Out and Back in Peru

Organized Chaos in the Plaza de Armas

Sunday Parade, Cusco, July 11, 2004

Photo Gallery

Day 1-To Lima

July 1, 2004

Day 2-Cusco

July 2, 2004

Day 3-Cusco

July 3, 2004

Day 4-Pisac

July 4, 2004

Day 5-MP Trek

July 5, 2004

Day 6-MP Trek

July 6, 2004

Day 7-MP Trek

July 7, 2004

Day 8-Machu Picchu, Aquas Calientes

July 8, 2004

Day 9-Ollantaytambo

July 9, 2004

Day 10- Cusco

July 10, 2004

Resource Review

Days 11-12, July 11-12, 2004

Cusco, Lima and Knoxville, TN

We woke early on our last day in Peru.  After showers and breakfast, Barbara, John and I headed down to the Plaza for one last look around.  Preparations were underway for the weekly Sunday parade under the cloudy, gloomy skies.  We grabbed an outdoor table and ordered coffee.  We had only a short time to watch before we had to depart for the airport and our journey home. 

The narrow streets radiating from the Plaza were barricaded against auto traffic. The area hummed with activity as school children, divided by age group, military, police and local dignitaries prepared to enter the main plaza from the side streets.  Somewhere we heard a band begin to play and shortly after the plaza began to fill with people.  School children dressed in navy school uniforms entered first.  The youngest entered followed by the next age and so on. From the side street close to our vantage point, the military poured onto the plaza, dressed in green uniforms with pant legs tucked neatly in the tops of their boots.  Next the police entered wearing reflective green vests over their uniforms, followed by local dignitaries. We would have enjoyed watching the parade but our watches indicated it was time to go, our taxi would be arriving soon.  

Soon we were in our taxi, watching the sites of Cusco fly by.  Unlike our arrival into the city, everything now looked familiar and we were sad to leave.  Our flight to Lima was uneventful. Off the plane, through immigration, customs and to the national exit gate where we found the driver hired to take us into Lima.   We stored our luggage in “Left Luggage” for the day and began our tour.   

Lima is a modern city of 7.5-million people.  Founded by the Spanish, we noted most people have a light skin tone with softer features versus Cusco’s darker skinned residents with strong Quechua features. On first glance, Lima is much like any large international city, high rise buildings and streets filled with traffic.  Closer inspection revealed many older brightly painted buildings with beautiful ornate balconies over looking the streets. 

We met Emma, our guide at a small hotel-casino in the Miraflores area.  First stop on the tour was Love Park dominated by a sculpture of a man and woman in a semi-lying embrace.  True to its name, young people were locked in embraces everywhere in the park (we actually saw young people locked in very amorous embraces all over the city). The park is located high above the Pacific Ocean and we enjoyed  watching the water and waves.  The sky and ocean appeared to be the same color of grey such that we could not tell where one ended and the other began. We later read that this is common in Lima during the winter.  

Emma rattled off the names of buildings as we drove past: Paseo de la Republica, San Martin Square, Main Square, Government Palace, the US Ambassador’s House and many others.  We passed through residential areas with olive trees brought over from Spain in the 17^th century.  Everything seemed like a blur.  

The significant stop of the day was the Convent and Church of San Francisco with the greatest monumental assembly of colonial art in America.  San Francisco, built in the 17^th century, is the monastery of the Franciscan monks.  It is amazing! The Monks’ Choir is beautiful  and the Library has an extensive number of antique text;the Main Cloister is decorated with Sevillian tiles from the 16^th century. Most halls are lined with paintings and ceilings are ornate, often adorned with carved wood.  But the most memorable feature of our vist to the Church of San Francisco was the catacombs beneath the church. 

The catacombs, underground crypts, were the first cemetery in Lima. They are estimated to contain the bones of 70,000-90,000 people.  John and I had to stifle our growing panic as we entered the underground crypts,  the ceilings are low and the walkways narrow. We did not take much solace in the fact that the church and catacombs were built to survive earthquakes.  A number of other tour groups were ahead of us and others entered behind us.  The only way out was the way we came in. 

We wound through the narrow halls lined with open wooden boxes.  The boxes were filled with neatly arranged large bones; apparently the smaller bones did not survive the decomposing and handling in the catacombs. The underground tour ended in a subterranean tower filled with skulls and femurs.  This is where the bodies were placed after the appropriate decomposing time.  We kept thinking about the air we were breathing, it smelled musty and heavy.  We felt exhausted and in a daze, like we were just going through the motions but not understanding. Little did we know that we were getting sick.  I was in early stages of a bronchial inflammation that would see my temperature soar to 102; John suffered from several weeks of allergy symptoms and afternoon fevers.  

Before we knew it our three hour tour was over.  Our driver took us to the very modern mall in Miraflores and promised to pick us up at the specified 7:30 pm.  I was feeling bad and preferred to go back to the airport, but this did not seem to be on Emma or our driver’s agenda.  Emma got out with us and, while we struggled with our daily question of how to tip, I invited her to dinner naively hoping that buying dinner would take care of the issue.  We walked around an assortment of restaurants and finally settled on the last one Emma suggested because it overlooked the ocean.  We sat “outside” although we were well protected from the elements by a roof and plexi-glass fence.  Emma decided not to eat but just have coffee.  She confiscated a roll and butter and carefully folded them in a napkin to take home to her mother.  She announced she was leaving but did not get up from the table. This was our queue.  With other similar situations we either over or under tipped, in this case I think we grossly under tipped. Oh well, cheap American I guess.  We finished dinner alone and wandered about the mall.  I was really ready to go to the airport by this time, feeling totally exhausted.  We stood outside the mall, hoping our taxi would show up.  

Barbara engaged a young girl in conversation.  The girl was obviously from a comfortable home but had apparently come up with a way to earn extra money…sell gum from her pack of Orbitz for $.25 (US).  We figured she was earning money for the arcades, which were numerous in the mall. Our taxi showed up on time and whisked us off to the airport.  

We arrived at the airport by 8:00 pm, going upstairs for ice cream before retrieving our luggage. An hour plus in line at the Delta counter and we were off to the international terminal.  Only three hours till departure. 

The security to the international terminal was okay but we were amused by the security at the gate. About an hour and a half before departure, everyone was instructed to line up (several hundred people) and each person went through another screening with check of tickets and passports.  It appeared that people were randomly pulled out of line to be wanded, their carryon luggage hand searched (we noted one lady’s bag of coca leaves had been confiscated).  We would have questioned what was going on with our flight but this procedure was occurring at every gate. 

Finally we were on the plane with an uneventful flight home.