From the Coast to the Highlands

Well our evening ended up a little different than we had expected. We dropped into the lobby bar for a Pisco Sour for Monica and met one of the other couples from our trip who had come in from the airport with us, sat with them for a while and then all had dinner together.

On Thursday morning, bright and early, we all met for breakfast. There are 24 of us on the tour along with our tour director, Marcos. Oddly enough, there are actually six Canadians - us, a lady from Scarborough and her daughter who lives in Penetanguishene, and a couple who now live on Bowen Island, in the channel outside Vancouver. They get all the Alaska cruise ships sailing by their home. Other than that, everyone except one couple from Britain is from the US.

Once breakfast and the introductory meeting were over, we headed out to the buses for our Lima city tour. Now Marcos broke us into two groups, to make it easier for the upcoming tours where smaller groups and smaller buses would be more advantageous. Does anybody think we look more like llamas or alpacas?? No matter, we're in the alpaca group for the rest of the tour.

After a rather lengthy bus ride, traffic in Lima rivals the worst we have seen anywhere we have travelled,

We  arrived at the historic city centre to begin a short walking tour of the major churches. We had been in Lima off the Crystal Harmony in 2003, so much of this was a repeat of that tour. One addition that was different was a trip into the catacombs at the Benedictine Monastery of San Francisco. Up until about 50 years ago, there were no cemeteries in Lima and for centuries the dead were buried in catacombs under the monastery, with one generation interred on top of the next.

First, though, we visited the Church of San Pedro. Here are a few photos of the inside of the church. It is quite beautiful and also quite possibly, although we never asked, also decorated with gold that the Spanish may have taken from the Inca people when they conquered them. The best way to take control of a conquered people is to replace their religion, so the Spanish went out of their way to destroy any and all buildings with a religious meaning. Even groups other than the Inca used pyramid structures in their religion; so as a result of the Spanish there are only 2 of these left in Lima today. We did pass one of them later in the evening but couldn't get a photo. It was already dark and there was no warning of it coming.

After also seeing churches dedicated to St. Rose of Lima and St. Ignatius of Loyola, we next visited the Monastery of San Francisco where the catacombs are. Of course, no photos are allowed anywhere except the entrance, so that's what you get:

We are pleased to announce that even Monica made it through the walk in the catacombs. Although fairly small and low-ceilinged, they were lit well enough to keep the claustrophobia at bay. It is kind of weird though, to see a true 'herring-bone' layout down there. The story goes that after visiting the catacombs in Rome, a Friar figured out they could open their catacombs, charge admission, and make some much needed money for the Order. Since the catacombs had not been used for many years, archeologists were commissioned to essentially "do a dig" of the catacombs.  There had been so many bodies interred one on top of the other and none with  formal caskets, that the bones were quite jumbled up when the archaeologists started working on them. So instead of trying to put bodies back together (this is long before forensics at the 'Bones' level), they put all of each type of bone neatly together in a herringbone pattern, so you get whole cases of femurs, and tibias, and even a whole round well of skulls! It would have been great to take a photo but...

After exiting the catacombs, and walking down to the Plaza de Armas, the main plaza, where the Cathedral of Lima is located, we hopped back on the bus and headed for lunch at a seaside restaurant called Cala.

The Cathedral of Lima

Of course you can't be in coastal Peru without eating fish of some kind, so the first offering at lunch was 'Ceviche Overload'.

After that we had choices of mains and desserts. Larry had a sauteed beef dish called Lomos Saltados, and Monica had flounder - not the flat kind that we know as flounder, but one that seemed more like a halibut fillet.

For dessert, Monica tried a tiramisu made with the Lucumana, a native Peruvian fruit that is a sweet-tooth's delight. It tastes like a cross between chocolate, coffee and caramel.

Dessert with a crunchy chocolate coating

Following lunch, we had one more stop to make before we returned to the hotel. As Marcos pointed out in the morning, this is NOT a vacation, it is an adventure trip. We visited the Larco Herrera Museum, a private museum that specializes in pre-Inca artifacts. The gold, silver and pottery that the Spanish looted from Cusco was still to be found in other places and some of it ended up in the collection of this museum.

