Saksawaman and a little more.

We decided that we would walk up to Saksawaman, the big Inca ruins just outside of Cuzco. It is not even 3/4 of a mile!

So we took the hike. You can see the runkeeper map here:

This was a slow walk. But remember that Cuzco is about 12,000' above sea level, and we live in Houston! 

We started off in Cuzco, though. Here is Doreen, in front of the famous 12 cornered stone.

Count 'em!

But everywhere you see other Inca ruins, the local guides tell you they have stones with more corners. Corners are a big thing here.

The other thing you see all over Cuzco are little girls holding baby alpacas. They want a sol for a photo.

We were happy to oblige. Doreen is in love with baby alpacas.

Here is the Pennsylvania Key Stone in Cuzco.

But it isn't being used as a key stone...

This was our route up. I used to have a photo of me on this same road back in 1976.  The stones haven't changed,  but the city did.

I think we were about half way here.

We have noticed very little trash or graffiti in either Lima (Miraflores) or in Cuzco. I am sure that there is a concerted effort on behalf of the government to keep the place clean and attractive to tourists.

A view down the road.

A nice view of Cuzco:

And here we are, almost all the way up:

There was a little waterfall on the way.

But we finally made it! It took about an hour.

They had alpacas there, for show.

These walls housed about 5,000 Inca soldiers in its heyday.

They almost beat the Spanish, but civil wars and small pox ultimately did them in.

The stone work is incredible.

and the size of these stones is incredible.

You can see where the later stone work is laid on top of Inca works.

I wanted to put this one in for Jesse, so she can show Eric the work that was done here 500 years ago.

This is a panorama of Cuzco

and again:

Here is the Plaza de Armas

Everyone loves having their photo taken under the lintel. Isn't there a German song about that?

Round corner rocks!

It is amazing to see these things:

They even had windows.

As we were coming back, we could see these little torritos (little bulls) that people put on their rooftops.

They are there for good luck.

This is an old photo in one of the municipal buildings here

And an old convent built on Inca ruins. We didn't go it.

Doreen with another baby alpaca The girl was playing the part, the boy, not so much.

Here is our walk back. Much faster.

I am getting behind myself again.

Let me say that the Cathedral is Cuzco is just an amazing thing. All the statues wear vestments. There is a famous Last Supper painting where a guinea pig is the main course, but the wall talker tells us that it is really a chinchilla. In any case, it LOOKS like a cuy (roasted guinea pig).

We also went to the Museum of Regional History (right underneath that convent, above)

They had mummies! and they had skulls that had been trepanned! They had skulls that had been deformed as babies to give the adults the weirdly long skulls! Fantastic. The mummies we carried around to their friends houses, and were served beer and food as if they were alive. Then they spilled the food in front of them so that it would look like they consumed it.

That night we ate at an Italian place. and we had a great time.

I will try to catch up more later.

Cuzco

Our flight to Cuzco left at 11:15. We were told to leave for the airport three hours before the flight. Whiile that sounded crazy, we did what we were told. What could possibly take three hours?

But we had breakfast at the hotel about 7:00, and were packed and ready to go at 8:15. The ride was uneventful (is there a difference between uneventful and noneventful? In any case, it was both). This was on a Sunday morning, the Sunday morning before a national holiday (Fiestas Patrias. I think it was the celebration of the Peruvian, or more likely the Colonial, forces over the Spanish at the Battle of Ayacucho. But that is from memory) So we did not anticipate any problems.

But the airport was packed! Luckily,  because our frequently flyer status lets us stand in the short line at Avianca, we didn't have to wait in line for an hour to check in.

But we waited in line at least an hour to get through security.

Good thing we were there early!

But after that, the day was pretty easy. The hotel had arranged transportation from the airport, and our room was (almost) ready, and they let us check in a little early. A nice start to this phase of the trip.

We flew over some very pretty scenary

but I didn't have the window seat.

That made it very sad to be me! 

The room is very nice. It has a very high ceiling, and a nice view over the courtyard and the city"

After we checked in, we wandered about for a while. 

Cuzco is built on the ruins of the Inca Capital (Qosco?) and you still see plenty of the old Inca stone works.

It is always interesting to see where the new and old stone works meet:

The old stones are set without mortar, (Dry set, I think my nephew would call it) so the stones have to fit perfectly. They had a lot of manpower with a lot of time on their hands.

We also walked by the Plaza de Armas (not renamed in this case) and looked at the Cathedral. On the same plaza, the Jesuits built a nicer church, but of course the hierarchy did not like that.

 This is the catheral:

Then we came back to the hotel for a cup of Coca tea in  the courtyard:

Fico, Betty, and Lima

One of the reasons we decided to come to Peru this year as opposed to next was that it had been too long since we had seen my friend Fico, who appears in some of these photos. We worked together back in the early 1990s when I was living in Caracas. He quit on me, but I never held that against him. C'est la vie.

He came by the hotel today and we walked to another great restaurant called Franceso's, which was about a 45 minute was from the hotel

You may notice that we are walking quite a bit. That is not because we don't like cabs, but just that we like to walk.

Taking taxis in Lima is always an adventure. I think I mentioned earlier how lightly regulated they are, and how you need to negotiate the price up front. Sometimes, people will just pull over in their cars if they think you are going in the same direction. And the universal inquiry to see if you want a cab is a short beep on the horn as they pass by. We get cabs that way.

The taxi drivers are also all very much integrated in to the street scene. Because traffic can be very bad, there are a lot of vendors selling things in the middle of the street. Halls cough drops, for example (they were on special). Gum. Inka Cola. We took three taxis in Lima, and in each case the driver purchased something from the street vendors. The first was a bottle of water. The second was a little red soccer ball that you can hang from the rear view mirror. The third was a candy bar (though not my beloved Sublime)

But that isn't getting us any closer to Franceso's.

As we left the hotel, this little Vermillion Flycatcher stopped by to say hello:

We took our time getting to the restaurant. But that is OK.

Here I am with Fico. I tried to step down behind him, but he wouldn't let me:

We had another great meal with Fico and Betty.

It is always fun to know people with such wide ranging interests and who are eager to discuss them. We covered Latin American Literature (old and new) why you have to read Mario Vargas Llosa even if you don't like him. Why writing in a language other than your native tongue changed not just the words but the whole narrative (and not always for the better. Not all of us are Somerset Maugham or Joseph Conrad). How magical realized was evident in the writing of Balzac and Dickens long before Gabo made it a Latin American trope.

And, of course, we talked about how corn originated in Mexico.

We had a nice long leisurely  lunch (tiriditas, causas, cechive) with some good desserts as well.

Then we walked back to Fico's apartment, overlooking Kennedy Park (the one with all the cats)

It is a great place with plenty of windows that look down on the park and surrounding streets.

You can't see it from here, but the place is filled with books. Which, if you know Fico, is to be expected.

I was taking some panoramic shots like this:

 and a self portrait, when Google decided to put them all together

and made my head part of Fico's apartment.

Then we walked back to the hotel. In the park below, there was a dance going on (Disco for old people) with a live band and plenty of people having fun.

And if you look carefully, in the background, you can see Fico's building. I think he is looking out the window.