Yesterday, I went to Cuzco with Dad, Sarah, and Santusa. We had a nice lunch. Sarah and I each ate a pizza, and dad, santusa, and another guy had fish.  After that we walked around a bit, had ice cream, and we drove home. While we were away, Antoinette went into limatombo with Rose, Lucas, Daniella, Isaac, Marina and Wesley. She also ate pizza and had ice cream. Today was much more fun and exiting. We hiked back up to the lake, this time with Bridget and Santusa, and, after lunch, Antoinette and I hiked all the way up to the snow, where Dad already was because he got his PB&J first . Though it was not very good snow for playing in, it was very nice to slide down on. So thats what we did. Afterwards we hiked back down the mountain and drove home. Santusa brought back a water bottle of snow because it was her first time to see snow up close. We had lots of fun, and I think that Netty and Dad are already fast asleep. Today was Wesley's birth day and a girl in house five is having a party, which is nice, but right now, it looks like we probably won't make it to Machu Pichu. 

                                                                                                                       M&A

It is Tuesday, and Antoinette and I have just come back to our house. On Sunday we had another Clinic in Limatombo, the closest town to us. On our way to church\Limatombo, we picked up tons of hitchhikers. We picked up a lady with two little boys, who sat in the bed of the truck, a couple who hopped in the car and sat in the back seat with netty and me, another lady with her son, two men, and a farmer lady who had two large blanket thingys full of vegetables etc. After picking up the farmer we had  no  more room. We dropped off the lady with the little boys, and a guy  at church, and everyone else by the sunday market. Dad helped the farmer carry her goods to her spot. Santusa did her shopping, and we left. Dad later admitted that he was hoping that the church was running on Peruvian Time (which it was) because if it hadn't, we would have been late. Dad spoke in church. After church was over we had the clinic. Pastor Heimy's family fixed us lunch. While we were eating, everyone waiting to see Doctor Steve, do a far sighted test, get reading and or regular glasses, or get their eyes dilated, waited patiently until we opened the clinic again. After the clinic was over, Dad, Rose, Isaac, Mary, and a girl from Casa del Aguila, Netty, and myself went in to limatombo to get some things. After getting out of the car, we all step over the drainage ditch (which had a stone\ concrete wall on one side, the side closest to the side walk, and a rocky dirt wall on the other. It was about three feet deep, more or less) and some one from our group said that they would not want to fall in. Netty left her door opened which was right next to the sidewalk, so I decided to close it. I push the door and it doesn't latch. So I open the door and close it too hard, lose my balance, and fall into the trench. I ended up hitting my head (only slightly) getting a bruise on my right knee & elbow, and I think I did something to a couple of the ribs on my right side. All and all, not a bad day. Yesterday we started spanish lessons, and stayed inside all most all day long while dad got to go to Moyapatah with the clinic group. Today we had breakfast, went on a hike, had lunch, went to spanish class, ate sugar cane which was provided by a girl named Yessica, played with some kids and had dinner.

1. It is 9:16 on a Monday and we are in the orphanage/farm in Peru. I am very sorry that I haven't been blogging but we have been busy doing laundry, killing spiders helping, the medical/eye group Etc. Etc.We arrived here late Wednesday to hear that all of the houses are infested with brown recluse(here brown recluse are house spiders) as well as the occasional tarantula and black widow. When we arrived the beds weren't made of course so we had to make them our selves, when making my bed I found three live spiders and two dead ones just on the mattress. later we found some spider killer and my dad sprayed almost the whole room, but it stunk soooooo bad that we had to leave the house plus it was time for dinner. When we came back it still smelled, but not half as bad.We woke the next morning and went to breakfast  (which turned out to be more like a feast) and had oatmeal, homemade toast with butter, jelly, and honey, fresh fruit, current, strawberry, mango, peach, and pineapple flavored yogurt, eggs, and fresh juice made all by Santusa, who cooks and does the laundry. Later, around lunch time, the medical group arrived, after introducing ourselves we ate lunch and me, Madeleine, and our dad went down to the river, after that we went back to the house and gathered all of our dirty clothes and brought them down to Santusa. At dinner, we found out that almost everyone in the medical group was in their church choir and that they could reealy sing. (we sang the Doxology) That was Thursday. Friday was the first Clinic. We held it right by the school. I sat in the sun, talked with Chance, Taylor, Lisa, Isaac (every one calls him Oso) (which means bear in Spanish) Jean, the doctor guy, and sang with Barbra. Madeleine work at the registration with Oso. Oso would ask the people what was wrong and then tell my sister what they said. She would write it down under medical or eye. On Saturday, We went on a hike to see snow. Sarah went because she thought that Dad could drive her to the snow. (She was sick and very weak) But she was determined to hike with us. The first part of the hike was soooo hard. Sarah and Madeleine were almost always ahead of me and Barbra, but they weren't as fast as Daddy, Pastor Whammy, Oso, the pastor's son, and Wesley. Wesley carried Sarah's backpack, which had a  hammock, a blow up pillow, Dice, a notebook, and her medicine. We hiked forever until we got to have a finally reasonable break for lunch. We had dried fruit, (It tasted gross) and beef jerky. (yummy) it was soo nice out. Where we had our lunch break there was this sooouper pretty lake, that was the most beautiful color blue,  (kinda like in those postcards in Hawaii.) Looking at it made me feel hungry for pesto salmon. We had soo much fun. after that we went up this really steep hill that was almost a cliff. Almost every one wanted to go to where there was lots of snow but pastor whammy was a stick in the mud snow. Sarah looked better every minute. Even though she wasn't sure she was going to make it all the way to the  snow. (we did see snow, but it was more like snow cone shaved ice.) After that we walked back down the mountain and I almost cried because i was so mad because i didn't get to play in allot of snow. I am still MAD. We sang almost the whole drive home. We also sang allot at dinner. On our way back to Casa del Aguila, we stopped in Moyapatah

