BILL AND JJ'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURES IN
PERU
May 22 - June 8, 2011
(CLICK THE THUMBNAIL PHOTOS FOR A LARGER IMAGE)
Machu Picchu - South America's most popular tourist attraction has long been among our goals for adventure travel . We finally decided it was time to do it and, after some deliberation, decided to sign up with a regular guided tour with the company, Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT). This turned out to be an excellent choice although the time actually spent at Machu Picchu was minimal. Oh well, next time....
May 22, 2011 Sunday
We had a direct, non-stop 8 hour flight from Los Angeles to Lima, Peru on LAN airlines. This and all the travel was included in our OAT package. At LAX we met two fellow travelers, George and Karen, who were doing the exact same OAT trip and we also met some friends from Ridgecrest, CA who happened to be off on a similar Peruvian adventure traveling with The Pleistocene Foundation.
May 23, 2011 Monday
We were met at the Lima airport by an OAT representative and were soon settled in our hotel in the Miraflores district of Lima. Our local tour guide, Franky, escorted us to lunch and then a quick walking tour of the safe and relatively affluent Miraflores area. We had an easy walk down to the Pacific coast with its high and rugged cliffs and parks including the Lovers Park. It never rains in Lima and the climate is mostly cool and overcast, especially at this Fall and Winter season. Miraflores is one of many (43?) districts in Lima each of which has its own mayor and government. Lima is a huge, historical city of about 9 million people and was founded in 1536 by none other than Francisco Pizzaro, the not too popular Spanish conqueror, who is credited with destroying the Inca empire.
May 24, 2011 Tuesday
Geographically speaking, Peru is about 60% rainforest and nine of us OAT tourists had elected a pre-trip option to experience the Amazon River jungles. After a short, 1.5 hour flight from Lima we arrived at the town of Iquitos in the north eastern region after flying over the Andes Mountains and descending to the lush, green river areas. Iquitos, a city of about 400,000 is a river port and the world's largest city without any highways connecting it to the rest of the world! You get there by air or by river boats.
We did not tarry long in Iquitos since our new guide, Roberto, soon had us on the boats and after an hour's cruise down the river arrived at our Ceiba Tops Lodge. We were pleased with this very nice lodge complete with air conditioned rooms, great food, swimming pool, music, bar, etc. We finished our first day in the jungle with a quick walk through the forest to see the giant ceiba tree (mostly gone now due to lumber cuttings) and the "walking" palm trees which actually move their locations as the roots seek more sunny spots on the forest floor.
May 25, 2011 Wednesday
We had a very early 0430 wake up call (yuk) for our long river trip to the ExplorNapo lodge which hosts the Amazon Conservatory for Tropical Studies. We traveled further down the Amazon River and then up the Napo River to the lodge. The Napo is a major tributary to the Amazon and extends clear up north to Ecuador and beyond.
We walked along the jungle canopy walkway for a bird's eye view of the jungle and then headed back to Ceiba Top after a visit to a botanical garden and lecture/healing from a local shaman.
May 26, 2011 Thursday
Today we took a shorter river trip to visit a local medical clinic which was started by an American lady, has one doctor, one dentist and two nurses. Our day's activities also included a visit to a Yagua Indian village, some dancing, another shaman blessing and a demonstration of the blow gun. We finished the day with a visit to a sugar cane farm and rum distillery which has been in the Guerra family for 3 generations. Some members of our group tasted the rum samples. Some members of our group later had digestive problems but maybe not related to the rum.
May 27, 2011 Friday
On this, our last full day in the jungle, we made a shorter excursion to a nearby town of about 4000 residents called "Indiana". There are actually dozens of small towns along the river (their highway) but most are not visible from the water due to the thick forests. After a quick walking tour we mounted a bunch of "motocarros" and drove overland to the town on Mazan which is across a peninsula and on the Napo River side. Mazan is a hustling market town where many of the native folks bring their stuff from the jungles to sell in Iquitos. They can ride the motocars across to the Amazon, head up river to Iquitos and save a lot of boat time.
On the way back to Indiana we stopped to take photos of the giant lily pads named Victoria Regia or sometimes referred to as alligator shit.
Later in the day we took a boat ride to look for the Amazon pink dolphins (we saw them but I could not get a picture). Roberto told us that most of the local wild animals are endangered since the natives tend to eat them. But not the pink dolphins!! We stopped at Monkey Island where some conservationists are trying to restore about 8 species of local jungle monkeys. The flooded waters of the Amazon were receding and the Monkey Island was very muddy. A local guide attracted the critters with some fruit and the animals seemed to really enjoy the human visitors. We were told to be very careful with sun glasses, cameras and such objects since the monkeys like to steal them for souvenirs to carry into the tree tops. One little guy did snatch a sun screen tube but a guide recovered it before the monkey escaped.
