Here is the entire photo album -- 278 photos, for the adventurous. We've also got a 40-minute long video summary of the trip to upload later.

Labels: photos

Our last day in Peru was very long, often stressful, but also included some good experiences. We couldn't get a boat trip arranged -- Saturday was already booked -- so we decided to rent a car and play Che Guevara, riding up the Pan American Norte toward Barranca. We stored our bags at the airport, rented a car, and headed north.

Let me just say that driving in Lima certainly isn't as frightening as driving in Vietnam or India would've been; at least the alphabet is familiar, and I could usually make a pretty strong guess about what the signs said. It's just that the traffic patterns are nuts, people honk all the time, pedestrians cross at random times and places, and I was afraid I'd kill someone. It's fun to drive, it's extra fun to drive a stick shift, but driving in crazy crowded Lima traffic was very very stressful.

We finally left Lima behind and drove through kilometers of the most barren wasteland we've ever seen. High drifts and low mountains of sand, tan colored as far as we could see. The occasional small and unexpected town full of little shacks, in the middle of nothing, with not a single blade of green anything, anywhere. We stopped at a strange and beautiful nature reserve for a nice walk.


We never made it to Barranca; we stopped in a town called Huaracha for some lunch, and had what was probably our most authentic Peruvian experience. Although no one paid us any attention whatsoever, I doubt there are many tourists in Huaracha. It's a fishing village, and we found our way to the waterfront where there were several cevicherias. We picked the most open and friendly-looking one, and ordered some food. I thought I was ordering shrimp cebiche, and Marc ordered some kind of fish that was fried, that's about all we knew. His was really wonderful, he said, but mine was a plate full of crawdads, heads and long wiry antennae and all. If my stomach weren't so full of stress and acid from driving out of Lima, I might have been able to manage it a bit more, but seeing that plate piled high with mud bugs just pushed me over the edge and I was trying not to cry. Marc switched plates with me and said it was really good, too. We made a little video of the waterfront on our way out of town, if it's decent, I'll post it so I can remember.

We got back to Lima around 8:30, I think, very frightening driving in the dark with all the rest of the Lima stuff, plus intense smog. Pollution, fog, I don't know, but it was thick. Our plane left at 11:59 or thereabouts, so we had a long time to sit around the airport. At least it's a much nicer airport than the Delhi airport.

And now we're home. It's really great to be home. The trip was truly a dream, we're so happy that we went, so happy that we were together for this trip, and we have a lot of work to do finishing up the photos. I have one more post to make, but it may take a few days. For now, ciao ciao.

Labels: Lachay, Lima

It seemed to take days and days, but it was finally time to leave Aguas Calientes. You know how long the hours are, when there is not much to do. So we wandered back to our hotel through occasional little spits and spots of rain, almost unnoticeable, to pick up our backpacks.

And then, le deluge. The skies opened up and poured buckets and buckets of rain on us. We had our Goretex raincoats, which we wrapped around our shoulders and our backpacks full of gear (cameras, etc) and made a run for the train station on the other side of the river. By the time we got there, our pant legs were soaked, as were our feet, but the gear was dry. We settled in for the 4-hour train ride home.

So this is the funny thing about public transit in Peru: the entertainment. On the bus home from Nasca, cards were distributed for Bingo. The whole bus (except us, I think), played Bingo. It was funny. PeruRail does something wilder. On the ride back to Cusco, the attendants put on a fashion show. I had my eyes closed, but I heard the music.....runway style music. Marc said the attendants were doing the whole shtick -- the model facial expressions, the runway strut, the turns. When it was all over, they wheeled a trolley up and down the aisles selling traditional alpaca stuff, sweaters, hats, socks, etc. Before the fashion show, a guy came out in some kind of old traditional clothing with a white face mask covering his head, with red slits for the eye holes. It totally freaked me out, I did not like it at all.

Pulling into Cusco felt like coming home. I swear I think I could easily chuck it all and open a little shop in Cusco for the rest of my days. Marc and I went back to the restaurant run by those two girls and ordered three dishes, which were (as before) cooked individually, after running out for ingredients. Yum.

Yesterday we flew back to Lima, back to the hotel (and room) we left so long ago. It's an odd feeling; our vacation is really over, but it's not over yet. We have to kill time in Lima until our flight leaves just before midnight tomorrow night. We're trying to figure out how to spend all day Saturday after we check out of our hotel. Maybe a cruise around some nearby islands (called, like all the nearby islands, the little Galapagos), maybe rent a car and drive north, who knows.

I feel (and so does Marc, I think) ready to get home. This has been so remarkable, a truly unique and amazing trip. It's the first place we've been together that we both would come back to. I'm not at all eager to go back to work, but I think it's time to get home. Since I don't have a computer, and next week is Thanksgiving, it may take a couple of weeks before I get photos uploaded, but if you are interested, I'll post a note on my main blog when the photos are here.

As everyone here says, ciao ciao.

Labels: Aguas Calientes, Lima

It was so sunny and beautiful yesterday when we arrived in Aguas Calientes. We went straight to our hotel and couldn't check in for an hour or so, so we sat at a little cafe and got the ever-present limonade (made of whole limons, whirred in a blender with water and sugar, skins and all. It's incredibly refreshing and delicious). We decided to head up to the mountain around 2pm, when it is supposed to clear out, as organized tours leave to catch the 3:30 train to their next stop.

It was very confusing. We had to buy bus tickets in one place, and a ticket onto the site at another place. We got conflicting information about when the bus left for Machu Picchu, and when the last bus left to come back to town. The ticket to Machu Picchu was almost twice the amount we thought, which meant $80. OK, you only do this once. You don't come here, you don't come this far, to let the ticket price stop you. It was just surprising.

Our weary nerves and all the confusion frayed us and we had to reorient ourselves to each other again. We'd had very little sleep the night before, and had gotten up at 4:45am, so I think we were just a little bit cranky.

We barely caught a bus; Marc whistled and shouted just as one was pulling away, and we got on. There were just two seats, and not together, but who cares for the 25-minute trip up the mountain. Then the man sitting next to me smiled and got up to sit in the other empty seat so Marc and I could sit together. This is characteristic of the people we've encountered -- they're friendly and engaging.

The ride up the mountain was by turns breathtaking and a little scary, as the road seemed wide enough for one bus quite easily, but not so much for two buses. And of course there were nonstop buses coming back down the mountain, so we were often squeezing past each other. This wasn't so scary when we were on the inside lane, but when we were outside and seemingly hanging on the edge of the road, on the edge of a mountain, it was a little pulse-increasing. When we got near enough to start seeing the site, and the other site much higher on a facing mountain, it felt like my mind just stopped in awe. We were at Machu Picchu.




