Machu Picchu Magic

Peru

Day 1:   Travel ALL day. Finally, make it to Lima at 11:30. Crashed in JW hotel in Mira Flores after midnight.  The hotel is Soooo nice. 

First View of MiraFlores across the Pacific ocean.

Day 2.  Tour of Lima.   So many cathedrals and ruins.  Gorgeous European architecture.  Peruvian churro- more like cake with dulce de leche inside. Talked to a group of Peruvian students who wanted to practice their English. ( ruins dated 200-400 AD.). Diane keeps saying “Garcia” for “Gracias.”   It’s making me laugh so hard. Our tour guide Amalia was wonderful.  Lunch at Huaca by the ruins. Amazing view and weather.  Food:  Cancha- cold potatoes.  Cerviche with White Sea bass.  Meringue filled with dulce de leche.   Then off to Museum Larco- amazing archeological pieces from Moche people. Over 2000 years old.  47,000 pieces.    Erotic ceramics.  Back to hotel then dinner at Mango by the seashore with outdoor dining.  The best parts: the tour guide sharing her food with Eric. Lunch by the ruins.  

Town square of Lima, Peru

So many cathedrals

Museum filled with ceramic artifacts from 2000 years ago.

Love statue in love park, Lima

Amazing food and restaurant by Inca Ruins in middle of Lima

Day 3:  Up early and heading our way to  airport at 5 am.  Met many missionary groups at airport. Some going home. Some just starting. Some from Peru going to a different area in Peru. Peru has 600,000 members they nick name it “Perusalem”.  Met Boris our guide. Took us around Cuzco.   Biggest cathedral in South America. 11,000 sq. ft. We are sucking on coca candy to help with high altitude.   Off to “Saxy Woman”. Big archeological site by Incas. 1400ad. . Amazing construction.    Pisac-  little village bottom of the Sacred Valley.  Ate traditional empanada from very old 200 year old oven.   Bought silver and a watercolor.   Traditional lunch  at a very posh place.: Huayo Cari   Gorgeous garden and view of the Sacred Valley. We ate a filled avocado with greens, hearts of palm, mango and chicken with passion fruit sauce. “Palta Rellena ” perhaps one of the best thing I’ve eaten in my entire life.   Mint and corn soup, Lomo Saltado.   The food here has been incredible.  Off to amazing Inca ruins. Ollantaytambo.   This ginormous Incan fortress features a series of terraces that you can climb up with over 200 steps for views of the surrounding countryside and mountains that will simply take your breath away. This used to be a place of retreat for Inca nobility as well as a religious and political complex.  Looking across to the storage mountain there is a big grumpy face God. ( looks like Grut) and a profile God that the sun shines through only in their winter solstice.   So interesting.  

Hotel Sonesta is a fine resort in Yucay 9.500 ft above sea level) Met a small native women Jauna Paula - all handmade textiles by her. We got llama keychains, beanie, hats, wrap bracelets. Gorgeous and fun to talk to her. 

Fly to Cusco- Boris our guide

Saqusy Woman ruins... huge fitted rocks with no mortar... building pyramids

White Jesus on a hill

View of Sacred Valley

Restaurant: Huayo Cari.... old homestead turned into a delicious place!

Little village for empanada and silver buying.  1000 year olf Oven.... cooked Cuoy ( Guinea Pig)

Mountains of Ollantaytambo

Day 4:  Woke up in our gorgeous Sonesta hotel.  Amazing sites.  Had  to separate down to a smaller two day pack.  

Train to Machu Pichu. Dancing - I was the only one in our group who danced..but that's okay.  I had a blast!  Snacks on board and a fashion show. Beautiful scenery. Met Roberta - a lady from Brazil. She taught English.  Made it up to Machu Pichu. Darcy is our guide. 

Food at Indio Feliz and it was amazing again!!  Mango trout. Avocado and papaya appetizer.  Trout cerviche.  Waited to get on bus and in the line Wayne was pied piper talking to all the school kids.  Taught them  "Go Utes!”  

