Labor Day at 16,000 feet!

This morning we got up and got into a taxi that drove us two hours to Lares where there are some hot thermal springs. I had no intention of getting in for multiple reasons, the most reasonable being that of my poor little legs. Anyway, we piled into a taxi and drove up, up, up into the high Andes. Here are some lovely llamas we saw along the way. They're so cute!

And at the summit of the pass, the elevation was 16,000 feet. Mmm . . . breathe that crisp, clean blue air. Delish. Here is a picture of the scenery.

Before we left, Steve had bought some bread and fruit to give out to the kids that live up in the mountains so here we are stopping so that Steve could do that. These kids are on their way to school. The surprising thing to me was that every kid wears a uniform, no matter how poor they are. It was incredible, and of course I thought they were so cute.

After two hours of twisting mountain roads, we made it to the thermal baths. I relaxed in the warm Andean sun while the others dove into the clear blue wat . . . oh wait. No. The water was various shades of thick green and murky brown. Yum! But the baths were beautiful, I was not expecting this. They had muy caliente pools ranging all the way down to frio.

Here's a picture of the changing rooms for the thermal baths.

After about an hour and a half, we had our fill and drove the two hours back over the mountains to Lamay. It was fantastic. The taxi only cost us $35. Incredible, no? We wanted to go into Cusco that night so I paid for a taxi to take us all to Sacsayhuaman. When we got there, we found out that to go in, it was going to be $12. We were tired of paying for ruins by this point, so this is what we thought of it.

And here's what I thought of it with empty pockets.

Of course, we weren't in the complex, but we could get close enough to take a picture of Tom and I with our favorite state in the United. Yay for home!

Right next to Sacsayhuaman on the hill overlooking Cusco is the statue Christo Blanco. It is illuminated every night to a blinding white so we hiked up the hill (a short walk) to take pictures.

Here is the hillside overlooking Cusco. What a beautiful city. There are half a million people in Cusco, and there is no "downtown" and no tall buildings. It's a little different that way.

Afterwards, we waited at the suit shop for the tailor to show up and then we caught a taxi back to Lamay. First of all, props to Jonny and Tom for getting us back to Lamay, I had no clue where we were. Second, on the way back, the taxi driver talked the entire time about how much he disliked (read: despised) Chileans. I got the gist, you'd need to talk to Tom and Jonny for the full story. What I got was hilarious.