My stepson and his girlfriend are visiting for the holidays and entertained us the other night with stories and photos from their recent trip to Peru.
At one point on their trip, they followed their guide, a woman about 48, along a steep mountain path in a remote mountain area over 12,000 feet above sea level. Peter decided to try to match the woman's pace.
Now let me interject a bit here about Peter. "Physically fit" doesn't even begin to describe this young man. He participates regularly in triathlons, and last year his bike broke during one of them. He carried the bike the remaining three miles of the race and still won it. He is a skier, swimmer, runner, and competitive bicyclist, and he takes his training very seriously.
He kept up with the Peruvian woman, he said, but he couldn't have pushed much harder. The woman was tough. Very tough.
As they followed her and her horse along the narrow path on the edge of a mountain in the middle of nowhere, suddenly they heard a ring.
The woman reached into a pocket and pulled out a cell phone. "Hola!" she said.
Peter and Melissa looked at each other and laughed. "Cell phones are officially everywhere," they said. "Everywhere."






