Fantastic road through the mountains to the Chavin Ruins

We had made a plan to (once again) do a group tour through the people at Peruvian Mountain Adventures.

It's not our normal travel style to do group tours. And in fact, if we were to do this particular one again, we would probably chose to do it on our own. Only for the simple fact that we would have loved to stay in the area for longer!

A rare evening out...

Yesterday was a rest day. We didn't leave the apartment until after lunch when we made our way down to the central area to pick up some more supplies.

There is a small archaeological museum at the central plaza, so we paid the 5 soles ($2 CAD, $1.50 USD) entrance fee per person and went to see what there was to see.

Pastoruri Glacier Tour - Peru

We've pretty much figured that we are going to stay here in Huaraz for the balance of our Peru trip. There is simply too much to see and do in this area that we don't see the point of moving somewhere else just for the sake of moving. We love our accommodation, and the area itself is spectacular.

Take yesterday, for example. Once again we booked a day tour with Peruvian Mountain Adventures. The cost of group day tours is usually around 50 soles ($19.50 CAD, $15 USD) each and that is for the full day tour. We've learned that it wouldn't be much less to get to any of these places on your own, so the day tours make a lot of sense.

What do we do on a day off in Peru?

Here in Peru, a day off is when we don't do any hiking! It's important to take a break after some of the strenuous hiking we've been doing.

So after doing the Laguna 69 hike on Tuesday, we made Wednesday a day of rest.  Of course that doesn't mean we just sit around and watch television all day!

Five Things to Do When You Have Just a Couple of Days at Home

Does it seem like you are constantly travelling? Maybe you have a job that requires you to be on the road at all times, travelling outside the country and even continent. Then again, maybe you just really enjoy travelling and try to book trips as often as possible. While the travelling part may be fun, exciting, and busy, it doesn’t leave you much time at home. When you are at home, that means you need to scramble to fit everything in before you’re off on your next trip.

To help you manage your time a little better, here’s a look at the top five things to do when you have just a couple days at home.

Well, we did pretty good at 15,000 feet...

...for a couple of almost 58 year olds!

We had booked a day tour hike to Laguna 69. It's a fairly popular hike, but the trailhead is located in Huascarán National Park and it's a 3 hour ride to get there from the city of Huaraz. Normally, we would try to arrange our own transportation and do the hike on our own, but it makes more sense in these mountains to go with an experienced guide. Plus, the cost isn't much more than you would pay for transportation alone. In this case, we chose Peruvian Mountain Tours as our operator.

Downpour!

By the time you are reading this, we will be somewhere up in the Peruvian Andes. We are being picked up at 4:45am for a 3 hour bus ride to the trailhead for the Laguna 69 hike.

This is a popular hike that leads to a turquoise glacial lake located at 15,000 ft elevation. Are we ready for that? Not sure, but I guess we'll find out today!

Our first day hike in Peru

We are at the beginning of the rainy season here, but that doesn't mean that it rains all day long. In fact yesterday we woke up to sunshine and blue skies. Perfect for our first hike in Peru.

There is a pre-Incan ruins site about 6 kms (3.7 miles) from our residence. And it's an uphill climb of about 1,300 feet in that distance, so it would be good exercise and we would see how our bodies are adjusting to the altitude.

A little bit of excitement last night

We are at the beginning of the rainy season here at the base of Huascarán National Park. Prime hiking months are apparently June, July, and August when you get mostly clear blue skies. So while we do get some sunshine through the day, it is mostly cloudy and there is a good chance of a shower every day as well.

We are getting our bodies used to the fact that we are at 10,000 ft altitude. Most of the good hiking is upwards of 12,000 ft, so it is good to take a couple of days to get used to the thinner air.

We didn't expect this scenery

Most people who have never visited Peru have only a vision of Machu Picchu in their minds when they think of Peru. We were the same, of course, because we had never been here either.

So we were somewhat surprised to learn that the city of Lima and the surrounding area is all desert. That's one of the reasons there are very few trees in the city itself, and it's such a dusty dirty city.

Four dollars well spent!

One thing that we have learned about the city of Lima is that it takes forever to get anywhere. Traffic is horrendous, and while we've enjoyed our three days here, three days was enough for us. We probably could have done one more day in the downtown core, which would have been fine if we were actually staying in the downtown core. But we were not.

Most tourists who come to visit Lima stay in the "Miraflores" neighborhood. But Miraflores is an exclusive residential and upscale shopping neighborhood. It's not really our style, and it's certainly not what we came to Peru for.

