December 31, 2011 Wishing all a Happy New Year

Reverse warrior

 Here we are at our yoga studio...Free Spirit Peru with Al Toth. We went almost every day for the last two months and had a great time. We will miss you Al...your jokes but more than that...your kind personality and comfortable yoga teaching style.

Handstand

We had a great holiday week celebrating both holidays in Cusco, Peru. It is New Years Eve and we are getting ready for the big celebration tonight at the Plaza de Armas at midnight. As we are leaving Cusco tomorrow, this has been a bittersweet time....saying goodbye to some good friends. We are excited for the next adventure, but it is always hard to say goodbye to people that we know we will not see for a long time. We do hope to come back to Cusco again, especially for these friendships.

Here are pictures with captions to explain the happenings this week from just before Christmas to today. I shall have to let you know about tonight's events in a few days.

Finished these earrings for our friend Telma

Clothes for baby Jesus. The day before
Christmas there is a big festival in the center
of Cusco with items for Nativity scenes as
well as garments for Jesus. Tradition
has that one buys new clothes every year.

Our Christmas tree, llama, creche and gifts

Jean-Jacques prepares Christmas eve dinner

Christmas eve with friends at Centro Tinku.
We both spent the afternoon helping to
get ready for this delicious meal.

The Nativity at the Plaza de Armas

The tradition for New Years is to wear
 yellow underwear.We don't know why,
except for good luck

Our anniversary gifts...yellow underwear
for good luck.

 Yesterday, Dec. 30th was our 21st wedding anniversary. We celebrated by joining our friend Gaby with her family in the countryside - about one hour from Cusco. It was a beautiful day and once again, it was difficult saying goodbye to all but we will return.

A view from the mountain top in the countryside

collecting flowers on the hike

watching the rain coming in from the top
of the mountain

Here we are just before the rain came.
We hurried down the mountain.

Tonight we will head to the Plaza de Armas at 11pm. We know that at midnight there will be fireworks but also the tradition for those who hope for good luck and travel in the year 2012...to run around the Plaza 12 times for this luck to happen. We shall surely walk, if not run to insure our luck in travel. Also, as the tradition is in Mexico...each person eats 12 grapes - for good luck each month in the coming year. I have our grapes ready too. We are not sure what other festivities will happen but we will find out tonight. (We will be wearing our yellow underpants). Yellow is the big theme here...people have yellow flowers everywhere and also put yellow confetti around their houses. We saw big yellow eyeglasses and yellow flower necklaces all over town today also. This afternoon we did a few things that we had missed these last 2 months - the Coca museum and the church in San Blas that has an incredible wood carved alter. The Coca museum explains all the uses of coca which is many - both medicinal as well as illegal drug use. It was really interesting to learn about. Richard has been drinking coca tea here every day as most do. (I did not care for the taste). We would have loved to bring some home but are afraid as though it is not illegal, nor a drug....it probably would be frowned upon in Mexico or the US at the borders! 

This has been an incredible 4 months and as you all have followed...we had interesting times with friends in all the places we have been - mostly local with some from foreign lands. We both learned much about the cultures of Ecuador and Peru, improved our Spanish, enjoyed our travel together and hope for more adventures to come.

Tomorrow we shall leave for Nasca and will fly over the Nasca lines on Monday afternoon. Then on to Lima and back to San Miguel on Thursday, January 5th. Thanks for traveling with us and our hopes to all for a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR with love from the both of us.