Yesterday was a Sunday so almost every thing was closed and there weren't any good tours to go on so  our dad decided that we should go to a beach . We asked the lady at the front desk were we should go , We ended up going to a very nice beach but the waves were to rough to actually swim so we walked down the beach to find a large bay with very calm water, me and my sister were standing in the water when daddy pointed out a shark in the water. The group next to us jumped out of the water. (after the shark left) we rented a kayak and paddled out into the water , when we were about 400 yards out when we saw the first  giant sea turtle in the water . once we started to get out into the bigger waves Madeleine started to freak out ,we finally let her get her way and went back towards the beach , about halfway there we went in a inlet which was supposed to have white tip sharks but luckily it didn't . After that we went back to the hotel to take showers and go to bed.

We are at our hotel on the island Santa Cruz and it is 8 p.m. Antoinette and I arrived at the Galapagos Islands yesterday. The airport was Very small. After getting on a bus that took us to a small ferry that took us to Santa Cruz. We took a taxi into town, and our taxi driver, Alfonzo gave us a mini tour on the way there. He stopped to show us lava craters that were huge, and then he took us to go see the giant tortoises. There were some big enough to ride on, but we could only look at them.  It was still really cool though. Antoinette, Dad, and I also ate fresh passion fruit. Antoinette did not like the taste of it. She thought it was too sour. I liked it though. After that we went to see lava tunnels. They were also huge. Then we drove into town and found a hotel. (dad hadn't made any reservation) It had a swimming pool and a hot tub, so we had to go swimming. (The pool was right next to the sea so there was sand in the pool.) After having a swim we went back to our room, we showered and went to bed. We had to go to bed early because daddy arranged a for a tour, and we had to be at the docks by seven to go to another island called Isabella. Daddy's watch was an hour early so he woke us up at five instead of six, but it was worth it. The hotel has two building. One side has the pool, the other (the one we are staying in) has more rooms. The breakfast room just so happened to be on the side with the pool. So as we rush across the street, open the door, and start going down the stairs I almost step on a large sea lion that was sleeping on the mat at the bottom of the stairs. He was very large and was unhappy because he had been enjoying his sleep. We took pictures with him and then walked into the dining room. We were surprised to see no food out, and thus discovered  we were an hour early, and we then returned to our room and fell asleep for another hour.  The tour was lots of fun.  Thankfully none of us got sea sick, but a couple other people who were on our boat did. The boat ride took around two hours. A guide took our group (meaning everyone on the boat) to see wild flamingos and a tortoise center where we saw baby tortoises being raised in captivity until they were big enough to be released into the wild. Then we went to the beach for twenty minutes while the tour bus refueled. We then ate lunch, which consisted of the following : crab soup, a leg of chicken with rice, fried bananas and some sort of vegetable dish. For dessert, we had sliced bananas with this white, creamy stuff on top that tasted like whipped cream and butter. After that we went to get on a little guide/tour boat. When we got to the docks sea lions were napping everywhere. Even on a boat. They did not mind us being near them, but they did not like to be touched. We had to take two of the tour boats. There were about eight people on each boat. They took us to see penguins, black iguanas, white tipped sharks and more sea lions. We went snorkeling after that. Netty and I swam with a sea lion. I saw some really cool fish. The water was a little chilly but it felt nice after being in the hot sun. No one got sick on the way back to Santa Cruz, and we are going to go to dinner soon. We will try to put photos on the blog.
                                                                                              M&A

We are Madeleine (age12) and  Antoinette (age 10) and this is our blog about our adventures and experiences at home and abroad. It is 10:45 and daddy just finished cleaning up after a fourth of July party. Tomorrow, we are for Quito Ecuador, and the Galapagos Islands.
     
                                                                                                           M&A