 

 

 It was a good thing that there was only one more stop. Did anybody remember that Larry was fighting off a cold the weekend before we left? Well, by the time Thursday rolled around, it was starting to take hold of Monica. And by the time we got back to the hotel, we didn't know if she'd be able to make the evening program for dinner. After a short nap and a hot shower, she was ready for the evening, a little rough around the edges, but ready nonetheless!

For our dinner, we visited the private home of Mr. and Mrs. Javier Luna, who have an exceptionally large (3,000 pieces!) collection of nativities from around the world. They also provided the backdrop for our welcome dinner in their courtyard. Mr. Luna is no stranger to collections and culture as he is a past director of the National Institute of Culture.

Mr. Luna greeting us at his front door.

See, even a native Indian beaded one from Canada!

A collection of bulls. These are traditionally placed in pairs
on the roof of the house as a sign of prosperity
for the family living there

Our welcome dinner buffet it the Luna's
courtyard. The rest of the house is just
as spectacular.

Finally, a chance to lay our heads down. It was an early night and gave us both a bit of time to start getting over these colds. Isn't it funny that we managed to get through that long, cold, snowy winter without colds, but picked them up once we left home? Maybe there IS something in those smoothies!

But Friday would be no sleep-in. Bags had to be out by 5:45 for pickup to go to the airport, and we had to be at the bus by 7:15. Traffic in Lima was no better in rush hour than the middle of the day. We were delayed by one accident on the way to the airport - the surprise was that it was ONLY one accident! Here, as in many other cities with large populations and an over-abundance of vehicles, the lines on the road are merely a suggestion of where you should be driving and how many cars should be in any place at one time. And changing lanes without signaling is a way of life for drivers. Much as we hate traffic at home, it is at least better organized and obeys the signals. We actually have two suggestions if the municipal governments in the city of Lima want to save money - 1) don't bother painting the lane marking lines on the roads, since nobody uses them anyway; and 2) disable about half of the traffic lights, since it seems that they are ignored, too.

Well, we did get to the airport in plenty of time for our flight, and had no problems getting through security and to the gate. Marcos did, however, warn us that having the plane board on time was no guarantee that it would leave on time. And he was right. We sat on the tarmac for the better part of 3/4 hour, mostly waiting in a take-off line. Once airborne, everything was fine and we got to Cusco in an hour, but the delay had messed up the planning for the rest of the day.

Now, we had all heard beforehand and were warned in the travel documents and by Marcos about altitude sickness, and were told of ways to combat it. We had been at high altitude before in Quito, but it didn't seem to be nearly the punch in the face as getting off the plane in Cusco and walking to the baggage claim. Larry had a headache and Monica felt a little wobbly in the knees for the first 15 or 20 minutes. Moving slowly and breathing deeply did seem to help a lot, though.  As did waiting a good 40 minutes for the bags to appear so we could load the buses, and the fact it took another 30 minutes to drive the 100 yards from where the bus was parked to the exit of the parking lot. The "dry season" is peak season for Machu Picchu and its surroundings, and the dry season started June 1, hence the several hundred cars and buses, and a couple of thousand people in the parking lot, all trying to get out through the single lane at the same time.

At our initial meeting on Thursday, Marcos taught us the single most important Spanish word we would need to know for this trip; flex-i-bil-ity!!! It is one thing to have a plan, but to paraphrase an old military axiom, "No plan survives first contact with reality." Such was our introduction to Cusco. They are celebrating the anniversary of the founding of the city next week, plus, as our guide put it "Peru is 85% Catholic, so every day is some saint's feast day.", so between the two there are festivals and traffic, and celebrations and traffic, and parades and TRAFFIC everywhere! The PLAN called for a visit to a market, followed by a demonstration of Peruvian equestrian skills at a parade ground in Cusco, but with the schedule out the window, Marcos decided to head straight to the Llama and Alpaca Farm that was next on the agenda. This is a community owned and operated farm that raises various species of llamas and alpacas, harvests the fleece, which is then turned into some magnificent llama and alpaca wool products that are sold from the on-site store. The proceeds from the sales support the five community groups that make up the cooperative, so needless to say, we made a few purchases.

