Machu Picchu had been awesome, and I thought, "Mission accomplished!" and felt like anything else we saw on the way home would just be bonus material. The pressure was off to "see more cool stuff" and we just sort of enjoyed wending our way back towards home.
We awoke in the misty jungle of Aguas Calientes and prepared to head out.
Breakfast at the hotel included cereal (Post Toasties, I believe); hot chocolate; yogurt; and some European-style offerings like bread with meats and cheeses.
The sugar there is brown and large-grained.
As we packed up, I noticed a plethora of water bottles. Getting enough to drink was a constant challenge, and we were always having to shop for more bottled water.
We looked out our window and were a bit surprised to see a line snaking up to our hotel and beyond. It turned out that it was the line for the bus to Machu Picchu, and it extended 6 blocks (about 300m) from the bus station. Apparently a big boulder had rolled into the roadway overnight, and the busses couldn't get past. Dang. I would probably have made the hike at that point.
I liked the big curvy brush at the "train wash".
So with that, we hopped on our train and enjoyed the view on our 2-hour return trip.
Linette and I talked to strangers while the kids played "The Game" (a cooperative card game we got for Christmas).
In Ollantaytambo, we switched to a van, for the trip back to Cusco. On our way out of town we saw what appears to be a 3-generation picture. I also like the ladies chilling in the background.
We were all a tad tired from our adventures.
We arrived in Cusco in the early afternoon, which gave us time to drop our stuff at our apartment and wander around the town a bit more.
Here is the "sacred garden" of Qorikancha (the Temple of the Sun), which we had looked down on from the balcony before. This is the garden that used to have full-sized silver or gold statues of llamas and stuff.
Here is the curved astronomical room of Qorikancha, from the outside.
And I just kept loving the colorful "backpacks" with the old-fashioned European-style hats.
And even though we'd seen a lot of this already, the stonework continued to impress.
We decided to go to a Korean restaurant, but it was closed until 6pm, so we took a moment to decide what to do next.
My go-to answer was of course "ice cream!" This place pours your ice cream mix onto a frozen pan, and then scrapes it up and mixes it in with your Oreos or whatever, and puts it in a waffle cone for you. Finally, some excellent ice cream in Peru!
Meanwhile, across the alley, everyone else was getting crepes from a guy who pours the batter onto a round plate that's hot. So kinda the same but opposite.
While we were shopping, this adorable girl from the shop made friends with us.
We wandered past the plaza and around some of the great stonework again.
Here's the famous 12-angled stone. Thanks to Adam for helping me out here.
We were constantly approached by guys selling their art. Kelsi finally bought a painting from this guy.
This night we finally shopped in earnest.
I didn't buy this shirt, but thought the llama walkers were awesome.
I did buy this shirt that looked like the "Adidas" logo.
My favorite souvenir from the trip was this chess set, which has Incas vs. Conquistadors. I love that the knights are llamas.
Erika had these adorable shoes custom made. She ordered them before heading to Machu Picchu, and picked them up when we returned. Linette coveted them.
Erika also got a cute blanket, which was put to use against the chilly night.
We went back and had Korean food, which was pretty good. Leslye had never had Korean food before, and really hated the kimchi when we had her try a bite, but it was nice to eat something different. (The Peruvian food is good, but every restaurant has the same menu).
The owner was from Korea, and I spoke with him in Korean for a little while. It was really hard not to throw Spanish words in there, however, which was kind of funny.
We felt no need to stay out especially late that night, so we enjoyed playing Pit back at the apartment.
Saturday, January 12, 2019 (Happy Birthday, Bob!) we flew out of Cusco.
It was fun to see all the cargo ships heading for port in Lima.
At the Lima airport, we hung out and read books for a while, while Erika tried to get in touch with her friends there to finalize plans.
Our original plan for Lima was to go swimming with wild sea lions! Apparently for $49 they take you 90 minutes away to an island where you see a bunch of penguins and thousands of sea lions. Then the juveniles swim out to check out the boat and everyone jumps in the water and the sea lions swim around you and sniff your toes and stuff. That sounded like a lot of fun, and all the reviews said it was awesome.
However, they also all said that it was ridiculously cold (even with wet suits), and that lots of people got seasick. We weren't really set up to do that (we had no towels, for example, nor anywhere to shower afterwards); Linette didn't want to get sick; and Leslye didn't actually know how to swim (though she offered that with a life jacket she probably knew how to float!). So we ultimately decided to save the money and do something more relaxing.
So we stored our luggage at the "Left Luggage" place (I was pleased with how much we were able to shove into two lockers); and then we walked out to the main street and grabbed a taxi van to take us downtown.
There we had lunch at a tasty place that happened to have 80s MTV videos playing.
Pizarro founded Lima in 1535. Cusco was nice and all, but it was clear up in the mountains and they needed a main port to get things going. The Cathedral of Lima was built starting that same year (and completed in 1649). After lunch we went inside to see the cathedral.
A lady took us on a tour of the place, which has cool stuff like this ornate carved wood covered in gold leaf.
The cathedral also has catacombs underneath it, where hundreds of people have been buried. Some of the bones can be seen through a grate in the floor from the main chapel.
Here's a nun walking into the chapel.