When we walked into the site, we stopped on a terrace and sat in the shade of the terrace above, to just look. I think we both could've just done that for hours. The clouds on the facing mountain tops were constantly shifting, as was the light. The whole site was much greener than we expected. And the site itself was much more amazing than we expected. You know how you think about these iconic places for decades, building them up a little, and then they're not quite as awesome as all that? Machu Picchu is not like that at all. It exceeded my imagination, by far.


The Temple of the Condor was really interesting -- on the floor of that space was a sculpted representation of the condor's head, and the wall behind the head had two enormous rock faces going upward as wings.


As amazing as the buildings and rooms and temples and terraces are -- and they really are -- for me, anyway, it was the vista that made it so breathtaking. Marc and I picked our way through the site, stopping everywhere just to look at the views.


There's this amazing massive rock that was carved to echo the mountaintops it faced. It is a near-perfect imitation. Those Incas were truly brilliant; one thing I meant to post earlier, from our Colca Valley trip, was that when they built a site, they first carved a stone model -- an exact model -- of their building site, so they could see how the water would flow downward, etc. Really brilliant.

It was sunny and a little cool, with a breeze that just kept the temperature perfect. The air was sweet and clear, the skies were blue but the mountaintops were shrouded in clouds, and it simply could not have been better, in any way. We soaked ourselves in it and stayed until the last buses were leaving. As we sat on a terrace, taking our final looks at the view, an enormous flock of green parrots took off from our right, wheeling and squawking as they flew past us. They were brilliant in the sun, and it seemed like some kind of dream.

And one final thing that happened, that you wouldn't believe unless you know and trust me: while we sat watching the mountains and clouds, a heart-shaped hole opened up in the clouds directly in front of us. It wasn't almost heart-shaped, or kind of heart-shaped. It was an exact, perfect heart:

I just don't have the words to describe this experience. Awesome, magnificent, amazing, incredible, breathtaking, puny little pale words.

Labels: Machu Picchu, video

OK, this is surreal. I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Aguas Calientes, Peru, looking out the enormous window at the Andes and a huge statue of an Incan, listening to house music.

The particular mountain I'm facing has these beautiful yellow-green plants hanging on the mountain's face, with dusky red leaves or maybe flowers, I can't tell from here. The sky is blue, and the tops of the mountains disappear into clouds. It boggles my weary little mind.

Yesterday morning we boarded the 6am train from Cusco to Aguas Calientes, which is the little village you spend the night in if you are seeing Machu Picchu. Leaving Cusco:

We took the Vista Dome train, which meant we not only saw the landscape through the windows at our sides, we could look up and see the mountains above our heads. It was magnificent. We thought the Vista Dome would be cool, but I don't think we could really appreciate what it would be like.

As with everything else on this trip, it was better than we hoped. We wound our way through the higher ground of the Cusco area, then dropped down into the valley that leads to Machu Picchu.

Peru Rail did this really cool thing, very smart as far as we can tell. You know how you go up a mountain by zig zagging, hairpin turns, so the incline isn't so steep? Well, the switchbacks in the Andes end in straight track, then the train backs up and goes to the next path. I can visualize it if I blur my mental eyes a little. We weren't even out of Cusco when we hit the first one, so when the train started going in reverse, Marc and I were a little nervous. But no one else seemed to notice, and then we figured it out.

So Cusco is kind of dusty, but when we dropped down into the valley, the landscape changed so dramatically. It kind of looked like Louisiana, lush and with what I think are cypress trees. The homes were no longer adobe, but really did look like houses you'd see in the rural areas of Louisiana. There were tropical plants and it just couldn't have looked more different.

There were these large areas of paradise, it seemed to me. Acres and acres (well, here it would be hectares and hectares) of farmed land, crops planted in neat rows. Cattle and sheep grazing. Little creeks and rivers flowing past beautiful adobe homes. And of course gorgeous mountains all around. Gorgeous Andean mountains, some with snow on the tops, some with clouds hovering around the tops, some just jagged rock. It was truly breathtaking.

Aguas Calientes exists solely for the purpose of housing and feeding tourists, and selling them crappy tchotchkes. The hotels would be considered backpacker hostels anywhere else; the nicest ones are still pretty sad. But you don't come here for the hotel, obviously. The food is kind of uniformly ok too, and totally geared to tourists. Pizza. Hamburguesas. Mexican food. The odd guinea pig here and there. Free drinks pushed on you everywhere: the ubiquitous pisco sours, hard liquor, beer.
Somehow 2,000 people live in this little town. It just consists of little alley-sized streets lined with people hawking their menus, little shops with too-bright serapes hanging out front and lots of little dolls and gourds and bags and t-shirts, and hotels and hostels. This internet cafe overlooks the town square, which is the most uninteresting square ever. There is a church, of course, and in the center of the square is this huge statue of an Incan with outstretched arms and holding some kind of staff. A couple of little patches of green, with benches. And surrounding the square, restaurants. Like everywhere else we've been in Peru, everything, nearly every building, is under construction. It's been quite notable, the frequency of homes and buildings with rebar sticking out of the roof, as if they're just adding it, or building another floor.

Our hotel was really pretty bad -- we didn't expect anything great, given what we'd read in our guidebooks and on various travel boards....and they were right. What we hadn't really expected was the rooster outside our window that started crowing at 3am. He crowed, and he crowed, and he crowed, for hours. The view out our bedroom window:

Labels: Aguas Calientes, video

The maid is cleaning our room, so time for a tiny post. This is a hilarious thing about our hotel. Yesterday afternoon, during the hot siesta time of day, Marc and I took a nap. He slept under the covers, so his feet were at the end of the bed. We went out in the evening for dinner and a long walk around the square before returning to our room for the night. I went through my suitcase to get ready for bed. After several minutes, Marc was really startled, and started saying "what's this in the bed..." and pulling back the sheets. It was a hot water bottle in a little fleece bag. We swear it wasn't there earlier in the day. It was kind of creepy......where did it come from??

So this morning when we were getting ready to leave for the morning, I went through my suitcase and lifted something I'd put there the night before and there was another hot water bottle in a little fleece bag!! I swear it hadn't been there the night before, and no one had been in the room except us. It was like they were breeding. We wonder if we'll find more today and tonight.

We just had a light lunch at this little bakery across the street from our hotel, called el Buen Pastor. We got a relatively large spinach thing in puff pastry, and a large peach turnover to split them with each other, and two orange Fantas. Price: ever so slightly more than $2. Taste: priceless.

