Today we had a tour of the city of Cusco. We started out by driving out of the city to see the ruins of the lightning god temple, it is amazingly well preserved. It was kind of cool to see how the walls were shaped to look like lightning. We also drove up to the fortress that guarded the city for them. You could really see what a great location this was for the fortress, as it overlooked the entire city and sat in a narrow gap between the mountains that is really the only approach to the city.

We then came back into the city to see the big cathedral, which was pretty spectacular, like a lot of cathedrals.   This one was huge, almost like a little town in itself with really nice gardens. They had a restaurant and some shops set up inside of it.  While in Cusco we saw two processions for Corpus Christi, which is apparently a really big festival here that goes on for 12 days. It is ending tomorrow so I think that’s why we’re seeing a lot of the processions now. The last thing we did was go to dinner at a place. Our guide recommended for us. It was right off the main square and we had it pretty much to ourselves, so we were able to sit by a window and watch the going on in the street while we ate. The food was really good and I tried a local drink, which seemed like a great idea until I finished it and realized there was a big ice cube in it.  Hopefully this cube was made with filtered water.

Bus tour-Views, Hey Jude, and an amazing church

They picked us up on time at 5:30(!) for another bus tour that got us from Puno to Cusco.  Along the way we stopped at a lookout with great views, a lot of vendors, and bathrooms.  We also stopped in the small towns of Pukara and Raqchi, both of which were nice.  After those towns we had lunch at a really nice place with all glass walls and a pretty good buffet.  There was a great view of snow-capped mountains and a pretty waterfall.  There were also alpacas hanging around that we could walk right up to and pet if we wanted.  They had a little 3-piece band playing while we ate.  It was weird to hear Hey Jude in the Andes mountains when you’re surrounded by all the traditional culture. 

After lunch we stopped at a big Incan village where the guide was pretty good, told us a lot about the place. Why it was there (part of the Inca trail goes by it) and who built it.  Our last stop was Andahuaylillas to see the San Pedro Apostol Church.  There are some amazing paintings and sculptures here, along with gold covered altars.  Unfortunately, photography was forbidden inside.  I guess they didn’t build this church for tourists though.  It was a good, but very long, day.

Floating Islands on Lake Titicaca

 

Today we were picked up at 7:30-they were right on time which was surprising.  Confusion because we took the elevator to the ground floor to be picked up, but everyone else met in the lobby on the 2nd floor.  So they were looking for us when we were already waiting by the door.  Anyway, it was a quick trip to the dock where we met our guide, Pabel, who spoke good English and seemed very knowledgeable.  We took a nice boat ride to a floating island.  The islands are made from the reeds that surround the lake by the Uros people.  We met the “President” of the island.  The island had 4 families on it for a total of 10 people.  The president was nice, and funny.  He told us how the make the islands and a lot of other stuff.  At one point during his talk another guy walked up holding a dead pelican, which seemed to catch everyone off-guard, including the president.  We then went into one of the houses and put on some of their clothes for a picture.  Then they put on the hard sell for things they had knitted.  We liked a small tapestry but they wanted 200 Sols which seemed really high.  Instead we bought a pillow cover for 100 sols, which was also high, but not as bad.

Took a short ride in a reed boat, which was pushed by a regular motor boat, to the capital island.  This was kind of a scam and they pressured us to pay for this goofy boat ride. We did basically nothing on this island but wait to go on another ride to Tanquile.  They were basically holding us captive in hopes we’d buy some food or trinkets.  I was excited to see the floating islands and meet the people but unfortunately, while it is still cool and I’d recommend it, it very much is a tourist thing now.  In fact, I later learned that most of the Uros people don’t even live on the islands anymore.  They just go there during the day to perform for tourists, then return to their actual houses in Puno.

We got back on the boat for another nice ride-the weather was chilly but completely sunny, and the lake was calm and beautiful. This trip lasted about 1 hour 20 minutes before arriving at Tanquile.  Which is a regular (non floating) island.  Very reminiscent of a Greek island.  We Walked a steep path to the top while Pabel taught us some things, he was very conscious of the effort this was taking for us in the elevation and stopped several times while explaining the dating process and the meaning of the local’s clothes to us. We had a nice lunch outside before our trip back to Puno, which took about 1 hour 45 minutes on the boat. 

Once back in Puno we took an Uber to Lima Street-a pedestrian street filled with shops and restaurants.  Here we got more Sols, water and some souvenirs.  Ate at a brick oven pizza place and it was pretty good.  We grabbed a taxi and got back to the hotel with no issues.

Colca Canyon, Condors and COLD

 

Today we were picked up at 6:15 and we continued the bus tour from yesterday.  We bought a tablecloth in Yanque, which is a nice little town, they sure put on a show for the tourists, dancing around the square in traditional dress.  They also had llamas wearing sunglasses, which I thought was hilarious.

We then stopped at some viewpoints in the Cola Valley and then Canyon of the Condors.  At first not much was happening, They warned us that it often is too cold in the morning for the birds to fly. But then after about 1/2 an hour, the birds started appearing in the sky. These condors are huge and they're very cool to watch flying around. We must have watched for at least another 1/2 an hour before getting back on the bus.  