Outside of the main rooms are covered walkways with cool arches and ornate ceilings. Someone discovered that under the white plaster on the walls were frescoes that had been painted back when the cathedral was built, so those have been uncovered and restored.
The tour ended with a walk through the underground catacombs.
Apparently the priests would take a body, treat it with quick lime to dissolve it down to bones, and then stack the skeletons up to 15 feet deep in stone chambers. Then one day someone (perhaps someone with OCD) decided to reorganize all the bones by category, and then people made artwork out of them. I'm not sure I'm on board with this plan, but it was definitely something.
The library there looked like a Harry Potter library. This particular picture was taken by a fellow named Jorrick Kalter, from the Netherlands, who was part of our tour group. I liked his picture a bit better than mine, so we swapped contact info and he sent it to me.
At the end of our tour, a wedding was taking place in the chapel, complete with the organ playing "Here Comes the Bride."
Our next taxi was a station wagon, and Linette and Leslye hopped in the trunk of it.
Our other stop that day was at Parque de la Reserva (The Park of the Reserve), which has a bunch of really cool fountains, including the largest one, called "The Magic Fountain." They have a laser light show at night, so we went early and had fun sitting and reading books and relaxing until the show started.
The sunset was nice that night.
There was a splash pad where a huge crowd of kids was getting soaked. They really seemed to be enjoying it.
I wandered around looking at various fountains in the park.
When it got dark, there was a big laser light show along the fountains, similar to Disney's "World of Color".
In this clip, you can see cultural stuff projected in the middle, with random cool laser stuff going on along the edges.
In this second clip, it's just fountains and light, backed by some Vivaldi ("Summer", movement 3, from the Four Seasons, I believe).
The "Magic Fountain" is the largest single fountain there and with the background lights, it was fun to take cool silhouette pictures against it.
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| Sienna |
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| Randy |
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| Kelsi, I'm pretty sure. |
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| Leslye |
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| Leslye and Erika |
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| Randy and Linette |
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| Erika, Leslye, Kelsi and Sienna |
What a nice, pleasant evening. We just sat on benches talking for a while, killing time until it was time to go check in for our late-night flight. It was cute watching Sienna talking Spanish with Leslye for quite some time, with Leslye looking her right in the eye and listening intently.
The taxies right outside the crowded park tried to overcharge us. Erika asked one guy how much for a ride to the airport, and he said 90 Soles ($30). Erika just said, "Yeah, chao," ("See ya!") and walked off, and the guy seemed really surprised, which was funny. We ended up catching one out at the main street for a third of that.
At the airport we retrieved our luggage, and then gave hugs to Erika and Kelsi, who would be staying in Lima for the sealing on Tuesday. We also said good-bye to Leslye with big hugs, since we didn't know if we would ever see her again. She was such a delight to have along on our trip!
Our flight left at 1:30am, and had another confusing layover in Mexico City. (Some ladies next to us kept waiting for the board to show what gate their flight was at and then totally missed their flight because it never came up).
Our flight from Mexico City to Las Vegas arrived about 11:30 a.m., and it took an hour to get our luggage, likely influenced by the government shutdown that was in effect at the time. I sent a message to my siblings to let them know "We're back in the United States, flushing toilet paper with wild abandon!" (In Peru you have to put all your toilet paper in a basket next to the toilet to avoid clogging the sewer system).
We drove 6 hours to get home from Las Vegas. I had caught a bit of sleep on the plane, so I was able to make it most of the way, but Linette took over for the last hour or two.
We also ate at Wendy's on the way home, and we were all astounded at how amazingly delicious it was.
When we got home, Sienna was apparently a tad on the tired side.
I thought it was appropriate that she wrapped up in an alpaca blanket. (I believe that one is from Kelsi and Linette's trip to Ecuador).
Meanwhile, Kelsi, Erika and Leslye stayed behind in Lima, staying with the family of Maria Isabel (who we had hung out with in Huancayo and Concepción). Apparently all three girls (Kelsi, Erika and Leslye) shared one twin bed. They worked it out by having two people point one way, and the other upside-down between them.
Erika remembered that she left her charger at the apartment in Cusco, but the AirBnB guy was so nice that he sent it with a relative to Lima, and Erika was able to pick it up when they went to the temple on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, January 15, 2019, Erika's converts Karina Ccorahua and Jason Gil were sealed in the Lima Temple. I got a panicked text from Erika about 11am our time, saying "My temple recommend is expired!!" The temple presidency member was unsympathetic, so there was an hour of panic there. Finally Erika's stake president called and they were just barely able to get them in. (It behooves one to always check one's temple recommend and passports before a trip).
The sealing was beautiful, and seeing a family sealed together for eternity was a fitting capstone to the trip.
When the girls got to the United States, they were a little annoyed at the treatment they received in customs and at the high food prices in the airport. Then they bit into the food and said, "God bless America!"
Our trip to Peru was a Grand Adventure. It was wonderful to meet Erika's friends in Huánuco and Huancayo; to get to know her companion Leslye Huanaco; to see the beautiful colorful traditional outfits; and to see the amazing Inca architecture in Cusco, Ollantaytambo, and especially at Machu Picchu. And the llamas.
Thanks for sharing the experience with us!
If you're ever thinking of going to Machu Picchu yourself, you can see the ridiculous write-up I did on How to get to Machu Picchu.