Labels: food, hotels

This morning we found our way to the train station to buy our train tickets for tomorrow morning's trip to Machu Picchu, which leaves Cusco at 6am. Just as with everything else, it went perfectly, no glitches. It's really kind of remarkable, like we've wandered into some paradisaical Twilight Zone (with the exception of our techno problems, of course). On every trip there are things that go wrong, plans that go awry, places that are much worse than we expected, hotels that are bad, something goes wrong. Instead, on this trip -- so far -- nothing has gone awry. In fact, we were watching the weather and it always said that it would be raining the whole time we're in Cusco, but it's been nothing but perfectly sunny clear weather. Cloudy in the morning, then sunny blue by 10am. Weird and wonderful. And the flights have been uneventful, too. No real delays, easy flights, very nice airplanes. Since most flights are 30 minutes long, there is no service; we climb, level off, then begin our descent. Quick quick. Presto. This is what it looked like as we started our descent into Cusco -- incredible geography:


So this is the first time on our vacation that Marc and I have gone separate ways for a bit. He's gone to the bank in the main square, which is an easy 10-minute walk downhill but a less easy walk uphill coming back. The street is a very narrow alley, with sidewalks on either side that are wide enough for one person only. And in places, it even disappears. Buses and taxis come hurtling down that alley, so it's always an "exciting" experience. While he's gone down to the square, I'm in the lobby catching up a bit.

Let's see. Last night we ate dinner at this little tiny restaurant on a tiny street. The name was Relic, or something like that (note to self-look it up later). It was one small square room with a blue wall, a yellow wall, a black wall, and a huge video camera in the corner. And the tv was blaring, I mean really blaring Spanish tv, which means cacophanic. It was hot, they had strong incense burning, and we were the only people in the restaurant. Still, it was Sunday night and the big meal here is lunch, so finding a good place for dinner was a bit uncertain. Marc ordered stuffed trout, and I ordered a vegetable tortilla, which is like a frittata. There were two young women working there, so when we placed our order, one went in the back room and started chopping vegetables. The other went to the store to get the main ingredients. And like most every other restaurant in Peru, they brought our meals out separately -- often 10 or 15 minutes' difference. In this case it made sense, since the woman was cooking our dinners individually.

WELL. The dinner was out of this world. Marc is always wary about ordering fish in restaurants because it's usually overcooked, but even he was blown away. The flavors were so subtle, with such depth, and the fish was very fresh and cooked just perfectly. Even his rice, which is often kind of dry and an afterthought, was moist and lightly buttered. There was a shredded beet and carrot salad on the side. My tortilla was every bit as wonderful. A family of 3 came in after we ordered, so once we had our food the cook started on those meals. And, as before, the other woman ran out the front door to go buy the ingredients. They did this for every meal we observed. It may be the very best meal we've had so far.

Our hotel is incredible. Our bedroom opens onto a lovely terrace, and you walk up a flight of stairs into our bedroom. There's an elevated platform by the huge window overlooking the city, with a small table and chairs and a little fridge. So we lie in bed and watch the sun come up and go down over the mountains, and the city lights rise and fall. They're beautiful, too, yellow and blue.


Of course, once we've walked up the hill from the plaza, then up the stairs to our terrace, then up the stairs to our bedroom, we're hot and panting and have to lie down.



The hotel is this little boutique hotel that used to be someone's home, and it's up the hill from the main plaza, in the artisans' section of town called San Blas. It's been the artisan quarter for centuries, apparently. A block away from the hotel is the San Blas Plaza, surrounded by little alleyways of shops. I'd been thinking I wouldn't buy anything here, because they're so focused on the tourists that all we've seen are garish tchotchkes. Bright red and pink and sky blue serapes, even more garish prints of Machu Picchu, etc. But in this artisan's quarter the shops carry handmade beautiful things. Onyx and silver earrings, lovely scarves, handmade suede purses. Presents to come for our three girls.

Cusco: The Movie!


The Cusco square is like all the others -- named Plaza des Armes, and flanked by churches. Other buildings have balconies on the 2nd floor, overlooking the plaza, made for people watching and coffee drinking.

Labels: Cusco, food, video

We saw these guys when we landed at the airport in Juliaca but weren't ready with the camera. When we were leaving for Cusco, Marc was ready and shot this footage of a standard Peruvian pan pipe group. They were awesome:

Labels: Puno, video

There is more than one way to skin a cat -- see this link for a few photos of Lake Titicaca, Puno, and Cusco.

Labels: photos

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. As incredible as this vacation has been, we've suffered two pretty huge traumas: my laptop died a complete and total death, and last night, somehow, some awful, mysterious, terrible somehow, I deleted our entire days' photos of our trip on Lake Titicaca. When we got home, Marc was able to recover them, thankfully. This happened after dinner; I was trying to move the days' worth onto our external drive to save them, so I could also delete the camera card to give me enough room for more photos. They moved onto the other drive, I verified they were there, did it again, and then deleted them from the camera card. Then, so no other guests would pick through our photos, I emptied the recycle bin. When I went to open the file to look at the pictures, the folder and all the photos were not there. I sat there in stunned disbelief. They weren't on the drive, they weren't on the camera card, they just weren't anywhere. It made no sense and it made me sick.

Before that happened, yesterday was an incredible day sitting on top of the world. We went to the port around 7:30 yesterday morning to try to negotiate our way to a private tour. All we wanted was some guy to drive us out into the lake and let us visit two places, as long (actually, as briefly) as we wanted. We finally made an arrangement that felt ok. Our driver's name was Serrillo. It was a really big boat, it could hold 16 people, and only Marc and I (plus Serrillo) were on it.

We were headed first to Uros, the floating islands, and then farther out to Isla Taquille. The floating islands are just woven of reeds, and there's a whole collection of them.

In the pre-Incan times, the two groups were constantly at war with each other, so this group of people got the brilliant idea to go out into the lake and build themselves some islands so they could stay out of the warriors' way. See the islands, woven of packed straw that must constantly be replenished, since it rots from the bottom up:

As the boat was pulling out, we noticed with some slight discomfort the state of the boat's "motor". We noticed it because Serrillo had to keep adjusting all the jerry-rigging he'd done to keep it running. There was a screwdriver jammed in like a lever, some string holding other stuff together, a wet rag wrapped around something that had to hang outside, and mysteriously, a baseball cap covering something. Throughout the trip, he kept looking back at the engine with a worried expression.

So we made it to the first island. The islands were arranged in a kind of semi-circle and in the bay they formed were a dozen huge reed boats with big animal heads. Some were doubles, side by side. Island people in full traditional dress were driving them and of course they were all full of tourists.


