What I Learned Today

Boy, we had another long day today. Just got back at 9:30 pm after an 8:30 am start. Gotta say we're getting our money's worth. Today we hit the Archeological Museum, sorta, but because there was a power outage we did not see much of it. Instead we went to the Larco Museum, where we saw beautiful gardens and the most amazing private collection of pottery along with some truly special Incan burial adornments.

The room above is just one of many of the storage areas for pottery not on display. It's all sorted by subject matter; falcons, fish, monkeys, jaguars, men, women, children, foods like corn, beans, snakes, potatoes, etc, etc. If it was part of Incan life, it is probably represented here.

Here is just a small sample of the pottery which actually is on display.

These are some of the golden headpieces and adornments worn by the Sapa Inca; which is the head cocky-doodle of all Incans. The title was passed from father to son, and was considered to be a demi-god. You piss him off, you were the next day's sacrifice.

If you look at the above pottery closely, you will notice the fish shaped boat is carrying an Incan warrior with a vanquished enemy tied up on the tail of the fish. The pottery itself has a narrow spout on top, which was used to collect the blood of the actual vanquished warrior when they slit his jugular, and then they placed the body on the boat and set him off to sea. Yep, that kind of sacrifice.

Next we attempted to learn the Inca concept of time. Unlike our time, with a past, present and future occuring in linear order, the Inca time consisted of parallel past, present and future. And you could travel from the corresponding point of your present to the same point of your past (or future) when you wanted. So, we tried really hard to grasp this and then decided it was probably just chewing too many coca leaves.

We next traveled across the city to the main cathedral, whcih unfortunately does not allow photos, somall you get is the exterior and a few shots of demonstrators, sidewalk vendors and a kapok tree. Yes, the same stuff they used to put in life jackets and pillows.

The ladies are selling fruits, which the older woman is cutting up and then the two daughters carry the trays around on the streets selling to the cars. The man is selling roasted corn from his cart.

Last but not least, we head off to Ollantaytambo early tomorrow. I don't know if I will have wifi or cell service or not, so may have to do limited posts or maybe nothing at all for the next three or four days. But I will be taking notes and pictures to post when I can.

p.s. We think Barbara and Gigi were right that the black seeded fruit was a relative of a dragon fruit. But yellow, so Fredy thinks it was perhaps also related to a passion fruit. It was very sweet.

Now that I'm back among the living....

Boy, my stamina just ain't what it used to be. I'm blaming my sciatica flare for the uncomfortable ride in the plane for 8 hours, as the seats themselves were pretty good. They had more padding than the Delta jets do. But it took a while to find a comfortable position for me to sleep once we got into the hotel room at 2:30. Tom, on the other hand, was out like a light before I even finished brushing my teeth.

So after a short night's sleep we got up, had a late breakfast, and then were free to unpack before we met everyone at 11. We have a nice group of 16 people, of which 2/3 are teachers or educators. Our guide is named Fredy, and he is very experienced and it seems he will be very good. Fredy is Incan, and even speaks the language, so we will have some interesting cultural discussions, too. We spent about and hour going over the itinerary and setting expectations, asking questions, and dealing with details like where to change money or get laundry done.

After a huge and delicious lunch at a local restaurant, we started our trek....err...walk....uphill for an hour and a half for what Google Maps tells me is actually 1.62 miles, and did I mention it was uphill, to the pre Incan ruins in the middle of the city. The site is called Huaca Pucllana; and might mean 'sacred or safe place', but it might also just mean '400 foot tall pile of adobe bricks in seven pyramids' because nobody really knows. So, we learned how to make adobes, how to stack adobes, how to cover them with a mud clay coat to protect them. Now, if we didn't already know this from New Mexican adobes, it would have been interesting. But we did and it wasn't. And I was already tired, sore and sweaty. So instead we played camera games and made the photo below.

And we actually did learn something new about adobes. If you stack them vertically, as they did here, they withstand earthquakes far better than if stacked horizontally as we consider normal. So there.

