Sunday, July 27, 2008

Sea Fair 5K

Mike G., my sister and I ran the Torch Light 5K. It was my sister's first 5K and she did an amazing job coming in at 31:43. Mike had a goal of under 22 minutes which he smashed with a time of 20:49. I was right on his heels with a time of 20:51. Mike and I came in 2nd and 3rd in our age group. It was definitely a lot of fun and we all did an awesome job.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Peru

Mike, Marilyn and I spent two weeks traveling across Peru which was my first time in South America. It was one of my best vacations yet. We flew into Lima and spent two nights there and then slept on a bus throughout the night to head into Nasca. Here we met an awesome guy named Jorge who was our tour guide. We went to see the Nasca lines and also got a tour of a pottery shop. I think Jorge enjoyed our company because he even went to a Karaoke bar with us that night. We then got on a bus and went to Arequipa where we went to Colca Canyon and also did a little dancing at a restaurant. Arequipa was a fun place and was incredibly clean. Mike and I went out exploring the town at night and came upon a street comedian that had about 50 people listening. The comedian used us as part of his show (probably a good thing we couldn't understand). Once again we got on a bus and then headed to Puno where we visited the floating islands of Lake Titicaca. Every island has a president and the first island that we came to had a 17 yr old president who was married and had a child. He was obviously much more mature than I and ended up taking us on a taxi boat to the next island. Puno was nice but it was sure nice to take our last bus ride into Cusco where we spent the remaining portion of our vacation. We had some great experiences here including the celebration called Inti Raymi, going to villages to hand out bread to the children, eating Llama and hiking around Machu Pichu. On our flight home we had a short layover in Mexico so we jumped in a taxi and went to see Teotihuacan, a city with many ruins. The vacation was incredible and opened my eyes a little more to the rest of the world around me. Here are 3 links to most of the pictures taken in Peru.
http://picasaweb.google.com/adamwlarson/Peru
http://picasaweb.google.com/adamwlarson/Peru2
http://picasaweb.google.com/adamwlarson/Peru3