We are home

21 hours after we woke up this morning in Peru we are now home in Minnesota.

Two days in Lima

We are finishing our trip. Three weeks ago we started the trip by dipping our toes in the Atlantic ocean in Miami. Today we completed the trip by dipping our toes in the Pacific ocean. Tomorrow we will be on our way home. (It will be hard going back into work!)

We spent our first day in Lima walking along the cliffs above the ocean. It was a nice lookout, but the sea fog was really thick. We got to an open air mall built into the cliff and had lunch. Robin had a wonderful rice and seafood dish.

We then walked to a preInca pyramid ruin. It was build with many clay tiles/bricks. The bricks looked like library books on end. While we were resting after our tour a waiter at the restaurant came out with a local custard dessert. We got to eat it because the people who ordered it had disappeared. The waiter looked like our friend Jim.

This morning we took a guided bus tour of Lima. We drove through several sections of town. We saw a couple of embassies. We also saw the residence of the US ambassador. We got out of the bus and saw a museum in the basement of the federal bank. They had many gold artifacts. Interestingly enough that exhibit was in the old vault. We walked over to the main square. Then over to a Franciscan monastery. The monastery is still in use. We saw a wonderful library with some very old books, the sacristy, and the catacombs. They buried people there instead of just storing bones.

We had a wonderful buffet lunch at a nice restaurant. It had typical Lima food. We then caught a taxi to the beach. Well beach might be a stretch, it was mainly rocks. We watched the surfers and paragliders. We are now on our way back to the hotel to get a bit of sleep before our early flight home.

****Robin's Note****

Hello everyone, as Joel wrote we are on our way back to the US of A tomorrow. Los estados unidos. People often ask " where are you from?" so we first say los estados, then Minnesota, then say near Canada. At least this gives them some idea of where we live.

We are staying in Miraflores, which is a wealthy suburb of Lima. I met the woman who owns the hotel. Her portrait is in the lounge. She looks to be in her early 70s and the portrait was painted when she was 26. The hotel originally was her family home .

We see servants walking the dogs and taking children out to the park. Often the women wear aprons. There are many hi-rises along the ocean and also tennis clubs. Such a contrast from the remote places we have visited in Bolivia!

Today as we were walking back to the hotel a young man asked us if we liked Peru. "Yes" we said. I think that Peruvians may feel that people have only one mental picture of Peru which doesn't include the urbane, hip and fast paced life of the cities. We have had such a great time on our trip! There is so much to see in Peru that I know we will return again someday. Perhaps we will become members of the South American Explorer's Club.

Tomorrow we leave for home, I am ready to drink water straight from the tap and also be able to flush my toilet paper down the toilet. I also look forward to seeing our family and friends.

Hasta luego!

Museums in Cusco

Today we stayed in town and went to several museums. This meant we saw a lot of religious paintings. We can skip any more of those.

We did some pre-Inca artifacts. They were interesting. We visited a monastary for nuns. I thought they were in convents. We will have to find this out from our friends at St Kates when we get back. The nuns still use the building in the evening after the museum closes. We heard prayers in the church.

Another museum we visited had small modern statuary. We visited an interpretive center about Machu Picchu and one of the national parks.

We went out of the tourist section and climbed the funerary tower with a statue of one of the Inca leaders on top. It was built in 1992 so it has a while to go before it is a relic.

We talked with a family at breakfast who had to miss their bus to Puno because the father was sick. We told them about the modern way to go, airplane. They found a flight and got there the same day, in less time. They left us a nice note.

We continue to have interesting meals. You never know what your food will look like. We ate our lunch on a balcony overlooking the main square.

Tomorrow we are off to Lima. We will get to see the Pacific Ocean.

Sightseeing around Cusco

We have spent the last two days sightseeing around Cusco. Yesterday we hiked up the hill behind the town to look at some ruins. We were also looking for a place to ride horses (that was Robin´s idea). We didn´t have to look for the stable because a guy with horses found us.

We rode the horses for two hours and saw three sites. One had nice carvings in the stones and caverns to walk through. The others were lesser sites, but still nice to see. A guy from the stables (maybe stables gives the corral more credit that it had) walked with us. On the way back to town we saw the big garrison right outside of town. It is called Sacsayhuaman (it is pronounced like "sexy woman").