May 28, 2011 Saturday
On our last jungle day we went looking for more pink dolphins. We saw them as well as some little gray dolphins which look more like the ocean dolphins around San Diego. We also went fishing for piranhas and we managed to catch quite a few. No one was bitten!
Finally, in the afternoon we boarded the Amazon Queen for a 2 hour ride back up river to Iquitos. As we approached the noise of Iquitos, JJ and I realized that we had not seen or heard an airplane since our arrival in the jungles! We then flew back to Lima arriving at our hotel about 9PM.
May 29, 2011 Sunday
Today, our jungle group joined the main tour crowd arriving from Miami and LAX during the early morning hours. We also got acquainted with our tour guide, Marco, who accompanied us for the rest of the trip. In the morning Marco gave us a short introductory lecture on Peruvian history and culture and we were off for visits to an archeological museum, to the Saint Francis church and its catacombs with a large, macabre human bone collection.
May 30, 2011 Monday
This was a free day with an optional excursion that JJ and I decided not
to take. Instead we did a bus tour for 110 soles (one sol was about
$2.75US). We revisited some of the same places from yesterday including
the Saint Francis cathedral. This time we saw the actual coffin which
contained the previously mentioned Francisco Pizarro and a small box that held
his head (or so they claimed). His remains were not discovered until
about 1976 when they were doing some excavations beneath the church altar.
May 31, 2011 Tuesday
We had an early check out from the hotel and arrived Lima airport for our 55 minute flight to Cusco arriving about 11AM. At this point we were in a world quite different from the jungles or the dry Lima area. Cusco sits at an altitude of about 11,000 feet and is surrounded by many snow covered Andean peaks reaching up to about 20,000 feet.
Our bus picked us up at the Cusco airport and we headed north out of the Cusco valley, across a 12,000 ft plateau and we got our first views of the Sacred Valley of the Incas and its Urubamba River. Along the way Marco pointed out how all the houses have two bulls and a cross for good luck on the roofs. We also did our first "discovery" stop to see how a local woman was making freeze dried potatoes. The potatoes are spread on the ground where they freeze at night and during the sunny day she steps on them to squeeze out the moisture. I saw a 1913 era National Geographic Magazine article showing the exact same thing!
We then did our first examination of ruins from the Inca civilization at the Pizac site in the Sacred Valley. Although, a major part of our cultural experience was to learn about the amazing Inca civilization I will not dwell on it here since the history is well documented in many books (for instance, "The Conquest of the Incas" by John Hemming).
By 5:30PM we were settled in our hotel in the town of Urubamba down in the Sacred Valley.
June 1, 2011 Wednesday
Our guide, Marco, was born and raised in a poor family in this very town of Urubamba. His first language was Quechua which is Peru's largest indigenous language. He learned Spanish in school and now is also fluent and quite eloquent in English as well. One aspect of travel with OAT is that the company wants us to learn about the local cultures as well as to see the sights. Hence, Marco is the perfect guide for this because he could amaze us with his personal anecdotes about what it is like to grow up in these impoverished environments. Of course, today he is a very successful tour guide thanks to his intelligence, determination and opportunities including free university education. Marco also credited President Kennedy with helping through the Alliance for Progress program which provided school lunches to South America when he was a child.
We had our second "discovery" stop in Urubamba to stroll through a market in which the local folks were selling everything from potatoes to pigs in a poke. They used an abandoned bull fight plaza to display the live stock.
We enjoyed a visit to the town of Ollantaytambo and the Inca ruins of the same name. I had recently read the aforementioned book by Hemming and was thrilled to stand in the places that had been the scene of such drama during the conflicts between Spanish conquerors and Inca people during the early 1500s.
After touring the ruins we did a river rafting trip on the Urubamba and then had lunch in the home of a local family. This is a regular part of the OAT experience. Guinea pigs are kept in most homes and served up for dinner especially for guests.
After lunch we played the popular Sapo game and then did a tour of the town via the motocarros.
June 2, 2011 Thursday
We departed Urubamba after a short visit to the studio of a well know
ceramics artist, Pablo Seminario, and then spent more time in the village of
Ollanytaytambo. Much of this village is said to look the same as it was
500 years ago during the glory of the Inca empire.
Finally, at 1130 we were on the train and in route to Macchu Piccu! As the train descended along the Urubamba River we were treated to some spectacular views of the snow covered Andes peaks. The locals refer to them as the glaciers and Marco says they are rapidly melting away. The snow level here is about 17,000 feet. It never snows below that level.
We arrived at the town of Aguas Calientes at 1:30PM and were soon on the buses to head up to the famed ruins. AguasCalientes was once a simple train stop at this "entrance" to the jungle world but today is there to serve the tourists.
