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Although the culture, architecture, geography, language, food, etc were very different from ours at home, we were instantly struck by how much we felt at home on our travels in Peru. I strongly suggest making friends with folks who live in Lima, if you are going there, because you will discover much more that way.

In Lima, check out a pena. You will have a great time, but be ready to dance.

If you go to Cuzco, you will be approached by folks trying to sell something. Be nice to them, because you may find them very funny after a few minutes, and you will not be as stressed out about it (we proved that ourselves). Besides, they will eventually leave you alone. If they don’t, just say “Maybe later.” That’s like a secret phrase there, and they will leave then.

Oh, and don’t eat the alpaca they sell on a stick on the street. It tastes wonderful, but you may spend the rest of your trip in bed. Stick to the restaurant alpaca, and eat the cornbread, corn, and warm cheese they sell on the street.

I got my little tattoo over my belly button in a time of great strife. It’s chikara, or strength, and many times I’ve looked at it and remembered that I have inner strength. I don’t want any more tattoos, but this one was significant and was very helpful to me.

We chose an adventurous, rather than romantic, honeymoon. It was a struggle to get around with very little ability to speak Thai, and it was hotter than heck and we tried to be respectful by covering arms, legs, and feet making us even hotter, and facilities were not as upscale, let’s say, than we’re used to, but it was the best experience of our lives! We trekked in the north, where it is in the 90s by day and freezing at night, and slept in a village there on a hard floor with a mosquito net (awesome!). We went shopping in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. We stayed on a beach on Koh Chang and saw wild elephants and the best preserved rainforest in SE Asia. We bathed (literally, with shampoo and everything) under a waterfall and got sun poisoning and hallucinated and ate spicy noodles for breakfast and drank coffee in 90 degree heat and bartered in the few words on Thai we were able to pick up and made friends and got scammed by a tuk-tuk driver and rode an elephant and took a ride on a bamboo raft and woke up from a nap outside to find our bodies covered in mosquitos and ate some of the best food we’ve ever had and slept in a private compartment on a train and were woken up by screaming monkeys outside our resort…

And we were only there for 11 days! It was 2 years ago, but we still talk about it almost every day. The country has a way of staying with you.