 

Mama Vicuna and baby. Vicuna is a wild version of
the alpaca. Vicuna wool is the most expensive, and the
softest.

Larry feeding alfalfa to a llama with Joyce and Barry
looking on

So, who do you think this one looks more
like? Larry or Monica?

 

How about this one?

After feeding the animals, we were given a presentation on the spinning, dyeing and weaving of the alpaca and llama wool, and shown how the weavers create their unique designs.

One of the ladies showing the dyed
wool and the natural sources they
use for the colours

From there we proceeded on to Urubamba, the main town in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, and the gateway to the sites of Machu Picchu and area.

The Urubamba River valley

oh, yeah...we were here, too!

The town sits in the bottom of the valley, at 9000 feet above sea level(!), and is home to some 10,000 people, mostly descendants of the Incas called Quechua.  The entire valley floor is given over to agriculture, mostly the 90 varieties of corn native to Peru, along with some of the 3,000 varieties of potatoes (who knew?) but as we are just past the harvest season, things look a little sparse.

After the very long drive, we stopped for a very late lunch at a restaurant called Wayra. As part of the adjustment process to the high altitude, we were warned to eat lightly, lots of carbs, but avoid most proteins, which is why lunch, while it featured five different kinds of potatoes, also included FIVE different kinds of roasted meats too! Including fire-roasted pork-belly!!! The food was good, but most of the group was so whacked out from the altitude that most ate very little. Still, it was a beautiful spot!

The view from the restaurant. It is also a horse stable
where you can take trail rides.

The dessert selection after all that lunch.

The Peruvian national flower,
actually a type of fuchsia that
grows up to 10,000 feet elevation

After a visit to a local market (to replace the one we missed in Cusco, and which I think we all would have gladly skipped, though we did buy two pounds of Peruvian coffee beans) we finally arrived at the Casa Andina, our home until Sunday morning. Between the very late lunch, and Monica's cold which, with the altitude adjustment had come crashing back down, we were in bed (Double beds actually, and we used both!), and lights out at 9:30.

Tomorrow, our first ancient Inca fortress!

 

 

 

Lima, Peru

After a standard, rather uneventful flight from Toronto to Lima via Miami, we arrived at the hotel  just after 11:00 last night. We, and two other couples from our tour, were met at the airport by one of the local tour operators who gave us a few quick tips about Peru in general and Lima in particular. Did you know, for instance, that it hasn't actually rained in Lima since 1970?? There's quite a bit of humidity in the air, but it falls more as mist than as rain. Our guide from last night said that he remembered when it rained 44 years ago - the buildings here are made with flat roofs and no allowance for excess water - and that the water that fell on the roof of his apartment building all drained down through the elevator shafts!

Our hotel, the Belmond Miraflores Park, used to be the Orient Express hotel and is one of the nicest in the city, according to our guide. It certainly is beautiful and in a very nice part of town, right by the ocean.

 

The lobby meeting and sitting area looks
like a library

There is a little pond outside the main entrance that is
home to quite a few of these guys

 

Our room is quite large - in fact, we might guess that the bathroom itself is about 3/4 the size of one of the bedrooms at home - and has an ocean view. The room, not the bathroom!!  The sitting area is right in front of the picture window with a couch and two chairs. Very comfortable!

This morning after a lovely buffet breakfast we took a walk through the park across the street and along the cliffside. Our guide from last night told us that there is a shopping plaza, the Larcomar, UNDER a park a short distance from the hotel, so we decided to check that out. Only here could they think of building a two-level mall into the side of a cliff!!

We stopped at the Juan Valdez Coffee Shop for a mid-morning coffee (instead of Starbuck's which was on the next level up) and scoped out places to try for lunch.

