Peru

Okay I am very late in posting this - I was actually lucky enough to go to Peru in September 2015. We flew to Lima on the 8th and on the 9th transferred to Cusco - no taking it slowly and aclimatising for us. We were met by our lovely guide Maria and went to our hotel. We spent the evening with a family friend.

On the Thursday morning we had a walking tour of Cusco. It was very lovely but surprisingly tiring and we got very breathless. The square in the centre of Cusco contained many wonderful restaurants with very tasty food. Of course we had to have quinoa - I had never seen so many different types.

There were plenty of churches and a cathedral. What was interesting was that many of these had been built on top of Inca temples.

Here you can see the monastry arches on top of the Inca wall. This is our guide Maria explaining how the Inca walls were built using no mortar at all. 

The interesting architecture was matched by the wonderful textiles on sale everywhere.

In the afternoon we drove out of Cusco and visited four temples: Saqsayhuaman, Qorikancha, Tambomachay and Pukapukara.

On Friday we left Cusco to travel through the Sacred Valley towards Machu Pichu. Our first stop was at Awana Kancha where they keep a variety of Llama, Alpaca and Vicuna. There is a large cooperative there where women from neighbouring villages come together to spin, dye and weave (more in the next post).

Next stop was Pisac. More temples to see, a wonderful market and a stop for lunch.

Our last stop this day was Ollantaytambo. Although the temple does not look very steep in this picture - it was. It was also extremely windy. Again in the village you had the original Inca walls with modern buildings on top. The bottom picture on the right is a granary. It is half way up a mountain!

From Ollantaytambo we caught the train to Aguas Calientes. The train tracks go through the centre of the town and apart from the train and the buses to Machu Picchu there are no vehicles at all. Everything is transported manually.

On Friday we caught the bus to Machu Picchu. As we climbed higher and higher you could look down on the road to Aquas Calientes. As you walk through the entrance and round the corner this is the first glimpse of Machu Picchu.

Here is the well known view.

Although the Llama looks as though he has been photoshopped onto the picture I assure you he was really there. I have many, many photos of Machu Picchu but have only included these few. It was a fantastic day.

On Sunday we got the train back to Ollantaytambo and drove back through the Sacred Valley to Cusco. On the way we stopped at Moray. The terraces were used to grow crops with the inner circles being upto five degrees warmer than the outer.

We then stopped at Salinas de Maras. I have seen salt flats and marshes near the sea but never in a valley half way up a mountain. It has been here for hundreds of years and the individual pans have been owned by generations of one family. These families still gather the salt and work as a cooperative to sell the salt.

Lunch was in the village of Chinchero. At nearly 3800m high it was almost 400m higher than Cusco and the highest we went. The three people are peeling potatoes that have been dried by leaving them in the sun, then left overnight to get frosted. They are then left to dry again. This preserves them.

On Monday we flew back to Lima and on Tuesday set out to explore. The centre of Lima, the sea front and Larcomar, a posh upmarket shopping area.

The Cathedral was one of the nicest I have been in and was very ornate.

The Peruvians have taken Catholism and adapted it in their own way. The Virgin Mary is shaped like a mountain and her halo has rays like the sun.

Churches in Lima

In Britain fishermen's boats are followed by seagulls - in Lima they are followed by pelicans and big black vultures flew overhead.

Can you spot me walking through the crowd?

I loved visiting Peru, the people were wonderful and I would like to go back.