Whatever energy we accumulated overnight has now been exhausted, so we had a lovely taxi ride back to the hotel and an even lovelier cocktail hour in the bar with Pisco Sours. Then we moved across the lobby for dinner at the hotel restaurant, and now we're settling in for a much longer sleep tonight.

I am not sure why I cannot post pictures in the middle of the text right now, but I am sure it is something I am doing inadvertently. So here are the photos:

Kennedy Park where the cats are protected from harassment.

You can see how thrilled I am to be learning about adobe making.
So instead we made the photo below. Look Ma! Time travel, or I have a twin.

Yep, it's a big pile of vertical adobes.

That's Tom waving from the top of the Big Pile of Adobes.

Dinner....

And some strange sweet fruit with black seeds that nobody knew the name of, including Fredy.

Made It

We're safely here in Lima, but just got to hotel and it is now 2:25 a.m. More to follow after we sleep...

Gearing Up

After weeks of planning and days of packing, which included rejecting initial packing plans and starting over from the beginning, we finally got ourselves together, on the plane and to LAX. We planned an overnight stay here, which allowed us leeway in case of any delays in this first leg getting to LA. We must still have PTSD from the first leg delay on our Africa trip several years back.

We ended up with only very minor delays in the flight and luggage collection, but zoomed through car rental and even driving 45 miles down the dreaded 405 freeway, so that we were in Dad's living room less than two hours after the wheels touched down on the runway. Dad and Ilene took us out to a yummy lunch at King's Fish House. I had trout, Tom had mahi mahi, but I failed to take any pictures of the food. I did get a nice picture of Dad and Ilene, though.

We survived the drive back UP the 405, too, and are now safely ensconced in the LAX Crowne Plaza, one of many multi-storied high rise hotels lining the approach road to the airport.

We are always shocked at the California prices when we come back to visit. Gas is $3.05 a gallon, self-parking is $15 at the hotel, $23 if you want In and Out privileges, and your basic bacon and eggs breakfast is $23. But hey, wifi is free (if you are a member) and they gave us two free drinks in the bar. 😋 We're going to relax a bit, venture out somewhere for dinner, and then spend a lazy evening and morning before we head off to PERU!

Home Sweet Home

We arose at 5:30 am this morning in order to leave at 6 am....in order to miss the strong afternoon winds that were predicted (again) along interstate 40. We pulled in to the Corrales post office right at noon, with just a breeze starting to build. The drive was blissfully calm, with the exception of a ten mile stretch near Grants, NM that is always gusty. We use an app called 'Windy' that does a good job of letting us know how the winds are at any given time, and here is the current situation:

Lots of yellow and orange! Which is what we needed to avoid. We are now home, unpacked, doing laundry, making shopping lists and paying bills. Back to the real world...

.....for 25 more days that is. Join us again for our Peruvian trek in June!

A Bounty of Beauty

As you probably realize by now, the next stop was the Grand Canyon. Saw loads of beautiful vistas, spectacular landscapes and a handful of critters (ravens, condors, squirrels, and elk). I am too worn out to give you a decent play-by-play of the day-by-day, but you do get the pictures!

The above is my first successful panoramic photo....the tree was on my left and Tom was on my right. And the Grand Canyon was in between.

Was waiting for sunset when I noticed the rock in front of me had made nature's onw little version of a strawberry pot. In each eroded hole in the rock, a plant had taken root and was growing on top of the canyon.

My artsy sunset shots

Tom waiting for more sunset shots

We had elk wandering through the campground most mornings, and we saw one fella in full velvet on our way out....but that picture is in Tom's camera.

London Bridge Redux

Well, no pics on that last post, and Grand Canyon was an electronic free zone. Barely got enough of a signal to call Dad, and even then only two out of three days. So..I owe you all some pictures, several days worth. So here ya go: I think you can figure out which pic went with which text...

This last picture was something I took with the old camera, thus the fuzzy, grainy pic, but it really was beautiful moonrise.....