After spending a little time relaxing in the hotel's lobby bar with our e-readers, we wandered back to Larcomar for lunch. We ate at the Mangos Restaurant, outside overlooking the cliff and the sea. It is a bit cool, not so much from the temperature but from the breeze. You could tell that we must be tourists since the locals were wearing long sleeves, jackets or sweaters, and many of the women were in boots!!

Larry looking forward to trying his fish ceviche

Quinoa salad with fried prawns - and a Pisco Sour,
the national Peruvian drink, on the side
 

We're back in the hotel now, getting ready for the evening. There is a very nice restaurant in the hotel called Tragaluz where we plan to eat dinner. We will be meeting our tour director, Marcos, and the rest of the group at breakfast in the morning.

We've taken a quick look at the itinerary Marcos has sent for us, and it looks like we will be in for our share of early mornings and long days on this trip as well, although not quite as early or as long as the African Safari last year. We will probably have some time to work on blog posts most days. Keep an eye out for updates.

 

Off Again to South America

Hello again! Here we are in final preparation for our adventure to Peru and Bolivia. We were just saying that it seems that we spend quite a bit of time in South America - this will be at least the fourth time we've been there. Maybe it's because there is so much to see and every country has something different and interesting to offer. Nevertheless, this will be the first time we spend a lot of time in one area and we're really looking forward to it. Of course, having had Machu Picchu on our 'bucket list' for many a year doesn't hurt the anticipation factor either.

As usual, we have to start the blog with the requisite cat photo. Franklin is getting a bit better at nosing around in the suitcases but we can't always guarantee a Thomas-like plant on top of our clothes, so we'll take the next best thing:

As long as I stay sleeping here you can't leave!!

We are doing a ten day escorted tour with Tauck Tours, the same company we went to Africa with last year, so we know it will be a great trip. We will be on our way on Tuesday morning with a recovery day in Lima on Wednesday while we wait for the rest of the group to arrive. The tour officially starts on Thursday. Hope you have fun following along with us on this adventure.

The Picture Post

Since we really didn't do too much after our stop in Bridgetown, we'll use this last post for photos of sailaways, things to see around the ship, and food!

At our last report, we had been invited (along with 200 of our closest friends) to a heli-pad sailaway from Dominica. It certainly did give us a different perspective on the ship:

              

The next day in St. Maarten was pretty much a stay-on-the-ship day with the exception of a little shopping we managed to do in the pierside shops. The local authorities are continuing to develop the harbour area and have now blocked the easiest foot access to town. So the options are to walk along the road (not dangerous but a longer route) or take the water taxi, whose rates have now gone from $5 return trip to $7. Considering we didn't absolutely have to go into town, it wasn't worth the cost.

              

With our last sea day about half gone, we'll get the bulk of our packing done before we head out again. We did get to two lectures from ship's officers about navigation and the ship's engineering and propulsion systems, so it hasn't been an entirely 'wasted' day. So to finish off the blog for this trip, here are a few more photos. If there's anything else of interest to tell you about, we may post a little more later on.

The Gelato Bar

             

Lemongrass Creme Brulee



Larry's Three Cheesecake dessert

 

 

The Martini Bar - yes, the bar top is frosted over!

 

Crush - the other part of the wine bar. That frosty looking
stuff in the middle of the table really IS crushed ice!

 

 

One of the specialties of the bar is the Martini flight. The bartender
has made 6 different mini-martinis (1.5 oz each) and is
pouring them all at the same time.

 

Seafood salad

Branzino (snapper) seems to be the executive chef's favourite fish!

Why do we have a photo of a cake? Because it's not
a cake, it's a glass sculpture!! Made by one of the Corning
Glass Museum artisans on another cruise. It looks
positively delicious!

