Hi everyone. I apologize that you haven't seen many pictures. I am having trouble loading them to the ipad so I will post them ASAP. Thanks! Shayna

Hi!! Rebecca here writing from our first and pretty much only day in Lima. Today we slept in, ate breakfast, and headed out around two for a tour of the city. I got very dehydrated and slept a lot of the way, so I honestly can't tell you much of what we learned. However, once we got to the old city, I got water in me and I felt a lot better. We walked far too quickly through the too-awesome-to-walk-that-quickly stores, where we did not get to shop :(. We then headed into a crowded street where a school parade was going on. Schools were competing for something. We saw a lot of giant people on stilts dressed as puppets. Not gonna lie, some of them were creepy. They all had these weird smiles on their faces! I would get really freaked if I woke up in the middle of the night and saw one of them staring over me. Shayna probably has pictures. Anyways, after that we walked through this HUGE fancy church that could probably feed a few small countries with the money it took to build it. But whatever. Then the highlight/lowlight of our day: the catacombs. So apparent,y it was this thing, unknown, under the church that you shouldn't go in if you were claustrophobic. I'm not claustrophobic so I thought eh, might as well. It wasn't until we were too deep inside that we finally beer stand the word catacombs. Basically it was a giant tombstone with the bones of over 25,000 ancient people. Pretty disgusting, right? Oh no, it gets worse. We were in the tight space where we had to duck to fit in the tiny walls with like two other tour groups when we saw the bones. Organized by size and type. Human bones. Rotting. Oh no, it gets worse. We walked through a hallway where we saw more and more of these bones, and at the end, a pit of human skulls. I seriously thought I was going to throw up. My thought at the time was, however, if I throw up, it'll go into one of these pits and they'll have to scrub off the skulls individually of my vomit. Needless to say, not a pleasant thought. I will ease your mind though, I didn't throw up. Phew! And it gets a bit worse. We walked and saw this well of all the bones and decomposed bodies of the people they pretty much didn't have room for. So it was just a giant pit of skulls and bones. Yeah, worrisome. Disgusting, yes. Fun and interesting tour, yeah no. Finally, we had reached the end! Praise The Lord whose these bodies were buried in the name of! Anyways, we walked up and out of the church. We headed to dinner and now we are back at our hotel. It has been an exhausting day. I don't know about you, but I am ready to collapse. But not like the bones we saw today. Tomorrow, kuzco!! Till next time, Rebecca <3

Olah everyone! How's my Spanish? Pretty good right? This morning was our last panga ride. Lucky for us, it was a dry landing. What on earth is a dry landing you may ask. Well I will tell you. During our visit to the Galapagos we had two kinds of landings frm the little zodiac boats which they call pangas, wet landings and dry landings. During a wet landing the boat driver would pull up onto the beach as far as possible and then we would get off in our water shoes or barefoot and step into the water. We would then walk up to the beach. The dry landing was just the boat pulling up to the dock and us walking off. After five days on the boat with two islands everyday we were finally making our last landing. Fortunately we didn't have to carry our suitcases because they made their own landing on the zodiacs. We got off the zodiac but couldn't get off the dock the normal way because a sea lion was lying on one of the steps. I've never seen that before. There was also a park near the beach that had been inhabited by sea lions. There were also two slides that went into the water. We couldnt figure out if they were for humans or animals. As we reached the bus I was surprised to find a real town. We were on the Galápagos Islands and it looked like we were in any other city on the mainland. After we had a little trouble ok a lot of trouble finding the right bus, we got on the right one and took a 45 minute bus ride to the giant tortoise breeding center. The purpose of the center is to replace the 20,000 tortoises that have been stolen and eaten before the Galapagos became a national park. When we got there, we almost immediately saw the giant tortoises. They were giant! Hence the name. "Be careful of that tree!" said our guide. It turns out that one of the trees found on the side of the path is poisonous! If you touch it to your face, you go blind and if you swallow it you choke to death. No kidding. Ok spending this visit staying away from all trees everywhere. Turns out the tortoises are not affected by this tree and it is a main part of their diet. (To all my grandparents, my dad says that I overstated the previous lines so you should not worry even though I told the truth.) while I was disappointed to not see many tortoises, it was very exciting to see the baby tortoises. They were so cute and small. No one could believe that they would one day become the giants ones that we had seen previously living for over 100 years. The oldest one in the Galapagos was 150 years old. Wow! A little lesson for all of you, if you sit on the bus step that is full of mud, you will get mud on your pants. I wonder who made that mistake. Oh yeah that would be me. It's not like it looked like I went to the bathroom in my pants. Ok maybe it did. We left the breeding center and went to one of the only towns in the Galapagos for an hour of shopping and eating that somehow turned into 20 minutes of rushed chachki shopping. Who needs lunch anyway right? Off to a small airstrip that they call an airport. We waited in line and then waited in line again and then finally got on the plane. One of the strangest airport experiences I've ever had. Three takes off and landings later, heading north and then south and then northa gain, we made it to Lima, Peru. Who needs dinner? We did so I got a slice of pizza at the Quito airport. Marc and Rebecca got a burger from Johnny rockets. It was midnight before we arrived at our beautiful hotel in Lima. I tried to fall asleep with out much success but by 1:45 I finally called it a night, or a morning.

