I can honestly say that South America is one of the most amazing places that I have ever seen and there is so much history, culture and beauty that it is sometimes breathtaking. In the past I have been able to visit many of these places but my children have not, and since they are now getting older, we are trying to build great memories with them, and allow them to see many of these amazing places. One of those places is Cusco, Peru and Machu Picchu, which is known as one a the seven wonders of the world. The whole trip was an adventure and something I know our family will never forget. We flew from here to the city of La Paz but then traveled by land for four hours across the border to Juliaca Peru, where we were able to fly to Cusco. The flight was only forty minutes long but it would have been seven hours by land. In Cusco we met up with some good friends of ours, the Holt family that are missionaries in Chile, who were able to go on the trip with us. The following day we had to leave at 4:00 am to travel two hours to the train station and then take a train close to two hours to Machu Picchu. We were able to spend most of the morning hiking and seeing the Inca ruins at Machu Picchu. It was truly amazing to see how advanced of a civilization they were but also sad to see that their lives revolved around the worship of the earth, sun and moon. The following day we were able to take a horseback tour of some of the ruins that are around the city of Cusco itself and were supposed to catch our flight that afternoon back to Juliaca. Well unfortunately there was an extreme delay at the airport and we missed our flight. There was no way to catch another flight, and waiting til the next day we would have missed our reservation in Puno Peru to stay on the floating islands. So we grabbed a taxi and payed extra to travel the almost seven hours back to Puno and made it in at around 9:30 pm that night. Thankfully we were able to make it to spend the night on the floating islands there that are called Urus. A 
man was waiting for us beside the lake and in the pitch black took us by boat out to the island where we were going to be staying. It was an amazing experience seeing how the people there make their livelihood living on these floating islands. The beds were nice where we slept but the little rooms were made of reed plants that grow in lake Titi Caca. It was so cold that they gave us extra blankets and then a two liter bottle of hot water to sleep with to keep us warm. The next day they explained how the islands that they live on are made and how they make their living by fishing and tourism. We had a wonderful time visiting all of these places but it was eye opening to see how many of these people are stuck in their tradition and in great need of the gospel.