Lake Titicaca

Good morning, Puno! This is the view that we woke up to this morning. Bright, early, and COLD!!! 36F this morning. Time to layer up and catch a boat on the lake. 

Our first stop are the floating islands of the Uros Indians. The islands and boats are built with reeds. They showed us a model and demonstrated how they built the island that we were on. 

We got to meet the families that live on the island, except for the kids because they were in school. 

Our group was separated between the families and invited into their homes. Cheryl was dressed in typical Uros everyday wear. 

Then we took a ride in one of their reed boats. 

Across the channel to a different floating island. 

After we are finished with the Uros, we head to real island, Taquilla Island, to visit with the Quechua. 

They made us a great lunch of freshly caught trout. It was WONDERFUL! Even Cheryl ate it all. 

After that the boat took over an hour to get back to Puno. What is that? A Peruvian Alcatraz? 

Ha ha, no. That's our hotel. 

We got some news this morning which is changing our travel plans. There is a major strike going on in Juliaca. That is where we are supposed to catch a flight back to Lima. So, to try to get around the trouble, we are leaving the hotel at 3am tomorrow morning. They are expecting 27F ... Brrrr...

So, early dinner and early bed tonight.

On to Puno

We got to sleep in again this morning. Wake-up call at 8am. We left the hotel at 9 am to tour the museum next door to the hotel, called Convento de Santo Domingo del Cusco. It had a pretty courtyard and great views of the city. 

Now we are on a 60 minute flight to Juliaca. 

I was a little shaky when we got off the airplane in Juliaca ~12,550 feet. After we took the bus to Sillustani at 13,200 feet high, we must have adjusted to the altitude because we felt fine. The short story is that Sillustani is an Incan burial ground. There is a real long story (the tour was two hours long). 

More and more people are succumbing to altitude sickness. One guy is confined to a wheelchair and is on oxygen. Cheryl and I are fine though. Since so many people are sick, we skipped the visit with a local family. That's too bad because seeing how people live has been my favorite part of the trip. Here is an example of a home that we would have visited. 

We made it to the hotel in Puno. It's not like Cousco where there was a lot to do around the hotel and it was safe to go anywhere. There is nothing around the hotel here, and we were told to remain on the hotel grounds.  But it is very pretty here at night. Our room has a view across Lake Titicaca.  

Buenos noches!

Cusco

Welcome to Cusco... And we're dropping  like flies. One fellow came down with the flu 3 days ago. He then passed it to his son, yesterday. The lady from Singapore is vomiting, and so is one lady from Canada. There are also others down with montezuma's revenge, colds and altitude sickness. As for us, we are trying to avoid all the sick people. Well on to today...

Our tour director, Barbara, let us sleep in until 8am this morning. But being so used to getting up early, Cheryl and I were both up at 5:30. We had breakfast and now we are sitting in a "history of Incas" talk given be a local university professor. Very boring...

Our walking tour of the city started with sacsayhuaman... More Incan ruins. 

After that we hit a couple of churches. Those were really interesting, especially the paintings. In the paintings the camels are llamas and in the Peruvian painting of the Last Supper, Christ and his disciples are eating guinea pig, and Judas is depicted as Incan.

Templo de la Sacrada Familia

Templo de San Blas

There were no pics allowed inside the churches. 

After that we were on our own for 5 hours. Cusco is a very safe city. Our guide told us to feel free to go anywhere, so we did. 

Hasta luego!

Tomorrow we head to Puna. At 12,421 feet, it is the highest we will stay overnight.

The return to Machu Picchu

... 4:45am wake up  call this morning! We want to get to Machu Picchu before it gets too hot and crowded... And to see the sunrise from the Sun Gate. 

It was supposed to take us 2 hours to hike to the Sun Gate, but it took Cheryl and me less than an hour to get out there and back with many photo ops. It was very steep, uneven and rocky, but it was no problem for us. 

Since we had a lot of time left before we have to catch the train to Cusco, we decided to hike out to the Inka Bridge too.

This was supposed to take us one hour and it took us less than half an hour. 

Next since we still had lots of time, we went up to the guard house. 

AND since we still had time, we went shopping in the handicraft market. I did pretty good with the bargaining; 30% discount and 2 for 1 discounts. 