We've been very impressed with just about everything we've seen on this ship, and can understand why so many of Larry's clients are booking Solstice class. Though the ship is 'large' the public areas are all on a human scale, not overwhelming but big enough that everyone is comfortable and no one seems crowded. The only disappointing area has been the production shows. Although they've done a lot of work on them, two of the three didn't seem to have a theme to tie the individual acts together. The last one, Equinox - the Show, is a Cirque du Soleil style acrobatic show. The specialty performers were fantastic, but we couldn't figure out the set design, odd costumes (the ensemble dancers looked like a cross between Hobbits and Ewoks and the singers' costumes might have been designed for Star Wars) or the music and how it all was supposed to tie together.  Oh, well, maybe somebody else can explain it to us sometime. Overall, a relaxing getaway from the cold winter. Back to snowy reality tomorrow - we know; we can already hear all those little finger violins playing in the background!

               

In The Warm Caribbean

 Sorry to be rubbing it in when you're getting so much snow at home - thanks for the e-mails and, from Judy and Maureen, the photos, letting us know what kind of weather we're missing.

Since our last blog post, we've visited St. Thomas, St. Kitts, Barbados and, today, Dominica. We have had the odd sprinkle to deal with, but only little squalls and no downpours. Of course, our standard response to that is, "You don't have to shovel rain", and many of our Canadian and American fellow cruisers have been agreeing. For once, we have a common conversational topic in that almost everybody we've talked to has had some form of bad weather to deal with since December.

But let's go back a few days and bring you up to speed. One of the added entertainment features on some of the Solstice class ships is the Glass Blowing Exhibition. Artisans from the Corning Glass Museum are on board to demonstrate their craft make numerous gorgeous pieces for display at the museum. Apparently they also will auction off a few of the items they made at the end of each cruise with the money raised going to charity. Here are a couple of photos of things that they've made.

A sea shell

Ryanne working on a colourful fish

       

We decided that it would be easier to have breakfast in our suite on tour days, just to save us having to join everyone else in the buffet. Not that the buffet is by any stretch inferior to any other food we've had. In fact, we like the layout - large stations for the various types of foods (and more than one of each); plates, bowls and cutlery available everywhere; and most importantly, lots of room to get around all the other diners. But since we have Jean, our butler, ready and willing to bring our breakfast to us, it is less rushed and stressful to do it that way.

On Monday morning, we arrived bright and early in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas. Or, as Larry likes to call it "the Disneyland of Shopping". Our catamaran tour was taking us to Buck Island, 3 miles off St. Thomas, to go snorkeling with the sea turtles. The island is a nature preserve so you can't set foot on it, but that doesn't mean you can't sail up to it. There must have been another 5 tour boats there with groups doing the same thing, but it seemed to be fairly well managed and we never got groups mixed up with each other. And Monica did get up close to one of the turtles, too.

That thing in the middle is a sea turtle just starting his 'flight'
from the sea bed to the surface.

Just under the surface at the coral reef. Those striped
fish are called Sergeant Majors

               

After our snorkeling, we motored over to Honeymoon Beach, which is actually on one of the small islands that make up the harbour protection for Charlotte Amalie. Here the captain took the boat as close to the beach as he could - close enough that even Larry managed to get into the water.

What decadence! A warm sandy beach AND a
fruit punch without having to get out of the water.

The ultimate swim-up bar

              

After the tour, the only thing we really had to do was take Monica's sapphire watch back to H. Stern to get the battery replaced - at least that's what they said 5 years ago when we bought it. Unfortunately, they don't do battery replacement any more, so we have to find someone at home with the 'right quality' of battery for the watch. But if that's the ONLY problem we have...

Charlotte Amalie

 On Tuesday we visited St. Kitts. We had been here before, but had only gone to specific sites and hadn't seen much of the island. We decided to remedy that this time, and took the "Rail and Sail" tour. The first part of the tour was on a narrow-gauge railroad, and after that we transferred to a catamaran for the trip back to Basseterre and the ship.

We discovered that St. Kitts, even though it is no more than 68 square miles in size, has a lot to offer in terms of things to see and do. Tourism is now the major economic source for the island; they officially gave up on sugar cane in 2005 because it is such an expensive crop to grow and process that it was no longer bringing in enough revenue to support the population and services. All of the people we met were great ambassadors for their nation and, with what we saw during our tour, we decided it would be a really nice place to come back to for a couple of weeks vacation. Clean, friendly, diverse, and always warm and sunny - what else can you ask for?