In the evening we did our obligatory shopping. We went to a large central market. It seems like everyone goes to the same warehouse and gets their stuff to sell. On the way home it started to rain. Luckily we got to the hotel before the downpour. We had a nice dinner at a restaurant near the hotel. We talked with a guy from Virginia there.

This morning we hired a taxi to take us to Pisac. It is about 40 minutes away in the Sacred Valley. There is another large complex of ruins above the city. We had thought about hiking up to them but were glad we took the taxi up the hill. A young man from the neighboring village acted as a guide for us. We ran into our guide from Machu Picchu there. It is a small world even in Peru.

We stopped at the market in Pisac on the way back to Cusco. It was pretty much like all the other markets. It did have a few different things, but most of the textiles were from that same warehouse everything comes from.

We stopped at another site on the way back. It is a site that was for worshipping water named Tambo Machay. It had a nice water fountain at the front. One of the pictures on this entry is from that site.

There should be more pictures on our picture site soon.

We have switched hotels for the next two nights. Tomorrow we will visit some museums in Cusco. Then it will be off to Lima.

**** Robin´s notes****

Hello everyone, It´s hard work being a tourist. My legs are finding new muscles with all of this uphill hiking. Ibuprofen is wonderful! Yes, we did go horseback riding and it was great. The horses were small with small delicate hooves. They may have had some Paso Fino blood in them.

We are getting along ok communicating in Spanish. At least I think we are!
On Sunday night we went to a local traditional dance performance. Joel filmed some of the dances. Also he volunteered ( with a little nudge) to join the dancers on the stage for the last dance. Unfortuneately I still have to learn how to use the camera to film a sequence, but I did take a picture.

Today was beautiful weatherwise. As we were walking among the ruins we saw a large bird soaring which our guide indentified as an eagle. We have also seen a lot of "LBB´s" (little brown birds). The rainy season is now finished and the dry season is about to begin. Subsequently everything is green and flowering. We were able to eat the fruit of a cactus which tasted like kiwi- yummy.

Tonight we may go see "Motorcycle Diaries" at a local cafe and relive our experience in Machu Picchu.

Hasta lumbago!

Our trip to Machu Picchu

We got up early on Friday and took a van ride to the train station. From there we rode the Vistadome train to Aguas Calientes. The view was not as good as it could have been because the windows were fogging over. We checked into our hotel and had a great room, it overlooked the Urabamba river. We had to keep the door to the porch closed because to river noise was so loud.

We got on a bus to go up to the ruins. They were new Mercedes Benz buses. There are lots of switchbacks and the buses pass each other on the way. They pass very close together.

The ruins are amazing. Just like the pictures, but very stunning in person. We walked around with our guide, Cesar, for about 4 hours. The stone work is impressive. It would be hard to describe the splendor and beauty. It is such a treasure for Peru.

We walked out on the Inca Trail. You can not get very far now that the landslide has wiped out the trail before the Sun Gate. We took a picture by the blockade to prove we didn´t just wimp out.

For some reason there are no bathrooms on the ruins. You can go out to the consesions and use them. We think the Andean people don´t need to go very often. They certainly don´t drink very often.

We went back down about 2 PM and had a sack lunch the travel group provided. Robin and I then took a 3 hour nap. We walked around town and had a light dinner and went to bed.

In the morning it was raining. We waited a couple of hours and it stopped. We went back up and climbed Huayna Picchu. It is a peak/pinnacle behind the ruins. It took about an hour to get there. It is terraced just like the rest of the ruins. It was just a look out and signaling point. When we got down we rested a while and hiked to the Inka Bridge.

The Inca bridge is a path along a sheer cliff. The bridge is a bunch of stacked rocks that allowed the Inca´s to get around the cliff. It must have been very narrow.

I got to see a weather station too!

Back in Agua Calienties we ate a light snack and sat by the river.

About 5 PM we boarded the train and returned. The views were much better on the way back. We got in a tour bus all by ourselves and got to our hotel about 8 PM. We slept well after the hiking.

This morning we saw a small military parade in front of the cathedral. We also walked into the cathedral. It looked like Easter services were still going on.