A busy day in Lima, Peru

Yesterday, we made our way to "el centro"... the downtown historical section of Lima. We had originally planned on taking the local bus, but it's not an easy system to figure out and even with our hosts help it seemed confusing.

Plus, Lima is a big dirty city of 8 million people, and not all areas are what could be considered safe for tourists. In fact, our Uber driver told us that "Lima is full of bad people".

Beautiful photos of Peru

I know you are expecting us to show you beautiful photos of Peru. And hopefully we will live up to your expectations one of these days, but it won't be today!

Yesterday was our first full day in Lima. We are staying in a nice place with a very friendly local family who do not speak any English.

Arrived in Lima, Peru... country #38

Lindsey drove us to Ottawa airport at 11:30am yesterday. Lots of time for our 2:00pm flight to Montreal. We find that time passes quickly in airports, and it's always better to arrive at an airport early than late!

Sure enough, we were soon boarding our "puddle jumper" flight to Montreal.

We are off to Peru!

Yesterday, one of our readers asked about our trip cancellation insurance.

We have been using a TD Travel Visa that includes a variety of insurance provided you use that Visa card to book your trip. Now, we have a Scotiabank Passport Travel Visa and it includes the same suite of insurance products. Interestingly, in all of our years of travel, we have never had to use cancellation insurance, and this year we have had to use it twice!

Our trip to Ecuador is cancelled!

We've been closely watching the escalation of problems in Ecuador.

Ecuador does not have their own currency. They use the U.S. dollar. While this provides a level of currency stability, it creates other problems. When a country has its own currency, they simply print more of it. However in this situation, the Ecuador government was running out of money, so they went to the International Monetary Fund and took out a loan of $4.2 billion.

We head to the airport at 7:00am

We are back at our daughter's place. Busy household right now because our son came for a visit yesterday as well and ended up staying the night. Great to have the family together.

Gave back our rental car yesterday, so we are carless for the rest of our stay here. No plans, although Ruth is going to borrow Lindsey's car to go to her 40th anniversary high school reunion.

It was time for a change!

We've always been fans of Merrell brand hiking boots. We've probably owned more than five pairs each over the past 12 years or so. But the last pair we each bought did not seem to last as long as the previous pairs.

Especially the last pair that Ruth bought. They began falling apart less than three months after they were bought brand new! Sorry Merrell... that's not acceptable.

Problems in Ecuador

We don't ever talk about politics here unless it directly affects our travels. And in this situation, it might.

There is some civil unrest going on in Ecuador right now. Last week, the President removed the government oil subsidy and almost overnight the price of fuel doubled. So, people are upset... especially the transportation unions.

This has caused riots in the central Quito area and that in turn has caused the Government to move operations from Quito to the city of Guayaquil.

It's all about the choices you make

Not too many people comment on our blog anymore. Most of the comments are made on our facebook page because for most people it's a lot easier to comment there.

One of yesterday's comments mentioned how "fortunate" we are to be doing all the traveling that we do. And people in the past have said how "lucky" we are. But we do not consider ourselves either fortunate, or lucky.

We have not yet been around the world

When our dog Whiskey was with us, we were pretty much limited to traveling in our motorhome in North America. And we were quite happy with that at the time. But when she passed away in the fall of 2011, we knew that would give us the opportunity to do more international travel.

And we have totally taken advantage of that! While we still love RV travel, we can now do it in other countries. We have RV'd in Africa, Europe, and Australia. And we have also taken many "backpack" style trips.

Off to the hospital...

Busy day with the grandkids yesterday as we had to get them to their swimming lessons right after breakfast, and then after swimming Cameron has his karate lesson in the town of Kemptville, located about 60 kms (36 miles) south of Ottawa.

There's a short gap in between though, and they usually go to a nearby park and play for a half an hour before going to Cameron's karate.

One week to go!

We've been here in Ottawa area for 5 weeks now. Normally my limit would be 3 weeks, but we've been so busy that time has gone by quickly. Right now we're looking after the grandkids and Chester the dog, but Mom and Dad return home from New York City tomorrow.

This morning we have to take them to swimming lessons, and then Cameron has his karate lesson right after that. Then we are all going to visit my mom.

Ten years ago today...

Well, fall is definitely in the air today. With an overcast high of 10C (50F), it certainly feels like we have turned the corner. Fortunately, our time here is almost done and we will soon be at the equator!

We are at our daughter's house looking after the grandkids and Chester the dog. Of course the kids are in school all day, so we get to take Chester for some walks.

The cheapest way to do an official legal will

Getting lots done during our down time here. But, it's been busy! There's been something going on almost every day, and when there's nothing going on we are doing Ecuador research and planning for the Mexico RV trip this winter!