So we pulled up to an island and suddenly we were swarmed by women and children helping us out of the boat. They were incredibly friendly, asking our names, telling us their names, making connections with us. I said my name and a chorus went up: "Lorena!" A short stout woman grabbed my hand and said (what a coincidence....) that her daughter's name is Lorena. They called to each other all around the small island, telling them that my name is Lorena. Julia, Lorena's mother, held my hand tightly and tugged me over to her array of things she makes -- little reed boats, woven things, jewelry, so much stuff I couldn't see it all. She kept touching me and grinning, and people from all over the island came over to grin at this new Lorena. She and I talked about our children, and since my Spanish is horrible at best, I struggled with listing my children and their ages and I wasn't always sure what she was saying. It was hard to get away, but I did buy a little reed boat for my desk, to keep paper clips. That's Julia, below, with Marc, and footage of her in the video below the photo. She was darling.


The video, which includes Julia:

Marc and I sat on a log to kind of watch everything, watching the show being put on for tourists (which of course included us), when another little stout woman named Victoria came and sat by me. She knew my name was Lorena and she held my arm so tightly as she talked to me. I kept saying "no espanol, solamente un poquito" (which is probably wrong, as far as I know) but she just kept chattering away. Then her husband Augusto came over and stood looking down at us; he was chattering away too, and I sat there grinning like an idiot.

Serrillo finally came and took us back to the boat, and a small boy, probably 8 years old got on, too. He'd been on the island, apparently, and Marc and I finally figured out that he must be Serrillo's son. (Neither of them spoke as much English as Marc and I speak Spanish.) So the son got on and we pulled out again. Serrillo had to make frequent trips back to the engine to keep it going, and his son would drive. Sometimes Serrillo took a long nap and his son would drive. At first this startled us, but the longer Serrillo slept and that little boy was driving, we started to find it hilarious. Eight years old, navigating a large, old boat with two rich tourists from New York across Lake Titicaca. He certainly has a different life than either of us has had. Sometimes Serrillo went on the upper deck of the boat to have lunch, he'd take a nap, he'd just want to sit in the back and watch the waves, so the boy did more driving than you'd imagine. It was truly a funny part of the already-funny journey.

Luckily, we were on the top of the world, boating across the highest navigable lake in the world. It felt high. The light was strange, and the air was thin and clear. We knew we had to wear sunblock, but unfortunately I didn't think about my head. So both Marc and I got sunburned scalps. But there we were, driving across Lake Titicaca. So incredibly surreal.

We finally made it Taquille, which is remote and isolated. The island has been populated for thousands of years, and the current people only marry others on the island. They allow tourists to come, but not to take photos. The only nod to tourists is the placement of a restaurant or two on the very top, near the village. So there we were, puttering across the lake, when I opened the Lonely Planet book to read a bit about the island. And here is what I read:

There are 500 steps to get to the top of the island.

Dang. I wish I'd read that before. 500 steps, I can't do that in Manhattan, much less at such an incredibly high altitude. But there we were, and we'd come that far, so what the hell.

The guidebook said it takes a breathless 20 minutes to climb to the top, so Marc and I figured 40 minutes for us and told Serrillo we'd be back in two hours. We started for the stairs, which were rocks and occasionally a small slab, zigzagging up the side of the mountain. Native people were going up them with huge packs strapped on their backs, and they were panting and had to stop frequently. This did not look good. So up we went. OH....yeah. Also, it was around noon. Very near the equator. Higher than the highest navigable lake in the world.

We started climbing and told each other we would stop as often as either of us wanted, which we did. It seemed ok until we were about 7/8 of the way up the mountain when suddenly I started feeling very VERY sick. Not just hot, not just out of breath, but sick. Oddly sick, not right, something's pretty wrong. We could see the top, but there was no way I'd make it. A few steps further was a huge stone arch with a flat place on the other side, and a lot of shade. So I forced my way to the shade and really thought I had sunstroke or something. It was bad. On the very tip-top was the village, but luckily we didn't feel it was our sole destination.

I felt a little bit bad about needing us to stop so long, but Marc reminded me that the journey was the point and who cares about going exactly to the very top -- stop and look. Where we were was where we were going. Look through the arch. And even though I felt like dying, when I looked through that arch and saw the vastness of Lake Titicaca, with the mountains on the rim, it was all OK, even though I was still sick. So we sat in cool shade, I drank a lot of water, and we just watched. Apparently we were very near the restaurant exit, because a lot of tourists went past us, but the good part was watching this small group of young children.

Three boys, one tiny girl, playing on rock walls at the top of this mountain. They had a wooden top with a string, and one boy would put it on the little girl's head to spin. She was eating candy and didn't seem to mind. One boy was knitting as he walked around, which has become such a common sight that it doesn't even seem striking any more. They wore the clothes of their group, which meant black pants and a white shirt with a short black vest for the boys (along with unusual caps), and the tiny girl wore several skirts, a sweater, and woolen knitted leggings, with sandals. They paid absolutely no attention to the tourists. They were really playful with each other, chattering away in whispers. They always whispered. I think one young boy was the brother of the little girl, and he was so tender with her it made me cry, once again. She was sitting on a rock ledge overlooking the lake, and he came over to her and touched his forehead to hers. They looked into each others' eyes for several minutes, turning their heads side to side a little but always touching foreheads. Later the group left, and as they went up a relatively high ledge (for little kids), the boy turned and gently helped his sister up. It was really touching, their tenderness.


When we had about a half hour until time to meet Serrillo, I was feeling much better so we started down the mountain. You think down is going to be easy, and it certainly was easier than up, but down wasn't a picnic, either. We got to Serrillo at 2pm and out we went, back across the lake for a 3-hour tour (a 3-hour tour...). Marc took a nap on the long cushioned benches inside, and so did Serrillo. It was just me and the little boy, puttering across the lake. Wild, weird, strange, surreal, unbelievable, fantastic, amazing.

And this was the final surprise. We stopped at the Uros island; neither Marc nor I expected this. Serrillo and the boy climbed out onto the island, and several minutes later they came back with a stout woman and another younger boy. While we were waiting, this little girl with a dried-snotty nose came on the boat and tried to sell us some stuff. And what a coincidence! Her brother's name is Marco, too! I think it's a combination of incredibly smart native psychology and something about their culture -- they make personal connections immediately, find ways to make you part of them no matter what it takes, and smile at you and touch you constantly. It's not at all intrusive, but it is notable. So finally, Serrillo came back with what we believe must be his family, and off we went.

