts at 6:00 and ends at 9:00, there was not a lot of food left. But it was extreamly fantastic. We headed out to find a massage, it was kind of a gift from our parents from hiking up Machu Picchu. We payed 6.50$ for one hour, this was a great use of an hour. After this lovely massage we went to do some shopping and to book a tour for horseback riding tomorrow.  Shopping was great here it was like in China were you could bargain for the price you want, I started off by looking at a wallet that I have had my eye on since Puno, the beginning of our trip. I have been asking around on prices and seeing what the lowest price I can get. In Puno the cost of that wallet was 35 soles or about $11.75, the price in Aguas Calientes wa

Guys I miss all of you like crazy! Today we went back up to Machu Picchu to walk around and explore. Besides the heat it was a nice adventure! I still feel a little sick, but I am getting way better. Thanks for the great comments you are giving! After lunch we catch a train back to Cusco, so we can relax for 5 days! Miss you a ton ton ton!! P.S. I am really trying to get these pictures into a folder, sorry 😁 T

Hey guys going to be pretty short today, I have been really busy! We got up at 3:45 this morning to go to Machu Picchu. We took a bus to a train to start our hiking. We hiked for 8hours till we reached our final destination: Machu Picchu. I am really trying to get these pictures into a folder sorry for the delay!!! I miss you all so so so much!! We need to get together to do something this summer, send me an email on what we should do, if you want to do something! 😉 Love you, T

Today I did not do much we were on a bus for 6 hours, and it was not fun. I am ill and can barely eat, so that's great too!! Ya life is good!! How are you all?  Miss you, T

Hey guys hopefully I will be posting the link to the folder with all my pictures I have taken on this trip. I hope to get that to you by tonight, but no promises. I miss you all!! Tara 

Sorry I am just posing this today; I had a really bad headache last night. Anyways we flew into Puno at 12:45. Grabbed our bags and meet our taxi driver outside. We then reached our hotel by 2:00, we decided that we wanted to walk around and explore Puno. So we did just that. We were so hungry when we got into Puno that we immediately went to find food. After long and complicated arguments we finally decided on a place with at set menu and 3 courses.  We recived the first course with our drinks within 10 minutes of being there. This first course was a chicken soup with noodles, it was absolutely amazing!! Unfortunately right after the first course Riley said she was fully stuffed. This was a problem because she sill had 2 course coming. The second course came out, and I received a chicken and rice plate (I don't even know why I choose chicken considering I get chicken at home 24/7.) Dad got Alpaca meat and rice, and Riley got pesto pasta. It was really really really good.  The last

   That's what I said when I heard it. The floating islands. Well how do they float? Do people actually live there? How did they live? Yes, they do float......and the process of building is very difficult, you start with a base layer which is kinda like floating dirt, it is extreamly thick and heavy. After that you would just start piling reeds onto it, until you have about 2-5 meter of reed.     Every 10-15 days they have to lay more and more reeds on the the base, after a while it gets to the point where you can't add anymore reeds and then you have to move so that you don't sink along with the island. Yes, people actually do live there; there are only about 5-6 family's that live on each island, most of their clothes they make, but some they do buy.     They make things that tourists like ourselves can buy, like tapestries and small reed boats. Most of the men there make a living by fishing or going to the city to work. They do have clay ovens there so they can cook

Our luggage made it though safely and we received all of it, we landed in Lima, Peru at 10:15, we were picked up by our taxi driver and taken to our hotel. We walked to the car and expecting to see a nice big car, instead we got a small rickety car the rocked back and forth when you got into it. Suppressed we hoped into the car and went along for the ride. The car moved along slowly but surely, and every time it moved it rattled and cracked. It was the most  interesting, squishy, rickety, and quick ride of my life. In conclusion I miss you all, and I will see you in a little less than a month! T

Already we have run into some trouble at the airport. My mom has always had a fear of checking luggage and not reaciving it on the other end. Especially when you get to the gate and they say it's too big. So, yes this did happen.........we reached the gate and they told us that two of our luggages were too big. Theses two luggages held many important valuables, including: My clothes, Ri's clothes, Mom's clothes, and my mom's food since she is allergic to so much so planned on eating power bars and peanut butter. The problem is these bags are going all the way to Lima, Peru, even though we are stopping in Miami. This is the trickiest part of planes, they aren't always able to get your luggage to the next plane in time! At the present we are taking off, we will be in Miami in 4 hours and then from there to Peru. Talk to you soon! ~Tara 

In the airport. I miss you all so much, and I haven't even left the country yet!! Love you guys!! Wish me safe travels! T

I am going to miss you all so much! Be back on June 4th!!! Tara