We have been back on the ship
since last night but were just to tired to get anything done. The
short of it is that the trip was a great experience and one more
thing off the list of places we wanted to visit.
The tour started at 6 am to be
in the Princess theatre for the 7am departure. There were at least
150 people on the tour (there may have been more in another hotel)
but we all needed our passports. The tour department had 1 person
giving them out. Needless to say it was poorly organized. In fact
it seems that they have trouble doing these “simple” things, not
only today but on other port days. We have heard other cruisers
having similar lines and inefficiencies. This is the first time that
we have seen this type of thing.
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| Monerstary |
The port of Callio is congested
and we did not tie up at 7 as expected. We were on a tight schedule
with a plane to catch . The tour country was very well organized
and during the entire trip and everything they had control over went
smoothly. There were many components to this trip, many tickets
needed for the various venues, etc. All were completed without any
problem. At the airport, the boarding passes were printed and ready.
Princess filled the entire plane (a separate charter?) and so the
fact that we were late did not seems to bother the airline. However
we were bussed to the plane and had to take all our luggage with us
on the plane. People sat anywhere they wanted! Mass confusion on
that part but that was an airline problem.
55 minutes after leaving the Lima
airport we arrived in Cuzco. They served a drink and a snack. I
took a picture and want to send it to Air Canada who did not bother
to give us a bag of pretzels on the 5 hour trip out of Toronto! We
were immediately met at the Cuzco airport by the tour company. They
took our luggage and transported it to our hotel where it was in our
room when we arrived that night. They had 10 vans waiting for us.
We simply chose a van (15 people) and that is how we traveled for
the next 2 days. We went directly to a monastery that was taken over
from the Inca's by the Spanish. The monks used the foundations to
build their structure on the base. It is called Qorikancha and was
used by the Dominican monks. It was our first taste of what the
Incas were able to accomplish without tools and what the Spanish did
when they arrived.
Lunch at a nice restaurant
included a pumpkin (squash) soup followed by a nice piece of trout
and
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| Basilica |
lemonade. We also had our first taste of cocoa tea. The tea
helps with the altitude and is suppose to help you adjust to the
changes. Cuzco is at 11000 feet. We had taken our altitude
medication so we were ready for the changes. Throughout the trip,
some people felt dizzy, some needed oxygen and some had bad
headaches. I had a mild headache here in there throughout the trip
which may have been caused by the various altitude changes.
After lunch we went to Cuzco's
main Basilica which was very near the restaurant. There were the
“local models” everywhere we went on this tour. They were women
and kids dressed in tradition colourful Peruvian garb. Of course
once you take the photo they wanted a tip. We even saw kids with
llamas walking around. The Basilica as was expected; very ornate
and decorate with silver everywhere. Carlos our guide pointed out
how the local artisans of the time put things into their artistry to
signify ancient Incan ideas. For example mirrors were used to
decorate some alters. In a painting of the Last Supper, Judas was
painted in the likeness of Pizzaro. In relation to the rest of the
painting, he was much darker, looking away, etc. There were this
type of thing in many of the paintings. One of the most interesting
was a painting of a pregnant Virgin Mary with a child at her side.
The artist explained to the local priest that Peruvian women never
had just one child.
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| Judy At The Blocks |
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| Saqsayhuaman |
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| The Blocks |
In mid afternoon we headed out
to Saqsayhuaman a ruin not far out of the city. It is very large
“short pyramid” like structure without a roof. It was dedicated
to the gods of thunder and rain. The interesting thing about this
temple is the size of the very large interlocking blocks that were
placed together like a jigsaw puzzle without a “cement” of any
kind. The quarry used was 5 miles away. Carlos (our guide) showed us
how they were able to move such large rocks without the use of
animals. They also did it with a much smaller work force than the
Egyptians.
We were met by the models
again. There was also people there selling our photos! Someone
asked if they were Princess photographers. NO! However they took
our picture when we got off the plane, then merged them with the
those of Incan ruins. These people showed up everywhere we went!
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| Sacred Valley |
The final leg of the journey
that day was a drive for nearly 3 hours over the 13000 foot pass into
the Sacred Valley. It contains may Incan ruins as well as Machu
Picchu one end of it. The valley was very fertile with crops on
every available piece of land. The houses were adobe (mud brick)
construction. Many looked in very bad disrepair. After passing
many small villages, we turned off the good road, went over a bridge
and turned down a washboard road passed broken down houses We were
on our way to the hotel. All were wondering about the hotel. The Hacienda gate opened and we
arrived at the “Aranwa Sacred Valley” hotel. What a great place
to stay in the middle of all this run down area. It is hard to
describe how beautiful the grounds were. The property was owned by
one of the original Spanish landowners. It had a beautiful chapel
(church), pool, running water, ponds, etc. We were assigned to the
“Colonial” wing which was built in the 1600's but had completely
modern rooms. They were very ornate. We have never seen or stayed
in anything like this place.
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| Aranwa Hotel |
There were courtyards all over the
place. One of our group said that rate on the rooms were just under
$400 to $3000 a night. We believed her after seeing this place. We
stayed there for 2 nights. The meals was very nice and we should
have done more after dinner but after the very early start and all
the travel that day, we headed to bed. That was after it announced
that the wake up for tomorrow was at 4:30am! No wonder we headed to
sleep!
1 comment:
How do you get the spelling of these place right???
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