Serrillo's wife was doing some embroidery, and if I hadn't seen her doing it by hand, I'd have sworn it was done by a machine. The stitches were absolutely perfect, each exactly the same length as the others. She knew my name was Lorena when she got on the boat, so we think she must have been working on the island all day. But unlike the clothing people wore on the island, full skirts of colorful material, braided hair with alpaca tassels on the ends, those odd little bowler-type hats, she had on a crushed velvet skirt and a plain old sweater. So she'd just been at work all day, and she changed back into her normal clothes to go home. It made us laugh.

We wanted to eat dinner in Puno instead of at our hotel restaurant, so we found this place recommended by Lonely Planet called DonPiero. As we sat waiting for our food, I heard the Eurythmics on the street below, Sweet Dreams Are Made of This. Everywhere we went we heard 80s music, actually. In one cab, that song Take On Me. And ABBA too, lots of Chiquitita. It really made me laugh. Our dinners were good, steak and french fries, and limonade as usual. Back to the hotel, off to the computers, erase the pictures.

Thank heavens Marc is so technologically clever.

Labels: Puno, Titicaca, video

I miss Arequipa already. It seems to be the Texas or Manhattan of Peru. Arequipenos think their city is the best in the whole world, which causes people in other Peruvian cities to resent them, just like Texas and New Yorkers. Everything about the place is special -- when we were in Colca Valley, our guide was telling us that the cows there only produce 5 liters of milk a day, but they have special cows in Arequipa because they produce 35 liters a day. No recognition of the difference in resources; the difference was in the specialness of Arequipenian cows. I like them for that brash pride. It feels familiar to me, and I understand why they feel that way.

Peru is not what we thought it would be, in almost every way. Although it's a Catholic country, they're not at all prudish. (I don't mean that Catholics are prudes, but it is a very religious country.) Everywhere we've been, we see couples kissing, holding hands and holding each other. Nancy said it's most common now for people to live together before they marry, and most families have 1 or 2 children, so they must be using birth control.

I miss it. It's got such a wonderful feeling to it, and the people were so incredibly kind to us. Today we had lunch on a balcony overlooking the plaza before we left for the airport. Sandra, the woman who picked us up at the airport, accompanied us back to the airport and hugged us goodbye.

The flight was only 30 minutes long to Juliaca, over mountains. Juliaca was also much more charming than the guidebooks suggested, and the plains between Juliaca and Puno reminded me of the Tibetan plateau, or Mongolia. (Of course I've never been to either place, but it had that feeling because of the strangeness of the light. You really do feel like you're on top of the world.) As you drive through the altoplano you see mountaintops on the horizon, and it's easy to shift your head a little to imagine that they're just tips of huge mountains instead of the whole mountain in the distance. In the plains are these very low adobe houses, all dark brown with low pitched brown roofs. People drive small herds of cattle. It was a thoroughly remarkable landscape. When we pulled into Puno, we were surprised that it's much bigger than we expected.


And OK, here is the final amazing piece for the day. Our hotel is absolutely amazing. It's right on Lake Titicaca, and our room overlooks the lake. It's sumptuous, so comfortable. The lobby has a beautiful fireplace, with lots of comfortable chairs in small groups, and people are actually sitting there, reading and talking. There is a deck overlooking the lake, but it's too cold to eat out there now. And the restaurant is so charming, with a great menu AND it's not expensive.


So far, this vacation has been absolutely perfect. I thought our Vietnam vacation was the pinnacle, and thought maybe it was so perfect largely because we were in the early stages of our relationship and that made things extra special (which it did, of course). But this vacation is even more amazing than that one. It's true that if anything, we are much closer now than we were even then, but this place is just amazing. I know I keep using that word, but it really is. Marc and I travel well together, and he put together a perfect trip.

Labels: Arequipa, Titicaca

My laptop, which has been a ghostly specter for the last few months, finally gave up the ghost last night. Complete and total hard drive failure. Dead as dead can be.

This means no more pictures in posts until we get home -- so disappointing. I can post (slowly) via Blackberry, hotel computer, or internet cafe, but no photos. Too too bad.

This afternoon we fly to Juliaca, where a car will drive us to Puno, located on Lake Titicaca. Stories to come.

It's hard to truly appreciate how beautiful the condors' flight was, from a still photograph. This short video gives a sense of it -- if I were a bird, I'd want to glide like them:

Labels: Colca Canyon, video

OH MY GOD. So much to say, and so many pictures to come. Today we saw more than 10 giant condors, gliding on the thermals in Colca Canyon. Before I run down the last two days, here are the most surprising things I learned:

• * Alpacas are the size of sheep, but with a little bit longer necks. The Spanish called them long-necked sheep. Our guide, Nancy, was standing next to me as we looked at once grazing near our feet, and she said, "Aren't they cute? And so delicious." It made me laugh out loud. I always thought alpacas were closer in size to vicunas, a little smaller than llamas. Nope.
  
  
• 
  
• * People are mestizo, but they still hold hard feelings toward the Spanish for the brutality of the conquest. Our guide Nancy said she doesn't like to take Spanish tourists. Of course the feelings are complicated, because they have Spanish heritage, and their churches are primarily spanish colonial. Every year there is a festival where they catch a giant condor and make it fight a bull. The condor represents the indigenous people, and the bull represents the Spanish. If the condor wins, it will be a good year.
  
  
• * Arequipa is called the White City. The general story line is that this is due to the white volcanic stone that's used in most construction. Apparently, no. When the Spanish took over Arequipa, they ran all the natives out of town and made them live on the outskirts. So when people visited the city, all they saw were white people. So, white city. White people.
  
  
• * The pre-Incan people who lived in Colca Canyon were of two different groups. One group lived in the valley, the other lived in the canyon. But they were tied to the mountain they came from in a very deep way. So they deformed their infants' skulls to resemble the shapes of their mountains. One group put wood on top of the babies' heads so the skulls were squat and square. The other group put wood on the sides of the babies' heads so the skulls were long and thin. Each shape not only identified them from afar, it also tied them to their mountains. The Spanish put an end to skull deformation, so instead, the people adopted different hats -- a squat hat, and a tall hat. They still wear them.
  
  
• * The people in the canyons still farm the Incan terraces.
  
  
• * People in the canyons and valleys still operate on the barter system, with people from Cuzco. The people from Cuzco load up their llamas and WALK. It takes between 30 and 60 days. They trade food with the valley and canyon people, then they walk back. They still do this, every year.
  
  
• * There are more than 5,000 different species of potato in Peru.
  

So our guide was an Arequipena named Nancy, and our driver was Raoul. (Raoul talked A LOT, but only Spanish so Nancy had to do all the listening.)

When we walked out of the hotel and saw our bus, Marc asked if it was just for us.....we couldn't believe it. It seemed crazy to have the whole thing just for us, plus a guide and a driver, but that's what we got.