Wild 25 minute bus ride to the top - switchbacks and crazy driving.  Machu Pichu was extraordinary. One of the 7 wonders of the world.  Did not disappoint. I cried. Pinch me dream come true.  Darcy our guide is  so knowledgeable and takes great pics!!   Our Hotel Sumaq is elegant. Right at the base of the mountain and by the river. 

Sonesta Hotel with Fauna Paula and her homemade textiles and Alpacas

Train from Ollantaytambo to Machu Picchu

Waiting for the bus and talking to the Kids.... Wayne LOVED this part

More delicous food

First looks of Macu Picchu with Darcy as our guide

Day 5.   Up early 6 am and ready to hike Huayna Pichu.   It’s all cloudy and looks spooky- then the sun burnt it off and we could see forever!  It’s a big mountain!!!  We walked around the rest of the Machu pichu village ruins and castles and then up the giant Huaynu Picchu mountain with steep inclines and many irregular steps.  We made it to the top in an hour 15.  We took some awesome pics  and I sang the Carpenters song- “I’m on the Top of the world looking down on creation” to a crowd of strangers.   We got back down the mountain holding on to the cords and spidering boulders. It was hard on knees. Grateful for meds.    I listened to gospel jazz music all the way up and down the mountain- it was uplifting mood music to keep me going. The hike was mega hard!!  I’m so happy all 5 of us accomplished it.  More tears of Joy!  Back to hotel to quickly cleanup and change shirts and shoes in the one room they let us keep til 1 pm-Eric’s— then off to the village for empanadas, Coke Zero and ice cream.  We have had amazing weather - more cheap shopping then back to the train to make the long trip back to Cuzco.  ( Cuzco’s city flag is rainbow) It finally started raining while we were at train station. Beautiful sun rain. Train delay. Got back to Ollantantambo at almost 7 pm. Then a 2 hour drive to Cuzco.  All so tired! Stayed in another gorgeous JW Marriot hotel-- an old convent converted in to a hotel.  Ordered pizza and watched Ute football lose.  Everywhere we go there are a lot of street dogs.  

Day 6.  Up early amazing hotel in a convent and breakfast buffet. Met our guide- Boris again- Saw more Inca ruins that Spanish built churches on top off. Long road trip day to Puno and Lake Titicaca. (8 hour drive) Stops along the way for bread and ornate churches in little dirt road villages. Followed a garbage truck. People come out and handed their garbage to the guy. The Garbage truck plays music like an ice cream truck to alert people.  Stopped at a high point 14,222 ft above Sea level. Hard to breathe.  Still on road to Puno. Long travel day. Landscape is above the tree line so desolate, windy and brown.    Got to our Lake Titicaca hotel in a huge thunderstorm. Can’t wait to see what it all looks like in the morning. 

JW Marriott in Cusco and....walking around Cusco

Bread ladies ..wave people down with yellow bags...make thousands of loaves a day for all over Peru

Old church...very ornate gold-- in a poor, poor village -- no pics inside are allowed, but it was amazing!

Day 7.  Caught the sunrise at 5 am.  Out our window is just gorgeous scenery.  Met up with guide - Aidee- to get in a private boat and go to the floating islands. This was like nothing we have ever experienced before. 127 floating islands made from Reeds that have to be maintained and remade constantly. We stopped at one with 4 families. They explained how island is made by joining reeds together and showed us their textile wares. We dressed up in their traditional clothes for pics and they sang to us and took us on a plastic canoe ride across the bay to the neighborhood “strip mall” floating island with a toilet, coffee shop, drinks and more wares on sale.   There’s actually an LDS church branch on these islands.  Then off to another actual island - Taquile- to see how 2,500 Peruvians live on Lake Titicaca.  We saw more amazing weaving and textiles. I danced with the village locals. More pics and a Long Island walk up a delicious feast of quinoa soup and trout.   Then speed boated back to Puno.  We got dinner in town at a Pizzaria with 9 year old Gabriel serving us.  Met a Stefan from Sweden. Walked the plaza with the big cathedral and Lima street - a pedestrian street filled with more shops. Eric Belnap is the big winner for amount of things purchased. He may need another suitcase.  Diane is the big winner for the slowest shopper.   I had a bad stomach today—. The Trotskys have arrived.   Our hotel is great with views of the floating islands. 

