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.....