We finally caught our 1.5 hour train ride, and this guy showed up to entertain and freak Cheryl out. Haha

Right now we are on a two hour bus ride back to cusco. We have free time tonight, Cheryl and I are pretty tired so we are having dinner at the hotel and turning in early. 

Buenos Noches

Machu picchu

Finally we are on our way Machu Picchu. We got a 6 am wake up call, left the hotel at 7am and headed straight to a chicha beer making demonstration. Beer at 7am is way too early for me!

After that we headed to the ruins of Ollantaytambo (an ancient Incan stronhold). All those stairs and 10000 elevation is a warm up for Machu Picchu. 

After that we hit the train for Machu Picchu and arrived in the early afternoon. 

It's every bit as spectacular as I thought it  would be! 

We had a 2 hour late afternoon walking tour. I can't wait to head back and explore tomorrow morning! As for this evening we have a class on how make Pisco sours and ceviche. It's a double pisco sour night. 

Hasty luego!

Saying goodbye to Lima

We left Lima early in the morning to catch an airplane to the airport. When we got. to Cuzco, we picked up a bus and a local guide. I forgot to mention that there are 24 people traveling with us. 

After that, our trip was blessed by a shaman.

We pet llamas, alpacas, and vicuña. 

Then there was an hour of shopping!

Then we checked into the Aranawa Hotel in Sacred Valley. It's the most amazing hotel we have ever stayed at! It is beautiful and has an in room jacuzzi. It's too bad we are staying for only one night. 

Buenos Noches Sacred Valley

Touring Lima

Since our tour group wasn't meeting up until 11am, Cheryl and I decided to go for  a 4-5 mile run. We left the hotel at 6am and took a path that led us down to the ocean front. It was very pretty there. I don't have any pics to share since my phone won't fit in my shorts pockets, but I did try to take a picture of my camera with my phone. 

After that we had an amazing breakfast at the hotel and left for the market. There was a lot of fruit , meat, fish, vegetables and flowers for sale. 

After that we went to a culinary school where the head chef there made us several traditional Peruvian dishes for lunch.

We met with a city tour guide and toured the city center and Franciscan church catacombs. They are much better than the catacombs in Rome.

At 4:45am, we leave for Cuzco. Those Pisco Sours that we had for dinner should wear off by then 😜

A couple of pics of Lima at night.

Travel day

Today is a travel day, so it is a catch up day. Right now we are sitting in the airport at Puerto Maldonado. We had some major lightning, thunder and pouring rain yesterday afternoon that lasted through the night. It gave us a nice long rest and time for Cheryl to get over her bout of food poisoning. She was the first one in the group to succumb. She's feeling much better this morning.

So we say goodbye to our Eco camp in the rainforest, Corto Maltes. No more mosquitoes buzzing in our ears, frogs on the toilet, monster spiders under the bed, or giant grasshoppers in our clothes.

And we take the boat back to Puerto Maltes.

Then a bus to the airport,

Then a plane to Lima with a quick stop over in Cusco. Our hotel in Lima has hot showers and the water here is drinkable.YAY! Plus it is really really nice.

We are going to get a bag of muddy clothes to the laundry and go out to find something to eat for dinner.

Buenos noches from Lima!

Last day in the rainforest

... And boy are we glad! The Mosquitos are terrible! Right now it is 6am and we just hiked out to a camouflaged hut. Now we are waiting for parrots to arrive. They come to eat mud from the cliff.

They're here! There are hundreds of them! Very spectacular!

After that we had breakfast, and I took a power nap in the hammock before we took the boat out to a farm. They have a lot of the same fruits as Hawaii. What I found interesting was the yuca; which is a potato like plant. We had it fried for dinner last night. They were great. The other interesting thing was the cocoa. This is what cocoa looks like,

It's soft and slimy until it is dried and roasted. After we got back we had time for a 45 minute nap before lunch. That's nap #2 for me.

After lunch we took a trip to a local family where we saw demos on hunting, spinning, weaving, music and fire starting.

Now we are relaxing and Cheryl is getting in her nap #2 until dinner. It is pouring rain right now so there isn't much else going on. I'll have to wait to post this until the electricity comes back on.

Adios rainforest!