Land of the Incas
Day One – 29 Sept 2011
Weather: Overcast, misty (see, told you it would “rain”) 15 C
Slept like a log again. Woke at 6 and knew I couldn’t sleep any later, so I got up to play with the photos then went out for a cat photo shoot at 7:30.
The park is actually pretty close to the hotel. Not even a five minute walk and everything you need is there from fast food to supermarket and the Inca Market. I went straight for the park and the sleeping cats. Remember those knarly trees? Guess where the cats sleep?
I spent an hour walking back and forth in the park snapping pics of sleeping and half-awake cats. The locals like to take their dogs for a walk in the morning, so I guess that explains why so many of the cats stay in the trees.
I came back to the hotel by 8:30 and decided to sample breakfast. The selection isn’t huge, but what there is was delicious. Quiche Lorraine and the French Toast especially. The French Toast tasted as though they had a maple flavour through it all.
I went back for seconds.
I checked with the front desk about the welcome meeting and was told it was on the second floor in Salon Nazca. That gives me almost three hours to upload photos, which is a good thing as I had to download a new uploader and all that good stuff.
At 11:30 I went down to the Salon Nasca and the other 33 people on the tour filed in. Our guide is Cesar (right below. The woman was our guide in Puno, Rosario).
He’s been guiding for 20 years, the last four with Trafalgar. He gave us a quick overview of things to come and the timings for today and tomorrow when we fly to Cusco. He said that oxygen would be available if we needed it.
And it’s free.
Yup. Mankind found a way to bottle water and charge for it. It’s only a matter of time before we’re charging for oxygen for people on dry land.
He told us that lunch was at the Diez Conseco mansion and made sure everyone could eat pork and no one had a problem. No vegetarians either. Then everyone introduced themselves. The majority are Americans with a couple of Aussies, one Irishman, one other Canadian and a Brit.
After the meeting, we filed onto the bus. Cesar said there would be a rotation, which is interesting as we’ll be changing to a different bus when we get to Cusco. Hopefully it has the same number of seats. As it stands, the coach is very comfortable. The seats are cushy. No back door, so filing off takes a little longer. Cesar said nothing about the washroom at the back, but given that the altitude sickness pills are a diuretic, I hope they don’t have a problem with anyone using the bus washroom.
Or they could be facing a seat cleaning bill.
I decided not to take my Diamox after talking to Cesar. He told me that the vast majority don’t have a problem with the altitude, especially since they go straight to the Sacred Valley after arriving in Cusco. That gives people a chance to acclimate at 7-9000 feet before proceeding to the 10,000 and above locations. Cesar said the ones who should avoid the altitude are people with heart disease or severe respiratory problems. As I will note later, only one overweight person had a small issue and took a bit of oxygen on arrival in Cusco and Puno.
We headed off for the mansion through fairly heavy Lima traffic. The city grew very quickly in the last 50 years from 600,000 to 9 million. The city ended up being divided into more than 40 districts, each with its own mayor, so that means little infrastructure between districts exists. No subway for example. Buses are private and public. The private ones have a guy hanging out the door yelling out where they’re going. And there are not a lot of scooters. Everyone either drives a car or rides the bus. Strange cause it’s such a flat city, scooters would be ideal.
There is security everywhere. More than I saw in Jerusalem. And cleaners with brooms on the streets and sidewalks. One was even sweeping the dotted white lines on a 3 lane high speed highway.
Good thing the drivers generally respect the white lines.
The locals are very friendly. I’ve never seen so many wave at us on the bus. Then again, Lima is not Rome. I think I saw two other tour buses in the last two days. And for some reason, the locals love to put sweaters on their dogs. Doesn’t matter if it’s a Pom or a German Shepherd.
Yup. It’s 15 Celcius out. Put a sweater on the dog. It might freeze!!
Haven’t seen a cat with a sweater on.
Lots of shoe shiners around too. I had one ask me if I wanted my sneakers shined. Gotta wonder what kind of shine he could have gotten on the suede.
