lets play catch up!

First of all, I feel like I should apologize for my lack of blogging!  But here I am and I'm going to try and fill ya'll in, at least a little.
The last time I blogged I was sitting in this same spot, but a lot has happened since then.
Macchu Picchu was an awesome experience.  We hiked up to the ruins from Aguas Calientes (If you ever come to Macchu Picchu, I reccomend doing this but staying the night in AC to get up there before sunrise).  We were quite exhausted after the two hours of stairs, but um, our sitting spot was pretttttty awesome once we got up there.  We took it slow through the ruins, and I realized that I preferred to just watch from afar.  I'm not super savvy on the architecture but looking at the ancient city in the context of it's surroundings, it's enough to just blow your top.  By the end of the day, Leslie and I were seriously tired and I tried my hardest not to freak out about the bug bite on my arm that swelled like a centimeter high in a golf ball sized diameter...
Apparently I'm allergic.  I found this out from Roberto, our WWOOFing host a few days later.  The way to the farm was literally the worst day of travel in my whole entire life.  We were shoved in the back seat of a colectivo minivan (a minivan with three rows of seats, no AC, no legroom, filled with as many people as possible) with four to the three person seat.  The woman next to me brought her son with her who was at least 8 years old and needed his own seat.. I tried to do something about it but no one made her move.  Anyway, this was supposed to be a 4 to 5 hour drive, but ended up being 7 hours because we were caught stuck with construction.  The clincher is, I got out at the bathroom stop in the jungle, and after about two minutes I looked down at my legs and my calves were in a SWARM of the tiniest little flies.. And I jumped back into the crammed seat to assess about 40 bites on my legs.  These proceeded to swell and itch, and so for the time we were stuck still, I couldn't even get out for air.  Gawd.
Anyway, after a scary night drive down a dusty road filled with more people including a man who was yell-babbling about politics in Spanish and trying to touch my hair from the seat behind me, (seriously felt like hell, there was even a ring of fire from a burning field on the way) we were dropped off on the side of the road by a banner marking our farm Sachahuares.  We hiked up the hill in the dark, cicadas screamin, by the light of my cellphone, bug bitten, dusty and exhausted and found the cocina, where we were greeted by Roberto and three volunteers.  They begain peeling potatoes for our dinner, and Roberto proceeded to blend us up some papaya juice as we met the others.  Lea et Louis, an invaluable to us French couple had been there for three weeks, and Anne, our lifesaving translator and soon to be great German friend introduced themselves and we sat a little stunned at the whole day and situation.  I think they understood where we were at at that point.  That night, we slept DAMN good even on the wooden slat minimally cushioned cabana beds. 
OK, no more bad vibe stories.  Being at the farm was a great experience for us, even though it was not neccesarily an easy one.  We spent a lot of time being  dirty and hangin' in hammocks as well as being hot and sweaty, bug bitten and falling down hills doing some seriously tough work.  I have mad respect for that family and their farm.  After a lot of thought, we decided to go back to Ollantaytambo after five days when Anne left.  I will never forget that farm, I really loved a lot of aspects of being there.  Learning to cook over a fire, doing dishes, showering, going to the bathroom outside.. it actually felt great for that while.  It's not why we left.  It was a hard decision to leave, but in the end, I think that we took a lot away from the experience and learned a lot about ourselves in those days. 
Also, the last five days here in the Sacred Valley have been amazing.  We've taken a few day trips, including one of the sweeeetest hikes of my life from Tabamba to the Salt Pans in Salinas to Maras to see the terraces at Moray.  Gosh.  I think Leslie wrote about it a bit in her last post.  About meeting Julia and Dolores in the colectivo and deciding to hike with them.  Suuuch a good last minute decision.  The energy of that thundering storm rolling in through the valley as we hiked in the sun flanked by giant agave plants was surreal.  I couldn't keep myself from oohing and ahhing every time the thunder rolled.  And seriously, that thunder rolled.  I'd never heard thunder quite like it.  And the church's bells rang as we crested the windy hill into Maras.  I'm not making this up.  It was a surreal day.  As we drove through the town, strings of small colorful flags waved between the buildings above us. 

And today?  The sweetest experience with Incan ruins yet.  We had heard around the hostel about a place called Pumamarca outside of town and decided to take up the challenge of the three hour hike one way.  They said a lot of people get a taxi up, but if you haven't figured it out yet, we like to work for our ruins.  Before we headed up, we got a few directions and set on our way.  After a little bit of extra uphill wrong turn work, we found the path and wound our way up the side of the valley.  The mountains here are just craaazy.  They jut up out of nowhere!  Such tall cliffs and such flat valleys between.  They're some LOTR grade epic views.  Our eyes just couldn't comprehend them, I just found myself squinting to try and comprehend it. 
After about three hours and being chased by some meaaaaan dogs, we came upon the bottom of the ruins.  Horses, cattle and donkeys grazed on ancient overgrown terraces, mustard yellow.  Walking up the cown paths through the terraces led up to a ancient walled community.  No one else was there, I think we saw one backpacker who was leaving while we were coming.  We had the whole place to ourselves, save some cattle we shared the space with.  It was super quiet and seriously breathtaking.  We were told that this place is thought to be a center of meditation for pre Incan and Incan warriors, which gave me a lot to think about.  Some really good, constructive thinking happened on a boulder atop that hill.  Leslie and I found eachother after about an hour and shared some Jeanne Becker granola (YUM) banana and avocado and reveled in the quietness and epicness of the site.  Man.  It was great.
Anywho, now we are back in casa de wow, we leave the Sacred Valley tomorrow morning.  To cuzco for some revisiting of old favorites (juanitos sandwiches, pantastico chocolate banana bread yesss) before we catch our 21 hour bus ride to Lima. 
Thanks for sticking with this post as long as you have.  I'm not gonna go back and edit it.  Now go get a pumpkin spice latte in my absence.
Love,
Emily