Traditional clothes on Islands of UROS...holding 2 year old Dana.

Inside the huts...they have a single light bulb generated by a solar panel.   ALl cooking done outside.  Go to Puno once a week to buy other groceries.  Live on fish and duck eggs.

Traveling in luxury on a 30 passenger boat..but we have it all to ourselves.  Island people canoe on reed boats with plastic water bottles. 

Island on Lake Titicaca... live the old traditionsal way.  Basque influence. 

Bulls with bussy eyes and licking tongue-- bloody forehead and a chili peper up it's butt...to rile it up to fight.  Yikes.  Fish and quinoa soup.  Natives dancing.

Seeing the Hair belt that the men weave and the nice wool belt that the mother in law weaves, then hook together for marriage. 

Live Cuoy... using rubber sandal soles for gate hinges.  Lake Titicaca is HUGE and part of it is in Bolivia.  LIttle girl coloring while moma sells bracelets.

Down town Puno at night, and a pic of our white Hotel.  Eating pizza with Gabrial our waiter...and pic of Puno

Day 8.  Last day. Hard to sleep again. High altitude sickness is a thing.  Wayne had to go to front desk to breathe oxygen from a tank. I’ve woken up last 3 days around 4:30am with a headache.     

Sillustani: Climbing over tombs and burial places 12,800 ft. Above sea level.  Sun is very hot. Have to remind myself to breathe deep and walk slow. All very interesting, but I definitely don’t have to see any more Inca or Mayan or lost civilization ruins for the rest of my life. I’ve had my fill. 

Sillustani-- old burial tombs... thousands of years old, used by mandy different cultures 

Long trip back home. 8-hour layover in Lima airport. Our flight doesn’t leave til 1 in the morning.  Lots of interesting discussions sitting in TGI Fridays about church, faith and elections.  

What I learned from this trip? ( definitely not a vacation)  8 days, with 6 flights, and 4 hotels, an 8 hour drive one day so it was definitely a trip.

1. So many places in this world look the same. Places in Peru looked like Utah ,  Brazil, Mexico, Israel, Dominican Republic. 

2. God made a variety of people   So many nice ones are in Peru. Cordial, happy, sharing and caring ones who live so very differently than me.  

3. Peru has delicious food!

4. Nicer hotels have nicer beds and pillows. We stayed in 4 nice hotels!  

5. High altitude sickness is a real thing. And the sun is definitely hotter the closer you get to it. 

6. There are a lot of Inca ruins.  Which look a lot like Mayan ruins which look a lot like Israel ruins.  I don’t need to see any more ruins. Ok, maybe Greece! 

7. People actually create and live on floating islands on Lake Titicaca. Ive never seen anything like this. Wild!! 

8. I can do hard things like hike Huayna Picchu. 

9. Machu Picchu did not disappoint.  It's everything I wanted it to be. Now I can take it off my bucket list. 

10. Traveling home is always longer and more tiring than going to the destination. Waiting for 10 hours in Lima airport is part of that weary. 

11. Booking a private tour with a travel agency is totally worth it. We were very well taken care of. All of the guides were great, and having private little buses and boats was awesome.

12. I love traveling with my Wayne. I love watching him speak Spanish, especially to little kids. 

13. When I got home I went to the bathroom and I said “ Oh my gosh, this is what I am so grateful for!” I can drink out of the tap, and a toilet that I can flush with an updated sewer system that I don’t have to throw toilet paper in a garbage can. It’s always good to go away. It’s always wonderful to come back home.