Lima to Miami to St. Louis to Home Sweet Home

No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until they come home and rest their head on an old familiar pillow - Lin Yutnag


Ok, we made it back to beautiful, wonderful Seattle where the air is rich with Oxygen. Altitude is an interesting experience. So far we can still deal with it. Best to go back to Tibet soon I figure. I hate waking up in the middle of the night having a strong desire to take a very deeeeep breath.

On Monday May 5th, we had a 2:00 a.m. wake up call to head to the Lima airport for an early flight to Miami FL. Very nice, well organized, user friendly airport. Better than some we have flown out of in eastern Europe. Sad to say that the flight was a half-hour late. That is a big deal when you get up at 2:00 a.m. Also, since we purchased a bottle of the primary ingredient to our new favorite drink, the Pisco Sour, we had to check our luggage. We don't usually check our bag unless the flight attendent is having a bad day and snags our bags. Its happened once or twice, this time we checked bags with malice and forethought. AA flight 2110 was not a full flight and we noticed that the gentleman a seat over from us was taking some pretty healthy pours out of the bottle he had in his "duty free" bag. Maybe he was afraid of flying or needed an early morning bracer. After about 2 or 3 "pours", he fell asleep for most of the 6 hour flight. The flight attendents seemed happy to leave him in La-La Land. That was a first time experience even for us. Lima to Miami was a nice quiet flight. We saw the Panama Canal along the way (new trip destinations abound).

Next stop was Miami and after we cleared "migration", got luggage, passed thru customs, rechecked luggage and got to the gate - our plane to St. Louis was boarding. That was the last confirmed sighting of our bags. Miami to St. Louis was a nice quiet flight.

Next stop was St. Louis. I didn't manage to see the Arch from the plane. Had lunch at a fine airport lunch place. Got to the gate just in time to hear "John Ott please come to the podium"...... I'M NOT GOING WITH OUT MY MR. OTT, I'm thinking. Seems that they needed his seat so a family could sit together. But he IS still flying with me. For some Karmic Reason, I'm the one who ended up sitting next to the 4 year old who never slept the whole trip and really was into turning my reading light on and off for the whole 4 hours....... very cute kid and her mother was totally stressed after hour #1. I felt really bad for all parents who travel with small children. Strapping a 4 year old in an airplane seat and having it go well ain't going to happen. St. Louis to Seattle was not a quiet flight.

So finally, we arrive in Seattle at about 9:30 p.m. on Monday May 5th. Our luggage, which we usually never check, arrived on Tuesday after a fun filled side trip to Dallas.

We had a most wonderful time. If you get a chance to visit to either the Galapagos Islands or Peru -GO, GO, GO. Life is short.

You can see some "selected" photos at http://johnott283.fotodock.co.uk/

It was a good trip.....

Over and out till the next one.

We say a fond fairwell to Snow Pigs and Inca Grapes

Sunrise on Machu Picchu is a once in a lifetime experience...... but not for us.

We had a really funny guide on this portion of the trip named Ed and for the most part he spoke really good english. He had studied tourism and history at university and had taken a class in San Francisco. But every once in a while he would throw us a loop. John and I spent a fair amount of time looking out the bus window trying to see the "snow pigs"...... snow pigs?? We could see what looked like regular pigs. Maybe snow pigs were white and furry?? No luck, we looked harder. No snow pigs to be seen. After a while it dawned on us that he was talking about "snow peaks", like you find on top of the mountians. I'm really glad we didn't ask anyone else if they had trouble seeing the snow pigs. Another Ed-ism was the "Inca Grapes". Like for fine Inca wine??? After the snow pigs confusion, we pondered this one for a shorter amount of time and figured out Ed was refering to Inca "grave" sites. When Ed spoke, everyone listened very closely.

Friday, May 2rd, our group got up at 4:00 a.m to catch a 5:15 a.m. bus to see the sunrise at the site. Plan was to see the beautiful sunrise, walk around for a bit, absorb some of the atmosphere and then 5 of our group would climb to the top of Wayapicchu Mtn. As we started up the early morning light went from black to murky gray. It was going to be a misty morning at Machu Picchu unfortunately. Busses were packed full with hikers, we wanted to be on the first bus but ended up on bus #5. It is popular to climb Wayapicchu and the park closes off the mountian after 400 people have signed in to climb, so the sooner you get there the better. After we got to the top, John and 4 others headed off for the climb and I and Maggie, the other member of the tour with a gimpy knee, headed back down to the lodge. We were the only 2 people on the bus back down. 3 if you count the bus driver......

