Is it wrong?

I'm sitting here at my school desk, breathing a sigh of relief and smiling...no, grinning...no, actually, I'm beaming. Why? I just said goodbye to my students for our two month summer vacation. I love my students. I really and truly love each one of them. And yet...I'm beaming. Is that wrong?

By the way

Click here for our Macchu Pichu photos

It seems I have forgotten to mention a small detail here on our blog....we went to Machu Picchu!

Traveling into the Sacred Valley feels like stepping back in time. Sadly, Peru is an incredibly poor country. As a result, many of the people who live there (paricularly those in the Sacred Valley) live in small huts and farm the land the same way their ancestors have for generations. We saw field after field where oxen, attached by a yoke, were plowing the dirt with an old metal blade. Farmers hacked at the sun-baked soil with ancient tools. It was an incredible,but heart breaking sight.

During our time in the Valley, we visited local markets, spent days hiking through incredible ruins, we squished ourselves into one of the most crowded micros ever, and we ate the big, fat Peruvian corn (seved with a slab of cheese) any chance we had.

It was an amazing experience. The fact that we also got to see Machu Picchu itself was just the icing on the cake. It was such an incredible feeling to be walking through these ruins and thinking what life must have been like for the Incas living there.