So they picked us up yesterday morning at 8am and we took off for Chivay. We stopped along the way at all kinds of interesting places -- Incan cemetaries, amazing views, small towns with huge white churches.

Incans believed in reincarnation, so they were buried fully clothed, with food and other stuff they'd need. Some were buried in these little caves, high on a cliff face. You may have to click the photo to see it full-sized to see the burial caves:

The churches were usually white, with green or aqua doors. Often one or both bell towers had been knocked down in an earthquake, but they were always rebuilt as quickly as possible. In such poor villages, the churches were often magnificent:

Chivay is a small town of 3,000 people, and the hotel we stayed in was charming but the rooms were spartan. Twin beds, no television or anything else, just a phone. And a wall heater, because it got cold there at night. But the grounds and individual cottages were adorable:

We ate lunch in Chivay; I had quinoa soup, which was really delicious, and -- what else, here in Peru -- chicken.

We were really high, approximately 4,500 meters. For the first time, we really felt the altitude. We couldn't breathe, walking more than a few steps left us exhausted, we had headaches, and I was dizzy. Other people at the overlooks were dizzy too, prompting Marc to tell me that we were just a bunch of dizzy people stumbling around. It tickled me, and sounded like a blog post title.

This morning they picked us up at 6:30 for our ultimate destination, which was Cruz de la Condor. (or maybe de los Condors, I have to look) It was not certain that we'd see condors, of course. It's not the rainy season, and people yesterday didn't see any at all. Last week they waited three hours, no condors. When we walked to the edge, we saw three huge condors sitting on the rocks, in the sun. Just a couple of minutes later, two enormous condors flew up from our left and it seemed like they were showing off for us, gliding pretty near us, in large circles, riding the thermals. Then more condors pulled out, and more. At one point there were ten flying and sitting close by. It was truly amazing.

Condors are scavenger birds, of course, and boy they're really ugly up close. Standard bald scavenger bird head, big hooked beak for tearing meat, a face only their mothers must love. But when they soar and glide, it is breathtaking. It was so beautiful it made me cry. They only have one egg every other year, and the baby stays in the nest until it's two years old. The females have red eyes, which is pretty creepy, and the males have black eyes. The male has a bigger crest on his head than the female. Otherwise they're nearly identical. Red eyes, pretty weird.

I'll organize this post a little later, for now I have to jot down everything I can think of. The people have domesticated llamas and alpacas, but vicunas and guanacos (which we didn't see) are wild. The corrals are low fences of stacked stones, which don't save them from pumas but do make it harder for the foxes (oh yeah, we saw a big fox, real pretty).


It was rare to go more than a couple of yards without seeing small stacks of stones. Occasionally it would be like a pyramid, but most often it was just a stack of six stones, more or less. There were places where the entire field was full of these little stone towers. In places where tourists gather, they make little stone towers, and lots of them. But in open areas, no people within site, the stone towers were there. It's a very rocky place, so if you have rocks, you do everything you can with them.

Around 90% of the country is catholic, but the rest still worship Mother Earth (Pachamama) or their own mountain.

The people who wear traditional dress have figured out that they themselves are what people want to see, that people want to take pictures of them. So they invite you to take pictures, for a few soles. It's not much money, but I never could figure out how I felt about it. On one hand, they make themselves a commodity. On the other hand, why shouldn't they, and it's an important form of income for them. We only did this once, so far:

Women and kids gather their goats and llamas, put on their hats and outfits, and head to the square to target obvious tourists for photos. Only one or two soles:

The mountains are often piles of rubble -- giant, huge piles, but piles of rubble. We couldn't figure out how they held their shape, it looked like all the rocks should just tumble down. Of course other mountains were giant solid-looking rock, but a surprising number looked like loose rocks piled up.

One small village, Maca, suffered a big earthquake in 1991 and 23 people were killed. You could see the enormous vertical fissures in the mountains. The mountain just split apart. I had such a profound feeling of being on a living planet.

Labels: Colca Canyon

Arequipa is the 2nd largest city in Peru, and the place you go if you want to go whitewater rafting, mountain climbing, hiking, stuff like that, that Marc and I don't do. It's also the most geologically interesting, with a ring of volcanoes around the city, and a huge canyon a couple of hours away. The canyon is more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. The Arequipa landscape, from the air:

The city has such a nice feel to it, and the place we're staying is really amazing. Casa Arequipa may be my favorite place we've stayed, ever. The people are so sweet (see the previous post), the place is very comfortable, and the people who work here are just right, in terms of being helpful but not intrusive. Plus, it's pink:


After my birthday cake, we walked into town, to the Plaza de Armes. I think every town in Peru has a Plaza de Armes. Arequipa is called the white city because most of the buildings are built with volcanic rock, which is white. This is the big Cathedral on the square; it's the only Cathedral in Peru that takes up one whole side of the city square.


Oh -- the vegetation in Arequipa and Lima is a mix of palm trees and deciduous trees. Really odd combo.



This guy had an old typewriter on his lap. I never saw him type, but he was ready at any moment.

One of the major things to see in Arequipa is the Monestario de Santa Catalina. It was started by a rich old Spanish widow in the 1500s, and she picked only the upper-crust rich Spanish girls to be nuns. It was a monastery, but the nuns had several slaves each, and they had parties and live music. Finally, a big nun came over from Spain a couple hundred years later and whipped the place into shape. No more slaves, no more parties. Just nun stuff, 24/7.

But the place is absolutely gorgeous:

Apparently the colors are accurate -- they were this vivid when the place was new. Really amazing.

We walked around town for awhile, came back to our hotel for a snooze -- oh yeah, the altitude is getting to us a bit. Hard to breathe now and then, tired really easily, woozy here and there. Hence, the nap. The area around our hotel is particularly beautiful:

Zig Zag Restaurant was our dinner spot, to celebrate my birthday. We ate ostrich carpaccio (Marc's dish, which I tried -- mine was Andean trout carpaccio), grilled alpaca (again, Marc's, which I tried -- I got grilled fish), and a bowl of corn quinoa cheese soup. The ostrich was interesting, the alpaca was just fine-grained meat, and dinner was great, mainly because of the company.

This was a perfectly wonderful day.

