Bill and Wendy's ickcillint adventures

Dear Children, It is fortunate that you live in Canada and that your mother was away for Mother's Day, travelling in Peru.  It is Mother's Day in Peru today as well.  If you were a Peruvian son or daughter, it seems there are some expectations placed upon you on Mother's Day. In the morning of Mother's Day, go out and buy a huge bouquet of flowers.  Not to worry about finding some flowers as flowers are sold on every street corner.  You will need to buy a very large bunch and oh, while you are at it, pick up one of those red balloons tied to straws that say Feliz Madre Dia.  Well, actually, get three of four.  Boxes of chocolates and galletas (cookies) usually accompany the flowers and balloons. Then, take a crowded city bus to the city where your mother dwells, find your mother, board another bus and take her to a giant restaurant, festooned with balloons, tables laid with white linen and event tents scattered on the lawn.  Purchase a cuy (guinea pig) plato, broi

I guess I had never really seen a desert. I know, we talk about Kamloops as being semi-desert and I guess I thought that the desert was just a little drier.  I also know, I have seen pictures of the Sahara Desert and camel's being jockeyed across them, but it is not the same as seeing it for the first time.  Seeing an actual desert is  a realization. We think of sand as being inviting, relaxing, and soft.  However, the scene of a real desert is something quite extraordinary and absolutely opposite. It is barren, bleak, unadulterated, not a single bit of growth, not a pebble or a twig. As we travelled from Arequipa north to PIsco and Lima, the Peruvian Desert announced it's advent by an increasingly dry, lunar type landscape of lava rocks and sand.  Finally, the landscape changed.  There was just desert sand.  We travelled through hundreds of miles of sand, just sand.  I guess I imagined roads through deserts as being flat and straight, like Prairie roads. Instead, the hig

Sent from my iPad I might as well tell of our our Colca Canyon hike. After a 6 hour bus ride from Arequipa we arrived at the small village of Cabanaconde in  the afternoon. The plan was we would leave the next morning and in preparation for the hike we spoke to locals about the different ways down the canyon from Cabanaconde and the ways back up. Although there appears to be 3 trails realisically we were told there were only 2. There is a steep trail which some choose to take to go down and to come back up. It is called the more dangerous of the 2 trails and I was not certain if that was going down or coming up.  Although the canyon is described as the highest or second highest in the world that does not accurately describe the hike. Cabanaconde is located at about 3250 metres and the Oasis at the bottom of the trail is at about 1150 metres. Therefore the elevation change is about 1100 metres but the canyon rim is well above the village.  At any rate, It is steep and caution is

Well it seems that way. I am a vegetable hound. I love vegetables.  At a buffet, I eschew all the other things like main courses, desserts and other things for a load of fresh vegetables.  As a person with a gluten intolerance, I don't/can't eat breads, pastas or desserts. Bill, on the other hand, hates vegetables and loves bread,  desserts and pastas.  He eats bread all three meals.  He cannot pass a McDonalds without buying a cono. He cannot pass a helado (ice cream) stand without sampling the fresa (strawberry) ice cream.  He indulges in pie and ice-cream, butter and jam.  He regularly has pasta and pizza. Bill has lost a lot of weight. I have not. I rest my case.  Vegetables are fattening.