Hi everyone! Rebecca here writing from the airplane as we are headed to Lima, Peru. We have had such a packed week in the Galapagos! We saw everything from blue footed boobies to iguanas to a group of dolphins. In all, it was quite spectuacular. I believe Shayna has already written for most of the days, so I will fill you on yesterday. We got up and got ready for a hike and zodiac ride. Once we arrived on the island where we were hiking, we had to climb up about 20 steep steps to get to the path. Once on the path, we saw some amazing birds! We found red footed boobies, which are much rarer to see than the blue footed ones. We saw a bunch of little baby boobies and I learned how to take panorama shots. You will be seeing a lot of panorama shots in the future. I am now kind of in love with that setting. After we finished the hike we rode around a bit in the zodiac. Then we headed back to the boat for lunch and rest time. Okay, here comes the best part: snorkeling! Except not really because I didn't exactly snorkel, just swam around a bit with the mask but not the mouth tube thing. It was too hard to learn to breathe that way, so I just held my breath. We swam so far onto the rocks my mom, on the shore, got worried and almost sent out a rescue boat. But she didn't, so it was cool. We saw a TON of fish, no turtles unfortunately :(, and I saw these three HUGE pink and blue florescent fish. It was awesome! When I got back, our new five year old friend hugged me and kept repeating, "I missed you! I missed you!" I think she was worried about us too. But we had a great time. It was one of my best experiences on the trip so far. I believe Shayna has some underwater pictures too. We got back, played cards, ate dinner, and I went to bed early. It had been an exhausting day! Today we visited a giant tortoise reserve. The tortoises are seriously huge! I guess that's why they call them giant tortoises. We also got to see some adorable baby tortoises. More panorama shots for me, and now we are on the airplane. It has been a great two days. I can't wait for Peru! Till next time, Rebecca <3

Galapagos day 3. Shayna here. Today was another incredible day in the Galapagos. We started the morning off by taking walk on a red sand island. Really, all the sand is red. Again, we saw maybe 20 sea lions, probably 50 iguanas all laying on top of each other and many more types of birds. Don't worry I took a lot of photos. After our walk, we sat on the red beach for about half an hour. I played in the water with a five year old friend that I made. After that, we took a glass bottom boat rode. Again, we could have gone deep water snorkeling but decided against it. We had much more fun sitting on a boat. We could see very well through the boat. The coolest thing we saw was a shark. The zodiac took us back to the boat and we did some more sleeping, eating, writing, and watching. After lunch we once again had the choice to do deep water snorkel or glass bottom boat. Hhhmmm tough decision. What decision do you think we made yep you're right. Another glass bottom boat ride. We saw parrot fish, angel fish, and even a giant sea turtle. When we got back to the boat, we only had about half an hour until our next island. We decided to just sit in the bar lounge and play cards. Our next activity a as a hike up 372 steps. It was VERY tiring but the view at the too was well worth it. The guides told us that it is the view on postcards. We were just so fast that we had some extra time at the end of the hike. We got on the zodiac and rode around looking for penguins. We found three! They were sooooo cute and only about three feet long. We came back to the boat and now I am sitting in the cabin writing this. It's a really nice room by the way. We have a lot of space. After this, we have a briefing about tomorrow's activities. Then dinner. After dinner there is a game of Galapagos jeopardy. Let's see how well we do! Until next time (or until we get internet) Shayna