It took some time to reach the mansion. En route, we passed the oldest shanty-town in Lima where the houses climb the edge of the Andes. The city is quite flat then all of a sudden there are steep hills. Cesar said they don’t have running water and few have electricity. The government delivers water to them a couple times a week.
We arrived at the Diez Conseco mansion and were treated to what some called a whiskey sour and what I think was a red corn drink. I tried both. Didn’t finish either. I haven’t forgotten the shot of vodka I had in Helsinki before we went to the restaurant, which, from my perspective, was a spinning restaurant.
They also passed out some hors d’oeurves including a Yuca wedge that really tasted like a large French fry. Delicious.
Then the mansion owner gave us a quick tour of the mansion which was really just two rooms with a square in between. One was a library of sorts that included a telegram from JFK to the owner’s father (I think – the whiskey was working on me around this time and all I could focus on were the glass cats on a coffee table).
Then he showed us a dining room which was set out for a meal and sure enough, we sat there after he finished his talk.
His son is the chef and we had a meal of corn soup, pork with creamed corn and what we think was an apple pudding of some sort. The soup was delicious. The pork okay, but I must say I liked the cream corn. It tasted like a fresh corn recipe.
We made a mad dash for the bathroom when we were done and then loaded on the bus again to go meet our local guide at the Old Town. On the way, my sinuses started to act up and I think the dusty mansion overpowered my anti-histamine. The first thing I did at the Old Town was find a Coke to sooth my throat.
We met Isabella at the Old Town centre which was a large square surrounded by the president’s residence (a palace), some yellow-orange buildings and the Cathedral of Lima.
Isabella gave us an intro which I didn’t register (between whiskey and allergies, I didn’t hear a lot in the first hour) then she gave us 10 minutes to take pictures. I grabbed the Coke and met them at the Cathedral.
This one has an interesting feature as it has a wood roof which manages the earthquakes better.
Good for us.
We did a tour of the Cathedral, had a bathroom break and met outside where Isabella showed us the Moorish balconies built out from the buildings. Peru apparently has a lot of Chinese and Moor influence. In fact, for 300 years, they wore full face veils in Peru.
Which was great for the women. They could go anywhere and do anything and no one would know who they were. Not even their husbands.
Well, that became apparent to one of the leaders at some point and he abolished the law.
From the Cathedral, we walked about ten minutes to another church to see the catacombs of Lima.
They are everywhere in the city and these tombs contain the remains of some 25, 000 people. Ten to 12 were buried in each tomb. All that remains of the, well, remains, is a lot of femurs and skulls.
At some point 50 or 60 years ago, someone decided that piles of bones didn’t look great and arranged them all neatly. In one pit, the skulls and femurs are in circles. We weren’t allowed to take pictures.
Drat.
The catacombs themselves were built to withstand earthquakes with the bricks going in opposite directions. Pretty amazing that they figured it out hundreds of years ago.
Of course, the next thought is “I’m in an underground tunnel in an earthquake zone.”
We got back on the bus for the hour drive back to Miraflores. Traffic is unreal. Not long ago, Miraflores was a separate town. Now you’d never say there was any separation. The city itself varies in cleanliness from district to district. Some districts obviously spend more money on street cleaners and garbage collectors than others. Miraflores is on the higher end with million dollar condos etc.
En route, we passed by the remains of a pyramid. It was getting dark and there’s obviously no access, so we just drove by.
Then we drove to the cliffs overlooking the ocean and stopped at the Love Park which has a huge sculpture of a man and woman kissing. Too bad it was overcast. It was just getting dark and I imagine the sunset would have been awesome.
We got back to the hotel by 7 pm.
Now, I had a pre-day and I was exhausted. Most of the people on the tour arrived after midnight *this* morning. Some had only a few hours of sleep, so I highly recommend a pre-day for this tour just because of the weird flight hours.
And you can spend the day taking pictures of cats in Kennedy Park.
Or not.
Tomorrow, we’re up at 5 am.
Okay, there’s a second reason for a pre-day.
The flight leaves at 8:50 for Cusco.
Could have been worse.
It could have been a 5 am flight.
Go to Day Two
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