After a bit we stopped for lunch, which was pretty good. After about two more hours on the bus we arrived at the Lagunillas Lake overlook, near Puno.  It was REALLY windy and cold.   The elevation here is 14478 feet.  They had a gift shop which was a good way to get out of the cold.  We bought a couple of souvenirs here.  Before arriving in Puno we stopped for gas and a potty break. We got out of the bus and stepped into a cold gale.  Temp was 40, the real feel was19.  At the lake overlook the wind may actually have been stronger and the temp colder.

At the end of another long day we arrived in Puno, which is the city on Lake Titicaca.  We had a good dinner (with kind of poor service) in the hotel restaurant looking out at the lake and city through floor to ceiling windows, pretty nice (but still cold)

 

 

Bus tour to Yura and Chivay

 

Waited over an hour for our tour bus/van.  Today we drove up into the mountains, stopping at viewpoints on the other side of the volcanoes that surround Arequipa.  We saw a lot of wild Guanacos and some pretty nice scenery during the ride.  We stopped at the highest point of the trip-almost 16000 ft, both of us had headaches from elevation.  I had been chewing Coca leaves to stave off the elevation sickness, but it still got to me some.  

We also stopped and hung out with Llamas and Alpacas along the way.  We stopped in Yura and Chivay-where we had lunch.  We got to our hotel above the town of Chivay, and we had the rest of the afternoon ourselves.  Of course, I still felt like crap (elevation didn’t help) so I took a nap when we got there.  I woke up freezing, it turns out there was no heating system in the hotel.  

We just had a small heater that didn’t warm up room at all.  All we had to help us was heated mattress pads.  So if we were in bed it was fine, out of bed, not so much.  We just ate at hotel restaurant, all they had for heat there was a small wood burning stove, the workers were wearing winter coats, very bizarre.  The food was pretty good, just had to eat it before it got cold.  Poor night of sleep-air is VERY dry and I couldn’t get comfortable.

Just a long and tiring day for me, did see some good stuff though.

Tour of Arequipa

 

Even though we got in after 3 I woke up around 6:30. My cold is much worse and that may have contributed to my not being able to sleep as now a cough has started, yeah!  We went down for breakfast at 9:30 just before they stopped serving and then went back to bed.  We had a 2 o’clock tour of Arequipa, our driver was the same guy that picked us up from the bus at 2:30 AM.  Maya was our guide, and she was very good.  We went to a couple of viewpoints to see the see the city from above and the volcanoes that surround it.  We then walked around the city, Maya even helped us get cold medicine for me from the pharmacy. It's pretty nice, with interesting squares and, of course, cathedrals.  They have an interesting way of displaying Jesus on the cross that I've never seen before.  They put things on there that were used at the time of the crucifixion.  These include the spear used by the soldiers to check if he was alive, the ladder used to take him down, and other things like that.  We then completed the day with a tour of the Santa Catalina monastery, which was like its own city in the 1700s.  It’s amazing how big it is.  Each sister had their own little house, and there were streets and shops and everything.  All inside the walls of the monastery. 

On Maya’s recommendation, we had dinner at Chi Cha across the street from the Monastery, it was pretty good.  Deb saved me from using tap water to wash down the medicine we got at the pharmacy.  I was already sick enough.  Back to the hotel to medicate me and try to get sleep.  A good day, other than how crappy I felt.

Nazca

I'm happy to say that we had a decent breakfast buffet today. Best one so far. Jose picked us up and took us to the little airport for the Nazca lines flyover.

There were seven of us in a Cessna, which was cozy. From what we read online the night before, I was supposedly overweight, but no one said anything about it. This flight was really cool. Seeing the figures with our own eyes from above was awesome. The only issue I had was my headphones kind of sucked, so I was missing a lot of what the co-pilot/guide was telling us. This was probably made worse by the head cold that I had. Jose drove us back to the hotel, and this was interesting to say the least.

Traffic in Peru as a whole is crazy, with no one paying a bit of attention to the stop signs or the lanes. But this took it to a new level, Nazca is a small little dusty town and there are basically no traffic controls at all, other than speed bumps. We got stuck in one spot where it literally looked like bumper cars. A lot of little cars wedged up against each other at all angles. Jose decided to get around this traffic clot by taking a quick left into a gas station and running through the gas station to come out back onto the street on the other side of the cluster. Only problem with this maneuver was, besides the gas station being extremely narrow, another car was coming into the gas station opposite the way we were trying to exit and we almost had a head on collision. So that was fun.

After we survived the ride back to the hotel, we walked down to Mamashana restaurant nearby and had the best meal up to this point, by far. This restaurant had Taquenos appetizers which were absolutely amazing. They were light, fluffy, Filo-type dough filled with cheese. The entrees themselves were also pretty good. After lunch we walked around a little bit, got some souvenirs and stacked up on snacks and water at a grocery store for our next bus ride. This bus ride was supposed to be 10 hours long! As it turned out, this bus ride was actually more like 11 hours as we left about 3:30 and got in at 2:30. But there was some good views along the way, with the ocean crashing right up against the desert and the setting sun and dust adding color. It was after three by the time we got to our bed. Long day, but good (thankfully we had good food).