Moras

 

When I we were planning our trip I read about Moras and Moray in our guide book and knew that I wanted to visit. It is close enough to Cusco that it would not have been a huge trip and it would be a huge excursion.

Moras is the location of the natural salt mines. Our tour guide told us that the reason why the water in this location is so salty is because the Andes used to be under water and as the earth and continents have evolved the mountains formed and caused the natural salt mines. Each “plot” is owned by a family and has likely been in that family since, well forever.

During the dry season, which is their “winter” and when we visited, is when the salt is dried and cultivated. It was neat to see locals there tending to their plots.

Chocolate Museum (Part 2)

When we got back from Puno, at the end of our trip, we decided that we wanted to make chocolate. The lesson was about 2 hours and it was a lot of fun. Miguel was our host and he was very knowledgeable and passionate about chocolate. You could tell he loved what he was doing!

Roasting the beans. You have to constantly stir the beans otherwise they will burn.

After we roasted the beans we then had to grind them into a sort of paste. Miguel made it into a competition and Rich won and we got a bag of Chocolate Tea!

The Mayans would make their hot chocolate spicy and they would not add milk to it. I am not sure how true this is but we were told that the Mayans would use the blood of their enemies to make the hot chocolate, so Miguel asked for a volunteer to donate some blood – he was kidding of course….I was not hurt in the process of making chocolate.

At the end of the lesson we all got different molds and different ingredients to add to the chocolate and were able to take what we made home! We added things like coffee beans, coco nibs, coconut, nuts etc.

The chocolate was delicious! We were able to bring some home!

Hiking at Mt Tam and Stinson Beach

We decided to head out to Marin and go for a hike with some of our new friends. We got out there early and hiked a little over 7 miles then enjoyed a turkey sandwich picnic {wine may have also been involved}

Fortunately for most of the hike we were shaded by these huge trees. It was so peaceful and beautiful.

Stinson Beach. This is one of my favorite places!

Before getting to the beach we stopped for some coffee/chai tea lattes at a little cafe near the beach parking lot. The barista was fun and laid back and made me a delicious chai latte! 

It was such a beautiful day!

Book Review: The Happiness Project

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I have recommended The Happiness Project by Gretchin Rubin to every person I have spoken to, while reading it and now after. The entire book is very uplifting and shows that not everyone is perfect and we all have our flaws and set backs. 

During and after reading this book, I found myself reflecting on my own life: my marriage, my family, my friends and myself. I found myself with a strong desire to clean out my closet, to think/take a deep breath before I react, to give people some slack and not to keep score. All of these things are hard to keep on track with and easy to forget. But since I have made myself aware of them, I am more conscious and can make a conscious effort in resolving them and making myself happier.

Here are a few excerpts that I really enjoyed:

"It's easier to complain than to laugh, easier to yell than to joke around, easier to be demanding than to be satisfied."

"The days are long, but the years are short"

Go out and rent this book, or buy it. 

It is amazing and totally worth it.

Chocolate Museum (Part 1)

One of my best friends lived in Peru for about a year and another one of our friends visited her and they visited the Chocolate Museum and made chocolate. When I saw that, I knew we had to do it! At the beginning of our trip we visited the museum, learned about chocolate and had a drink and a brownie. We made chocolate at the end of our trip.

We were able to sit outside and enjoy a beautiful view of Regocijo Square while people watching.

That brownie was amazing!

Sacsaywaman

Apparently this is pronounced: “Sexy Woman” Ha! Yes! You read that right! :-) Sacsaywaman is an Inca Ruin that is just outside the Plaza de Armas in Cusco. We decided to walk up there to get ourselves familiar with the surrounding area. The views were spectacular. Sadly, we did not actually go inside the ruins because it was a bit pricey and we figured that we would get to see quite a few ruins while we were in Peru (about S/70 per person – which is the cost of a partial  tourist ticket, which we didn’t buy because we weren’t going to get very much out of it)

On our walk up to Sacsaywaman, we walked past the famous 12 sided stone. It was really beautiful to see in person, and it is actually really big!

I absolutely adore vibrant and colorful doors. And Peru is full of them! Most are blue, and some are green. I am not sure what the significance of the blue/green doors are, but they are beautiful and make for fun pictures. And since all of my clothes were blue I blended right in!

Women and children will walk around with animals and ask tourists if you want to take their pictures / take a picture with the animal. I snuck this picture and then was yelled at for taking it and not paying…oops! haha

This is a beautiful waterfall in San Blas – a neighborhood in Cusco.

We are starting to get higher and higher and we can see most of Cusco.

You can see this Jesus from Cusco and they light him up at night so you can even see him at night.

The clouds started to roll in…it rained on us while we walked back down to the Plaza.

I spy with my little eye…an Alpaca! Can you believe how well he blends!?

This is a picture of Sacsaywaman, the Inca Ruins.

Book Review: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

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I have been really enjoying listening to Audiobooks. I am so glad that I "discovered" them, they make commuting and work go by so much quicker! Since I am listening while at work, I have realized that I need to listen to fun and easy audiobooks so I can concentrate on my work while retaining the words in the book.

My only experience with Mindy Kaling is from when she played Kelly Kapoor on the office. I enjoyed her character and after reading Tina & Ellen's books, I felt that Mindy's book was the most logical next step  (see what I did there? first name basis...still).

Just like the other audiobook, Mindy is the narrator. She is witty, hilarious and sweet all at the same time. I definitely recommend this audiobook.

I will leave you with the following excerpts from her book: 

"I don't know how to do drugs because no one showed me"

*amen to this! haha

"And going to town on all of the "kid friendly" snacks in the house. Kid friendly food is the best, because kid friendly simply means: total garbage. I ate frozen chicken nuggets shaped like animals, fruit chews shaped like fruit, and fruits shaped like cubes in syrup. I discovered that kids hate for any food to resemble the form it originally was in nature. They are on to something, because that processed garbage was insanely delicious. I spent some excellent Saturday nights watching Monique strutting on stage at the Apollo while I ate a handful of children's chewable vitamins and wrapped myself in my boss's cashmere kimono."

*true story about babysitting! any and all babysitters out there know that it is an unspoken rule that you get to eat the families food...! ha

Plaza de Armas

This is the main square in Cusco. It is bustling with people, cars, dogs and lots of restaurants. An interesting fact about Cusco (Peru, too) is that dogs are not typically kept as pets. So there are wild dogs roaming around everywhere. It is actually really sad that there are no controls because the female dogs are walking around always pregnant or just having had a litter of puppies.

Something that I really appreciated about Cusco is how many police are everywhere. We felt very safe, at all times (almost), which made the entire vacation much more enjoyable.

This is the cathedral and inside there is a painting of the Last Supper and on the table (as the last supper) is Cuy – guinea pig. We, sadly, did not eat guinea pig on this trip. We were looking for it, but because it is a delicacy, it is also very expensive because tourists want to eat it and will pay top dollar for it.

The rainbow flag is actually the Official Flag of Cusco. It was really cool because we were in Cusco for Peru’s Independence Day! There didn’t seem to be too much going on. We heard fireworks, but missed them :-( Fortunately, we were able to see some while we were in Puno.