Labels: Arequipa, video

fly Lima to Arequipa: 10:35 – 12:00
hotel: Casa Arequipa

prowl around Arequipa all day





________________________________________________________

So today is birthday #49, and it's been the very best one by far. First of all, spending my birthday going from Lima to Arequipa, with Marc. That is amazing enough. The people who picked us up from the airport from our Arequipa hotel were just wonderful, and when I told her (in Spanish! hoy es mi cumpleanos, more or less), she set up this whole thing. We got to the hotel (more on that later) and after we finished checking in, she brought out a birthday cake with Feliz Cumpleanos Lori written on it. And everyone who works here (5 people, I think -- it's a wonderful B&B) came out and they sang happy birthday to me, in English and then in Spanish. And on top of that, the cake was just wonderful.

I cried. If you know me, I'm sure you saw that coming. Can you believe....sitting in a living room-type lobby, being serenaded in English and Spanish by people smiling so kindly at me? IN PERU? After that, each one of them hugged me and wished me happy birthday again.

Now we're off to dinner. I have so much to say, but reservations await. Since this fantastic place also has wireless internet, I'll do more after dinner tonight.

Labels: Arequipa, hotels

Two very happy people, at the Plaza de Armes in central Lima. And get this! A Texan took our picture. Of all people. We were walking around looking for another tourist who spoke English, and we saw this couple of old hippies who looked like they might be from the US. I asked if they spoke English, and the woman said si. Then she laughed at herself for that, but they were very kind and the long-haired guy agreed to take the photo. Turns out they have a farm around Cleburne.

We stopped for lunch at this little sidewalk cafe on the Plaza San Martin. Marc ordered pollo y fritas, and I ordered a hamburger royale. My hamburger had a fried egg on top of the meat - eggs seem to come on a lot of things, for some reason. I guess if you've got a lot of chickens, as they have here, you've also got a lot of eggs. We got a pitcher of fresh lemonade too, so cold and good. And the whole lunch was ~$7 US.


The cab driver who took us back to our hotel was this young guy who sang with the radio, at the top of his lungs. It was really wonderful. I wish I'd had the video camera just so I could capture the audio. He was not at all self-conscious and the music was great. The wind was in my hair, there was Peruvian music blasting all around, and Marc and I were smiling at each other. It's been a really beautiful day.

Labels: Lima

It was a long bus ride from Lima to Nasca -- 6 hours. We were on a double-decker bus, and we were in the top.

Since the bus left at 4:30am, we slept for the first couple of hours while Pirates of the Caribbean played (in English with Spanish subtitles, very strange). Then there was some dumb movie about Elvis impersonators with Kim Basinger, and a third movie with Sean Penn, the one where he plays some politician in Louisiana. So we slept, then we moved to the front of the bus where we had a complete panoramic view.

Our pilot Andy said he lived in Chicago, and his wife and children are still there but he had to come back to Peru, his work is here.

He seemed determined that Marc and I have fun, and that we saw every single figure. I was so excited I could hardly bear it. Our first trip down the runway, the propeller quit working and the plane stalled. Was I scared? Oh yeah. So the second time we went down the runway -- with a working propeller -- I was laughing and crying so hard, partly because I thought we just might die, and partly because I was going up in a tiny airplane to see the Nasca Lines. I often can't believe the life I live.

We were transferred from the bus station to the tiny airport and directly into the plane so quickly it was hard to grasp what was happening. I didn't get a chance to take a photograph of the little plane, but we have video. Suddenly Marcos was in the front seat next to Andy, I was in the back seat, we were strapped in with headphones on, and down the runway.


After the short flight (45 minutes, but it felt much quicker) we had a couple of hours to kill at the hotel across the street. We lounged around the lobby for a bit, with lemonade, then we wandered out onto the grounds and found a bunch of hammocks. Snooze in the shade, parrots squawking all around, peaceful recovery from the very loud flight.

The bus ride home was even longer with three more movies, this time in Spanish with English subtitles: Something's Gotta Give, Erin Brockovich, and some Wesley Snipes movie I slept through. Back in room around 10pm, I think, tired but boy was I happy.

Labels: Nasca

So this is the deal! I've just needed to be in the southern hemisphere. If you know me, you know that I have an abysmal sense of direction. It's almost perfectly wrong -- if I think we should turn left, we should probably turn right. I'm correct just often enough to screw me up as a resource, only wrong 90-95% of the time. But all that's been wrong, all this time, is that I have a southern hemisphere head, in the northern hemisphere! My sense of direction here is awfully good. I know we need to go that direction, and I'm right. It's quite bizarre, really.

We have our breakfast place, this lovely little cafe where we can navigate our way through the meal with our insufficient Spanish, mostly because -- as usual -- the people are gracious and try very hard with us. This morning I got fresh fruit with yogurt and honey, and a cappuccino. The place is gentle, run by women, and the decor is gentle too. It's our spot now.

I want to make a separate post about Nasca. Lots to say on that one. We really like Miraflores, even though it's the ritzy suburb of Lima. We know we're not experiencing Lima -- we're heading to the center of town today, to see the colonial stuff everyone is supposed to see in Lima.

Vacation is wonderful.

Labels: Lima, Miraflores

We spent the morning trying to arrange a trip to see the Nazca lines -- something of an ordeal. Back and forth, between Casa Andina and a travel agency. We thought we had it done: two days and one night, flyover, easy trip. Instead, at the last minute there were no hotel rooms in Nazca, so we're going down and back tomorrow. It's a 6-hour bus trip one way, a 45-minute flyover to see the lines, and then a 6-hour trip back. And the kicker? We have to be at the bus station at 4am tomorrow. Still. It's the Nazca Lines. Once in a lifetime.

After that, we wandered around Miraflores. It's really so much more beautiful than we thought it might be. There's nothing truly distinct about it, architecturally, as there is in Hanoi, or Paris, or Amsterdam, but it's charming and liveable.






We're eating dinner at Las Brujas de Cachiche, a 20-minute walk (or so) from our hotel. More to tell, later tonight.

Labels: Lima

We were sitting in the Newark airport talking about our experience of international flights leaving on time; when we flew to Singapore and Delhi, both left on time. Our flight to Amsterdam, right on time. So we figured the 2:50 flight to Lima would be the same, but it wasn't. We got a late start, about an hour, which meant getting into Lima at almost midnight. But who cares.....everything else went just perfectly. We didn't hit traffic going to Newark, we didn't get lost finding the long-term parking, we found a great spot right by the bus stop, the bus came within a couple of minutes, and the security line wasn't too long. The only weird thing was the luggage. I think everyone who was flying to Lima (except us!) was taking at least a dozen huge suitcases, plus appliance-sized boxes. Seriously.

As always, he has to pace before we get on the plane. Back and forth, off to Starbucks for me, general excited pacing. It always makes me happy to watch him do this.