Since Maggie and I didn't want to go back to our rooms, we went and had a nice breakfast out on the balcony over looking the river. We then took a tour to see the rare Peruvian Spectacle bear. The lodge has a program that helps return captive bears to the wild and they happened to have 2 bears on site. Also got to take an orchid tour of the lodge gardens. They had over 42 different varities of blooms to see. So while the Other 5 were sweating it out, going another 1,300 feet basically straight up, I had a really nice relaxing morining. Caught up with the Wayapicchu 5, who saw the clouds clearing after summiting and had a really great climb, for lunch and then we were off to catch the 12:20pm PeruRail back to Ollantaytambo and then transfer by bus to Cusco. Train ride back was fun as the train crew put on a fashion show of some really nice Peruvian capes and sweaters. All avaliable for purchase of course after the show. It was interesting to see our train hostess transformed from a PeruRail uniformed young lady, with glasses and pinned up hair, to an Angelina Jolie-like model with long hair and way off the shoulder ponchos...... didn't buy anything. Back up to Cusco and difficult breathing for the afternoon. Got to do some shopping for Alpaca textiles and yarn. Long and exciting day ended with a hotel dinner (Peruvian red wine is not the best) and in bed by 10:00 p.m.

Saturday, May 3rd, our last day in Cusco. We spent the day touring a local catherdal, visiting a Camelidae farm where llama, Alpaca and Vicuna are raised. Their wool is used to make many textile items which are popular with tourist and are always avaliable in the "shop" at the end of the tour. We vistited Sacsayhuman, an Inca fortress (one of the carved rocks in the wall weighs 120 tons!) and ended the tour day with a visit to Santo Domingo convent built on the site of Koricancha temple - the most important Inca ruin in Peru. The convent was built using some of the stones from the temple. They say over 200,000 lbs of gold was sent from this temple back to Spain. This is a huge temple, I can't even imagine what it looked liked when the Spaniards first saw it. Everything was said to be covered in gold leaf. Off for pisco sours and a nice lunch at a typical cosy Cusco restaurant. Food was really good! Had the rest of the day to relax, pack for Lima and shop. Some real diehard shoppers on this trip. Serious luggage was loaded on the bus when we left town. Ended the tour with a special dinner at a fancy restaurant that evening. John had Very Fried guinea pig - yummmmmm. Earlier in the trip we had both tried Alpaca Kabobs..... not bad.

Sunday, May 4th, we caught an early morning flight back to Lima and sea level - yippee!! We spent the morning touring a pottery museum and then had free time until dinner later in the evening. It NEVER rains in Lima, ever. Not a drop. Makes Seattle look like Phoenix Arizona. Lima is cloudy and over cast 8 to 10 months of the year and has a most unfortunate "fishy" smell in the air. Not smog exactly but not good air quality at all. Dinner was held at the site of a 1,500 year old Inca ruin. I didn't make the dinner but John said the food was quite good. Trout is big in Peru, along with chicken. We had a 2:00 a.m. transfer to the airport the next morning. More about that and photos later.

Over and out for now.....

Inca dinka do....

We have made it to Machu Picchu.

But here is what we forgot to tell you along the way.

1. Flying out of Quito, we saw a fantastic view of the local volcano Pichincha. BUT we flew way closer to it than I have ever flown to Mt. Rainier. Kinda like the movie Alive.... you get our drift.

2. In Lima we saw a Pre Inca pyramid in downtown Lima. How did we know you may ask, hand formed bricks and an incline vs. rocks and a step formation.

3. Dinner in Lima, got to see a folk dance show. Never knew the Scissor Dancers did hip hop moves. No Rane Gear was used in the sound system.

Now to current events. On 4-29, arrived in Cusco (alt of 11,000 ft +) and headed for Chinchero. There we saw our first Inca walls, had a yarn dying demonstration and toured the local cathedral which dated from the early 1500. Got to see a community meeting in action, folks needed new tractors. Had a late lunch and a later dinner and then to bed.

Wednesday 4-30. After an early breakfast we got to visit a traditional Peruvian market where they were selling Guinea Pigs (I had one as a pet! They taste like chicken), many different types of potatoes, corn (Big Corn), pigs, cute ducks, cute rabbits and cute baby turkeys..... dinner took on a whole different twist. Next stop was Pisac to see the Inca terraces and an astronomical observatory. Hit the local market for local handicrafts and then headed up to the mountians to a hacienda for a really good local lunch. Very yummy, pisco sours were quite good and the coca tea made my tongue numb. Nice garden too and there was a really neat small cannon next to to a fireplace that was as tall as I am. After lunch, full of coca tea and deserts, we hiked up to an Inca fortress named Ollantaytambo. There we saw our first Pre-Inca (Princa) Human Sacraficial Alter which was interesting.

Thursday May 1st. Labor Day Holiday through out S. America. Got up early and caught the Peru-rail to Machu Picchu. Arrived about 9:30. Caught a bus that took us up the hill ( 3,000 ft elevation change). Arrived at the sight and proceeded to climb up. Everywhere was up...... god my feet are really really tired. It is a truly amazing sight and very hard to describe in a blog. We are very lucky to be able to be here and to have the energy to climb up all the hills and see the sights. Visited the main square, saw the royal tombs, sacred sundial, condor rocks, temple of the 3 windows and after our ritual buffet lunch, we hike up an additional 1,300 ft to the Sun Gate. Tomorrow we get a 4:30 a.m wake up call and head back to the site for sunrise over Machu Picchu, a once in a lifetime thing to see.

We are having a great time, travel companions have been wonderful, Pisco Sours are keeping us fortified.

Note to Roz - come on down to Peru, tell Frank the plumbing is fine....

Over and out.