Peru - Getting Acclimated to the Jungle, High Mountains and Pisco Sours

May 25, 2018

Peru was very good to the six of us fellow travelers. The weather, the food, the people and the spectacular beauty. It took some preparation, from mosquito netting, malaria pills, yellow fever shots and altitude pills but the experience was worth it.

Fact: Peru is 10% coastline
60% jungle
30% rugged mountains

We had 4 chapters to the trip with a group called "Journeys".


Our group with a 90 year old man who makes the Peruvian hats in a tiny village Tim Jerman, Peter, Kaki Hutchinson, Page Railsback, Betsy and David Hutchinson

Chapter 1- Lima, the capital city of 12 million people.

Did you ever eat lima beans as a kid? Many of us gagged on them. Guess where they come from?

Talk about a foodie capital of the world :

The Ceviche was outstanding

On our walking tour of Chorrillos we saw magnificent views of the Pacific Ocean, a man who still builds fishing boats by hand and cocks that have been bred for 100 years to be the best fighters.

Talented artists decorated the walls of Barranco

Our small classy Barranco hotel, gracious tree lined streets and the cliffs down to the ocean and beaches

The Larco Museum was as rich in Inca history inside as it was breathtaking gardens outside

Touring an old mansion in downtown Lima that has not been touched since the 1800s.

Now this is a nativity scene

Chapter 2 - The Amazon

From howling monkeys (and I mean screeching monkeys) to birds, tarantulas and butterflies, we saw the wilds of the jungle

Arriving in long boats to our hotel 30 minutes down the Amazon

This was the monkey just above our cabin that screamed for 15 minutes at 5:30 am!

Tropical flowers, amazing root systems

Big business in harvesting Brazil nuts. Here is Peter demonstrating how to crack the pod!

Five am boat tour to see a million parrots feeding on the cliffs. Too dark to get much of a photo but nice sunrise and breakfast on the boat with wine and tea.

Fact: The constellations in the sky below the equator are upside down!
Fact: The sun rises in the east, then moves north, west and south throughout the day below the equator

Chapter 3 - The Sacred Valley including Machu Picchu

This terrain is rugged, heart of the Quechua people, the largest group of Peruvians (45%).
The altitude ranges from about 6,000 feet to 10,000 feet. Start taking those altitude pills!

Our hotel

Inspirational Inca architecture with few tools and ingenious ways to build off the dramatic hillsides
These 300 years, from 1200 to 1500, until the Spanish arrived with their guns, horses and diseases, the Incas created many communities. The motto has 3 elements, work hard, be honest and learn.

Rural life

Apparently any political party can paint their symbols on any private structure with no repercussions.

After a hike through the hills and farmland, our lunch was waiting for us under the tent with state of the art porta potty next to it!

The Incas created these earth bowls to simulate different micro climates for growing crops. Once they determined which crops grew best in which altitude, they then planted the hillside terraces.

Visit to a sleepy small town in the area

The red plastic ball signifies a bar and the black ribbon above the door indicates some female has died recently

Salt flats, hundreds of them fed from a mountain stream, warm and salty from an underground spring

Once a week is the farmers market. Trucks roll in with livestock and veggies, cheese and staples

Want to buy a pig?

Quail eggs being shelled

Cheese

This corn is their staple, much larger kernels than our corn but yummy

Good price for a sheep

One of our hikes to a lunch cooked underground (see below)

Our 5 hour trek up to Machu Picchu! Puff, puff! Amazing views and this lesser known ruin on the Inca Trial

Our amazing guide, Efrain Valles

Made it!

Machu Picchu in all it's glory from the Sun Gate

Alpaca friends on the trail


In the town of Machu Picchu Pueblo where the bus takes you up to the site The Peruvians have the million plus visitor traffic each year down to a science

Peter with our favorite guide, Effrian

Mother's Day is huge in Peru. School assemblies, religious posters and plenty to buy for mother


Our guide took us to a home of a family of weavers. Their one room house, smokey from the fire pit, included a shrine with ancestor's skulls, old urns and a man smoking!