Daddy's visit!

About 3 weeks before Christmas, I invited Daddy to come out to Peru... amazingly at such short notice, he did - and we had a wonderful time!

Showing him round Abancay.

We walked down to the colonial bridge at Pachachaca and had a picnic further down the gorge

Again we walked... this time up the hill to the viewpoint where there are also condors and alpacas

I introduced Daddy to perhaps the most famous food in Peru - guinea pig!  His response "well I probably won't have that again".

We also visited AIDIA where Daddy enjoyed playing swingball with the director - they were fairly evenly matched!

 Christmas Eve - hot chocolate and paneton at church

 ... and traditional dancing in the main square.

We had Christmas dinner together with the other missionaries

And on Boxing Day, we drove with 3 others to Pampallacta, to give out hot chocolate and paneton and Christmas presents - it was such a lovely visit, Dina and I have really missed our trips here over the past couple of years.  The children were particularly intrigued by Daddy's penknife and its usefulness in opening tins!

Visiting Inca ruins on the way to Cusco

And climbing a hill to look down the vast Apurímac gorge - deeper than the Grand Canyon!

The loooong bus journey to Arequipa (12 hours)

Daddy managed to scrape together enough Spanish to buy fried cheese at one of the bus stops.

 And in Arequipa, just before he caught the plane home, we went rafting

It was so lovely to have a family visit.  And his most memorable remark - "it's very different from the photos".  Sorry, there's not much I can do about that!