The train itself is a narrow-gauge railroad that was built originally to transport sugar cane to the processing plants on the coast. It now hauls five two-deck passenger cars for the tour around the southern half of the island. We actually sat on the open upper level, which made for a rather noisy, and "rock-and-roll" ride as the narrow gauge of the tracks, combined with height of the cars, makes the cars sway from side to side. Still, a comfortable journey, made all the moreso by the fact the bar opened as soon as we got onboard, at 9:15 AM, and stayed open until we got to the end of the ride 90 minutes later! Pina Coladas for breakfast anyone??

On the train, looking toward the mountains and the
longest rail bridge on the island

A view of one of the 68 sugar mill ruins on the island with
St. Eustacius in the background

From the train, it was a short ride to the pier and the catamaran for the one hour sail back to Basseterre and the ship. And the bar opened there as soon as the ship left the pier! See a pattern developing here? The good news is they also gave us lunch, and no one over-indulged. After sailing through a brief shower, it was sunshine and warm weather back to the pier, which was conveniently located right next to the shopping mall at the end of the pier where the cruise ships dock. Such a coincidence!

The view from the catamaran

   

On Wednesday we stopped in Barbados. We had been here before as well, but a long time ago and we were looking for a good tour to see more of the island. Well, we got it, but there weren't that many good opportunities to get photos. Barbados is only 166 square miles, and we figure we probably saw about 100 of them! Our driver, Ian, took us through 6 of the 11 parishes that make up the island and gave us lots of information along the way. Here are a few shots we could get:

                              

One of the very old churches on the island. This one has structural problems and
can no longer host services. There is active fundraising to get a
company from England to try to repair it.

 

Our jungle drive. One of the huge banyan trees. Although
Green Monkeys are all over the island, we didn't see any

 

At Bathsheba Beach on the Atlantic side

 

One of the golf courses at the Sandy Lane Resort. Looks really nice!

Part of the tour included a visit to Harrison's Cave, one of the premier attractions of Barbados and one that can't be duplicated anywhere else in the islands. This is because, unlike the Windward and Leeward Islands that were formed by volcanic eruption, Barbados is a product of plate tectonics. The Atlantic Ridge and the Caribbean Ridge pushed against each other with the Atlantic Ridge moving underneath millions of years ago. Over time, sediment and the calcified remains of gazillions of small sea creatures built the area up, and ultimately a few tectonic heaves pushed the top of the mass through the surface of the ocean. Now if you look closely at the rock faces you can easily see fossilized shells and rudimentary types of coral. As a result of this development, a large cave system was also created basically across about 2/3 of the island about half-way between the north and south ends. As the land where the original entrance was found had been on land owned by  one Thomas Harrison, it became known as Harrison's Cave.

The ride through the cave is about 40 minutes long and is done on very quiet electric-powered trams with a guide pointing out all sorts of things along the way. Even Monica, whose claustrophobia is well-known, managed to get through the tour without any problems - even when all the lights were turned off to show us just how dark the inside of a cave really is.

Stalagmites growing from the cave floor

Entering the 'Great Hall' over 60 ft high. The only
thing you have to watch for is the cave rain that
drips down on you

Water flowing across the white 'flow stone' rich
with calcium. Sometimes you think you're
riding along an ice wall, or maybe an icing wall

                              

So that's been pretty much it for now. We've been making a point of getting to the gym and have so far managed both Tuesday and Thursday (this) mornings, thereby keeping to our regular routines to some degree. The gym is quite well equipped so we're not having any trouble doing at least a few of our regular exercises along with our cardio.

Dominica has been a stay-on-the-ship day since most of the tours went to places we've already been, but we received an invitation this morning for a heli-pad sailway party (on the bow) as we leave. So we'll have a few more photos of the island coming up. We're having dinner tonight with Sue, one of the other consultants who works with Larry, and her husband Lou. They managed to get a last-minute booking and we've run into each other once or twice already.