The flight was pretty good, no screaming children, but it seemed so long. I think I had it in my mind as a short flight -- compared to the 19?-hour flight to Singapore, it was! But really, 8 hours isn't short. Since I was thinking "short," 8 hours felt really long. But we were lucky here, too: we had an empty seat between us. Plenty of room for all our stuff, and for being comfortable.

We had a wonderful breakfast this morning in a little cafe -- more about that later. The funny thing was the music: Rod Stewart and Cher singing the classics. Bewitched, bothered and bewildered. Smile, though your heart is breaking.

Off to see Lima.

Labels: flights, Lima

Fri Nov 2 Partly Cloudy 62°/56° 0%			62°F
Sat Nov 3 Partly Cloudy 65°/56° 0%			65°F
Sun Nov 4 Partly Cloudy 66°/58° 0%			66°F
Mon Nov 5 Partly Cloudy 67°/58° 0%			67°F

Apparently they rarely see the sun this time of year in Lima. Still, it's on average 5 or 6 degrees warmer there than it will be here, at home. Going south to "balmy" weather, I guess! And it's pretty close to the equator, what a mystery. I'd have thought it would be much warmer. Lima isn't high in the Andes, either; it's on the coast.

It looks like Cusco might be rainy while we're there, and my fingers are crossed for Machu Picchu to have decent weather. Even if it's rainy, we'll be up on that mountain. Well, you'll see.

Labels: Lima, weather

Details finalized, suitcases in the living room with those "don't forget!" items placed nearby. Marc is scouting restaurants in Lima, and trying to plan a birthday dinner in Arequipa. We're so eager to get going.

Today Marc got an email from a woman who works for one of the hotels in Peru asking if we wouldn't mind doing her a favor. She will order a digital camera on ebay and have it sent to us here in New York, to our home address, and it's small, really, it wouldn't take much space in our suitcase, would we mind bringing it to her?

How odd. It seemed weird when we first read it, and the more we thought about it the weirder it became.

Just 3 more days.

So we're going to Peru using frequent flyer miles, which means our tickets were $35 each. New York to Peru, $35. If you know my husband, you know what this means for his happiness, and for mine because of his pleasure. I grin as I type that.

The deal is that there are limited numbers of seats available for these tickets, which determined our travel dates to and from Peru. Yesterday he noticed that, instead of leaving on Sunday, we could now leave on Friday. Should we? We couldn't rearrange everything in the trip, adding a day here or a day there -- it would just be a couple new days at the beginning, in Lima. The place that we assume will be the least interesting.

But two more days on vacation, away with my sweetheart? Hell yeah. I said let's do it, even though it added $50 to the price of each ticket. Current number of days until take-off? Including today, 17. I can wait, I cannot wait. (Echoes of Beckett for those with ears to hear!)

Labels: schedule

We just received an email from our hotel in Lima, with the following wise counsel:

• * You are just about to live the experience of the fusions in Lima!

• * Lima: Lima is the capital of Peru and also the Gastronomic Capital of America, you can't be there without trying the famous Cebiche, Causa, Seafood with Rice, between others.

So adorable. I can't wait to live that experience.

Labels: hotels

Peruvian music is everywhere today! I saw these musicians in the Times Square subway station, shortly after having seen another group in the Union Square station. Pretty pan pipes:

Labels: music

Sure, in Peru they eat cuy (they do, but I won't), but since it originated here, in the world, this is what they eat a lot of:

Labels: food

As of now, this is how our trip will unfold. Reservations are all made:

EDIT:
Sunday, November 04, 2007 Friday, November 02, 2007





hotel: Casa Andina - Miraflores

check in, tired, crash



Monday, November 05, 2007

hotel: Casa Andina - Miraflores

prowl around Lima all day. Maybe see this in Miraflores!


Tuesday, November 06, 2007 - my birthday! Happy 49th!


fly Lima to Arequipa: 10:35 – 12:00
hotel: Casa Arequipa

prowl around Arequipa all day






Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Leave by private car at 8:00am for Colca Valley
hotel: Casa Andina Colca


Check out Colca Valley and Canyon





Hope to see condors and llamas
Plenty of scenic splendor






Thursday November 08, 2007

All day in Colca Valley

Private car back to Arequipa, arrive approximately 5:00pm

hotel: Casa Arequipa



Friday, November 09, 2007

fly Arequipa to Juliaca (Puno): 15:30 – 16:15
hotel Casa Andina Puno



Saturday, November 10, 2007

hotel Casa Andina Puno
see Lake Titicaca

Sunday, November 11 2007

fly Juliaca to Cusco: 9:00 – 9:45
hotel Casa San Blas

Check out Cusco all day

Monday, November 12, 2007

hotel Casa San Blas

Visit Cusco all day

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

train Cusco to Machu Picchu 6:00 – 9:38
Vista Dome Train

hotel Inti Inn Hotel -Aguas Calientes

Nothing much to see in Aguas Calientes, so we'll probably hike up to Machu Picchu to see the afternoon and sunset

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

hike to Machu Picchu for the sunrise and early morning









train Machu Picchu to Cusco 15:05 – 19:05






hotel Casa San Blas





Back to visiting Cusco










Thursday November 15, 2007

fly Cusco To Lima: 10:20 – 11:40




hotel Casa Andina - Miraflores

Friday, November 16, 2007

hotel Casa Andina – Miraflores


flight over Nazca Lines

Saturday, November 17, 2007




Home!

Labels: hotels, links, schedule

Marc always finds us a great deal on internal flights so we can cheaply hop around from destination to destination. We'll be taking the train from Cusco to Machu Picchu, but flying everywhere else. Double-click to see the details:


(Several times I've had to go back to our other travel blogs for these very details -- what date we did something -- so it's good to store it here!)

Labels: flights, schedule

From Frommers:

Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian novelist and most famous Arequipeño, described Colca as "The Valley of Wonders." That is no literary overstatement. Colca is one of the most scenic regions in Peru, a land of imposing snowcapped volcanoes, narrow gorges, artistically terraced agricultural slopes that predate the Incas, arid desert landscapes and vegetation, and remote traditional villages, many visibly scarred by seismic tremors common in southern Peru. Some of Peru's most recognizable wildlife, including llamas, alpacas, vicuñas, and the celebrated giant Andean condors, roam the region.

The Colca River, one of the sources of the mighty Amazon, slices through the massive canyon, which remained largely unexplored until the late 1970s, when rafting expeditions descended to the bottom of the gorge. Reaching depths of 3,400m (11,150 ft.) -- twice as deep as the Grand Canyon -- el Cañón del Colca forms part of a tremendous volcanic mountain range more than 100km (62 miles) long.

Arequipa is where we'll spend my birthday, I'm a lucky girl.

Labels: Colca, maps