We are now on our last week of travel. We will tour the other ruins around Cusco in the Sacred Valley. It is not hard to find someone to take you. Everyone wants to get you a tour or into their restaurant.

----Hello from Robin---
As you can see we have had some great experiences throughout our trip. Some things that we´ve noticed-- We watched the Inca trail porters carrying the gringo´s supplies, and they have the most well developed muscles in their legs that I have ever seen. Cesar, our guide, said that the porters have to be at least 17 years old but some of them looked younger than that!

The colors in the markets are a whirling mass of radiance. So far we have held off on buying much since we are still in the midst of travelling. We have gotten used to the street vendors approaching us to sell us stuff. It´s a constant verbal assault! We just say ¨no gracias¨and keep on walking.

Last night we ate at a local chicken joint and I wasn´t able to finish my meal. A little boy came up to me and asked for my leftovers. I asked the host and he said that was ok, in fact he helped the boy put the food in a plastic bag. It´s a sobering reminder of the inequities of life.

Digital cameras are everywhere, when we were on the train everyone kept holding up their cameras to take pictures of the mountains. It was rather funny. I have started to call Joel ¨Cecil De Mille¨. He is having a lot of fun documenting our trip and I am enjoying the fruits of his labour.

We may go on a horseback ride to some nearby ruins! We´ll see how the weather cooperates. Take care.

We are in Peru

We are now in Peru.

We did a few things in Bolivia before we got here though. We climbed the hill behind the hotel. It was good practice for Machu Picchu. There is a shrine there with 12 stations of the cross. It will be busy tomorrow when all the people from the surrounding area come for a pilgrimage on Good Friday. The picture on this entry is from there, overlooking Lake Titicaca.

We took a bus to Puno Peru yesterday. We had to get out of the bus in Bolivia, go through customs, walk into Peru, and go through customs there. It was very simple. Save your papers when you travel and learn what embarcation means.

We traveled around Lake Titicaca for almost 4 hours. We talked with some people from Australia on the way. We ended up in Puno, Peru. Our hotel was nice. We walked around to get our bearings. We saw a parade with a large statue of Christ. It was for the Day of the children (Dia del niños [it is easier to type those spanish letters on a spanish keyboard]). Later we had dinner at a typical Peruvian restaurant.

We got up early today and took a cab for half an hour to Juliaca. We flew to Cusco in about 45 minutes. We have walked around the main plaza and have fended off the street vendors. We have been told about 5 times where the Inca stone with twelve angles is located in a wall. We had to walk by it several times.

The big news is that we met with our guide for Machu Picchu. The good news is that we will see the ruins, the bad news is that we will not be hiking there (maybe our legs are complaining). Two weeks ago there were two landslides on the stretch we were going to walk on. It affects everyone on the trail. The people on the 4 day trek have to hike back down to the train and ride it the last 15 kilometers.

We will have two days at the ruins now. Hopefully we will be able to see more that the standard tourist.

We will be back in touch on Saturday or Sunday.

Hello all, this is Robin typing- I was watching Joel type this entry and giving editorial comment. Visiting Peru and Bolivia is so exciting- the sights,sounds, and experiences are incredible. We are now on the tourist trek, I hope that we will be able to have some meaningful interactions with Peruvians besides just being asked to spend money!

Please take time to post a comment or two, we read the entries and are very entertained. Take care, Love, Robin and Joel

Last hours in Bolivia

We are spending our last hours in Bolivia. At noon we get on a bus and head for Peru. We will get to Puno, Peru this evening. Our first bus border crossing together.

Yesterday we went to the University museum in Sucre. It was small but very interesting. We split from the group we had been traveling with and flew to La Paz. The taxi could not get into the Sucre airport because the LAB airline workers were blocking the entrance. They let people walk in though.

We got to La Paz and took a taxi to the bus terminal (just a storefront outside a plaza). We took a four hour bus ride to Copacabana. We could see Lake Titicaca for about an hour before we got there. It is really big and beautiful. We had to get off the bus while it went across the water and we took a launch. I first thought it was for safety but then I realized it was because the people added too much weight.

We stayed at a lovely hotel, La Cupula. Right before sunset we walked down to the lake and took a quick swim. It was cold but managable.

This morning we walked to some stones carved by the Incas. They are in a small field behind a gas station.

See you in Peru.