Leaving for Peru

The weather forecast for in around Cusco and the Sacred Valley is 68 degrees and rainy for the next 10 days. Meanwhile here in the Bitterroot, the sun shines on the newly budded Arrowleaf Balsamroots and spider-looking Bitterroot plants (both of which should bloom within the next month or so). Last summer I gathered the 7 or so seeds from each dried up Bitterroot flower I could find and scattered them on sandy patches of soil around the property and this year we have them coming up everywhere! Delightful. Also my five varieties of mint, along with the transplanted rhubarb all show signs of life. And the finally completed stone garden (see below) has a year's worth of dark brown pungeant compost on top, with bits of eggshells shining in the sun. I so want to get my hands in the soil, but the best I can do for now is scatter a 99-cent packet of spinach seeds on the happy looking earth. Perhaps we will come home to some fresh greens in a month, if we get a little rain here and there.

Off we go to Peru this evening, with a ridiculous FFlyer freebie (yay!) American Airlines itinerary, as usual: Missoula - Seattle - Chicago - Miami - Lima - Cusco - and a final 45-minute taxi ride to Pisac, in the Sacred Vally (to better acclimatize to the high altitudes). It takes about the same amount of time as it usually takes us to get to New Zealand when we deploy to Antarctica, with 2 "sleeps" on planes and in airports. At least we are almost in the same time zone and don't have to deal with jetlag.

May 1st we do the alternate Salkantay 5-day Trek up to Machu Picchu with a trekking outfit, a new experience for us. For the rest of the month we will be hiking around seeing the sights in the Sacred Valley, Cusco, and over to Lake Titicaca which borders Bolivia. I have been reading The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende in its original Spanish version to reawaken my sleepy espanol. I will be blogging as wifi allows, thumb-texting little stories of our inevitable misadventures on my old iphone and of course, posting lots of pics of food.

I need to build the other one when I get home from Peru. Come on little espinacas! (Spinach in Spanish)