Life is never boring, that's for sure! We've also been looking after some personal things like changing our banking, credit card, and investing providers. Along that same line of thinking is updating our wills... something that hadn't been done since 1996!

September Expenses

Well, it was by no means a cheap month, but it did come in pretty much where we expected it to... so there were no real surprises. We always spend more money visiting "home" than we do when we're traveling!

We spent a total of $2,731 CAD ($2,060 USD) for the month.

Here are all the details...

More Ecuador planning

Last day of September! And our Ecuador trip starts in less than two weeks, so I figured I had better get some more planning done.

We are only there for three weeks... not very long in Kevin and Ruth time. And out of our 21 days there, we are a full week in Quito and 8 days in Galapagos, so that only leaves 6 days to see the rest of the country!

Weekend away, day 2

Well, we must be getting older and wiser. It seemed like nobody woke up with a sore head from excessive consumption!

But, we did wake up to rainy skies and it stayed that way until well after lunch. So it was an inside morning.

Away for the weekend

Yesterday, I kissed Ruth goodbye at around noon, and arrived at the "cottage" at around 2:00pm. I took all the back roads and the route was 141 kms (87 miles). One section was pretty curvy, but there has hardly any traffic the whole drive.

No problem finding the place.

Booked for Galapagos!

Yesterday, I finally received my ScotiaBank Passport Visa card with its 0% foreign exchange fee and six free airport lounge passes. For a traveler who is based in Canada, this is by far the best credit card available.

And that essentially completes our transition from TD Bank to ScotiaBank. The bank and investment accounts are all switched over, and direct debit and deposits are changed as well. Glad that's all done!

Home renovations in Ottawa

We are pretty proud of our daughter Lindsey and her husband Justin. They are finally going out on their own in the business world and he is going to work for himself. It's a big step to give up a regular steady income when you've got a mortgage and bills and a young family to support. I remember doing that myself when I was at that stage in life. It's very exciting, but you're a little nervous at the same time!

He's going into partnership with a good friend of his (also named Kevin!) who he has been working with for the past several years at a major Ottawa construction company.

Road trip!

Monday after lunch, we headed out on a road trip. It was about a two hour drive from here to the little town of Ingleside on the St. Lawrence River across from New York State.

We had been invited to visit our friends Bob and Denise and their dog Scarlet! You might remember them from last year's Mexico RV Caravan trip.

If you are not enjoying yourself, then what's the point?

When Ruth and I were out on our 5 km (3 mile) powerwalk this morning, we were discussing the things that people do with the hope of extending their life. Many of these things are related to doctor's visits where they are trying to fix a problem that could have been avoided in the first place.

That's exactly why we exercise and keep active.

A great day to go see the RCMP Musical Ride!

A few weeks back, daughter Lindsey asked if we wanted to join them at the Ottawa Fall Horse Festival where the headline act was to be the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Musical Ride.

If you've never seen the RCMP Musical Ride, it's quite the special show. Ruth and I have probably seen it two or three times before in our lives, but it's been a long time. Plus, it sounded like a fun way to spend some time with our daughter and her family.

You deserve to know why we are changing banks

I mentioned earlier this week that we began the transition to a different bank here in Canada. We have been with TD Bank for over 30 years, but their fees were no longer the best deal for our lifestyle.

During this transition though, I became frustrated with the fact that I had to do this at all. It's a pain in the butt changing banks. But my math said that we would save around $700 a year... so it's worth it!

No, we won't be doing any Galapagos cruises!

I spent far too much time yesterday on the internet doing Galapagos research. I read a lot of blog posts from people who have been there, and I researched prices and activities.

Many people say that you must do a Galapagos cruise in order to properly experience the islands. I don't think this is necessarily true. Plus, Galapagos cruises are ridiculously expensive.

Well, it looks like we are going to Galapagos Islands!

When we booked our trip to Ecuador in July, the idea was to visit a relatively inexpensive country for a change. And, we did get a great deal on the airfare, at $535 CAD ($410 USD) each, round trip from Ottawa.

I mentioned at the time that we were thinking of taking an intensive Spanish course while there, but we've decided against that. It would simply take up too much time that could be better spent exploring!

Yeehaw, our camera is back!

On September 9th, we approved the quoted $345 CAD ($260 USD) cost to repair our damaged Nikon P900 camera at the Nikon Service Center in Toronto.

They have an online portal where you can check the status of the repair. I had been checking it regularly, and under "Status" it still said "Shop". Last Friday, the status was changed to "Approved".