Hello everyone. Yesterday was our first full day in the Galapagos. What a magical place! We got to sleep in yesterday! Yay! 7:00 wake up. We headed to a very nice breakfast. We got off the boat and rode a zodiac around James island. We could have gone deep water snorkeling but we decided to take a boat ride instead. Our first sighting was the famous Blue Footed Boobie. They actually weren't as amazing as I expected. That's probably because we couldn't really see their blue feet. We saw tons of pelicans too! Everybody's favorite spotting was the dolphins. We were riding along in the zodiac when our friend Jesse saw something moving in the water. Our guide was so excited to tell us that it was a dolphin. It was the first dolphin we had seen. everyone crowded to that side of the boat and started taking pictures. All of a sudden another one jumped out of the water and then another one and then another one and then another one. There were maybe 20 dolphins surrounding us. It was only then that we realized we were riding through a pod of dolphins. It was incredible. I couldn't believe how close they got to the boat. I took out my camera and started taking pictures. One of the dolphins was white. At one point I almost had to put away my camera because it was getting wet. I thought we were getting splashed by the boat but when I looked up, i realized that a dolphin was flapping its tail at us. The dolphins were playing with us. They started jumping out of the water and putting on a little show. We spent so long looking at the dolphins that the head of all the guides told us that we were late and that we had to immediately return to the boat. Whoops. When we got back to the boat we did a lot of sleeping, eating, watching, and playing cards. Upon our arrival onto the ship, we were given the opportunity to get snorkeling equipment and go snorkeling. As many of you may have imagined we are not a snorkeling family but since we were in the galapagos we decided to try it. After lunch, we went up to the deck and got fitted for our snorkeling gear and our wetsuits. When we were all ready, we got onto the zodiac boat in our bathing suits and wetsuits. We got off at a beautiful beach. After we put sunscreen on and put our snorkel masks on we headed into the water, very slowly. Let's just say we faked it till we made it. We got about knee deep in the water and stayed there for awhile. We started going out further and we saw a lot of tropical fish. They were really pretty. Let's just say we were very grateful that we didn't do the deep water snorkel. Luckily, I had brought my underwater camera so I got to take a lot of pictures of the fish. A sea lion also swam right by me. They were all along the beach. After snorkeling we dried off and went on a hike around the island. I took almost 1,000 photos just on that hike. We saw sea lions, iguanas, crabs, mockingbirds, herons, these little yellow birds, sea turtles, doves, lizards, and many more. It was magnificent. Except for the iguanas. I have to say they are really ugly. They also spray water out of their nostrils to clear them up but it really just looks like they are trying to spit on you. After that, we went back to the boat and did some more sleeping, eating, and showering. We had our briefing about the next day and then ate dinner. The food is really good on the boat. After dinner we went almost immediately to sleep.

Shayna´s Amazon Highlights

Hi everyone! It´s Shayna. I will be sharing some of my highlights from the Amazon. One of my favorite activities was the night walk. I already posted some pictures from that. We saw so many interesting bugs and animals. We saw maybe 15 different kinds of spiders, including tarantulas. That was pretty cool (and a little scary.)That picture of the frog was from that walk. I really couldn´t believe our native guide. He had amazing eyes. He could find things in the dark that I couldn´t find even if he pointed a laser right on it while our naturalist guide showed us exactly which plant it was on. Yes, that actually happened. Another part that I really enjoyed was the butterfly house. That was the english translation. I don´t remember what it was actually called. It was a very large enclosure with many, many different types of butterflies. They also had cacoons and caterpillars. One butterfly even landed on Rebecca´s hat! We went there twice. The second time, one of the people that took care of the house showed us a butterfly called the owl eyed butterfly. It was incredile. If you caught it and covered the top part of the butterfly, it looked like and owl head. If you covered the bottom part, it looked like a snake head. It was an amazing adaptation. The next part that I will write about was definitely a highlight. I wouldn´t say it was fun though. Rebecca already talked about the wooden tower. The afternoon activity that day was the metal towers. Yes you read that right. There wasn´t just one tower, there were three. They were connected by two very long flexi bridges. It was called the canopy walkway. The lodge built three metal towers in the canopy connected by two rope type bridges. The bridges were only connected to the ground by ropes and they shook a little bit as we walked. They were over 130 feet in the air. I have some pictures that I will post later.Once we crossed both bridges, (AAAHHH) we did some birdwatching from tower #3. We saw some amazing birds including toucans. When we finsihed birdwatching, we learned that we had to turn around and walk back across the two bridges (AAAHHHH again) That time was a lot more scary. I´m not sure why. Probably because the bridges were shaking a little bit more. That was quite an experience! Also I forgot to add that our guide, Daniel told us that the guides often go up to the tower to make calls. I thought that he meant bird calls but then realized that these towers were the only places with cell reception. I find that a lot of work just to make a phone call. More pictures to come! Until next post, Shayna