The bus ride up to the "lost city of the Incas" takes about 30 minutes to ascend the 1000 feet or so. (Actually, the tour books are ambiguous on elevations but I think AguasCalientes is at around 6700 feet and the actual Macchu Piccu is at roughly 8000'.)
Regardless, here we were at the famed "city" and it is totally cool!! Again, I will not write much about the history of the place or the many theories as to what it really means. Marco has a theory that the city was once a university to train the various indigenous people who were under the rule of the powerful Incas. However, he acknowledges that 100 separate tour guides will likely have 101 different views. Anyway, Macchu Piccu was never discovered by the Spanish colonizers and, indeed, was not know to the outside world until an American explorer, Hiram Bingham, "discovered" the place in 1911. He is given credit for creating this tourist bonanza for Peru.
June 3, 2011 Friday
We were up at 5AM in order to catch an early bus for our second visit to the lost city. Two of our group, Jill and Dave, were very ambitious and got up at 3AM in order to wait in line about 3 hours to be among the 200 who are allowed to start a 7AM hike up to the top of Wayna Piccu ("young peak" vs Macchu Piccu for "old peak"). Instead, JJ and I did the hike up to the "Sun Gate" (Intipunku) which is on the Inca trail that leads down to the lost city.
By 2PM we were back on the PeruRail train and the return trip to Ollantaytambo and then a bus ride over the 12600 ft passes and down to the city of Cusco for a 3 night stay.
June 4, 2011 Saturday
This morning we had another "discovery" at a local cemetery. We met some young boys who earn money by polishing the brass fittings on the walls. Burials are above ground in mausoleums and relatives are required to pay annual rent to the church (I think). If they are delinquent in payments then the dear departed is disinterred and thrown into a common pauper's grave!
Our next stop was the fabulous Inca ruin of Saqsaywaman which overlooks the main Plaza de Armas of Cusco far below. This ruin seems to be an extraordinary display of the Inca civilization's abilities to build structures from huge boulders. Marco pointed out that the site appears to have no practical purpose other that artistic.
After visiting the ruins and doing some shopping at a store with lots of alpaca sweaters we received another blessing from a local Quechua shaman and a "discovery" visit to a very large market in Cusco. One vender was selling small, live frogs which I was told are an essential ingredient to an aphrodisiac drink. The poor frogs are dropped into a blender and then gulped down. Yumm!
Finally we visited the famed "Temple of the Sun" which was a major place of worship at the Inca empire's capital city of Cusco but was later converted to today's Dominican cathedral. An earthquake in 1950 revealed some of the original Inca walls inside the church and since the 1980s they have been on display for tourists.
June 5, 2011 Sunday
Yesterday we got the bad news that the last portion of our adventure had been cancelled by OAT. There were strikes and some violence in the Puno area which is the gateway for visits to Lake Titicaca. Oh well, maybe next time...
Anyway, today is a special day in Peru because it is Presidential election day. The left wing candidate, Ollanta Humala, was the winner. We visited one of the voting locations and Marco explained that voting is mandatory in Peru. Failure to vote results in the loss of citizenship privileges until a fine is paid.
June 6, 2011 Monday
This was our last full day in the Cusco area. We traveled north of Cusco Valley into the high altitude (about 12,000ft) farming areas and stopped to watch some of the local folks as they harvested potatoes and were preparing to cook some of them in an outdoor "oven".
We also visited another Inca site, Maray, which is believed to have been an experimental agricultural site. Unlike other hill side sites, the terraces here are built in a circular shape down inside a sink hole. Nearby we watched some guys in the process of making adobe bricks with the local mud and their bare feet.
A red flag outside a village building means that the owners have chica corn beer ready for sale. We stopped by but Marco recommended we not drink any if we wanted to get home alive.
A real highlight of the day was a visit to a local elementary school, Raqchi School, which is supported by the Grand Circle Foundation. Upon arrival our bus was immediately assaulted by dozens of cute little munchins who grabbed our hands and lead us into the school grounds. We were then entertained by their singing, dancing and we joined the first graders to help them with their coloring and counting exercises. They all did quite well. Marco pointed out that many of the kids have to walk over an hour one way to and from the school and some had signs of frostbite on their faces. It certainly made us appreciate how valued is the education we take for granted.
June 7, 2011 Tuesday
On this day we departed Cusco by air for a return to Lima. We had a little time to rest up in the hotel and then another quick tour of the Barranco area which has lots of very elegant older homes and has a bohemian atmosphere. Finally, we did a farewell dinner and then were off to the airport. For those of us originally destined for Lake Titicaca this was a changed scheduled but we were back in Los Angeles by about 8AM local time after an uneventful flight.
Well, not completely uneventful. JJ and I were busted (sort of) by US Customs for attempted smuggling of cocaine! OK, it was not really cocaine but just coca tea bags but now we know they are not allowed. Anyway, we threw away the tea and all was well.
THE END