Last Trip Information Delay

Sorry everything was so late from the last trip. I arrived home starting being sick and had to start teaching immediately.  I slept through the first weekend before I started considering working on the material.  Then I got tied up in being busy elsewhere as well.

Peru Christmas 2014 Day 15

We woke up kind of latish. We stayed around the house for the morning and then had to get ready and went to Donna and Edwin’s house for lunch.  I was still not feeling great to my stomach.

They served ceviche for a starter followed by arroz con pollo.  We brought along a bottle of wine but I didn’t drink. I had the chicha morada they provided and also some tea.  They had some cookies for dessert.  Daniela’s brother did not make it to their house but her mother did if a little bit later than they had hoped for. I didn’t take pictures in their house though probably I should have because it is very nice.  The food was really good and fortunately I didn’t have any adverse reactions to it. I wonder if it was just Daniela’s family from Arequipa that was the issue?

After we ate dinner we had tried to make plans to meet up with Dan from NY in Lima downtown. He was staying near there he thought so Daniela and I took a taxi to get there to meet him for six but due to her mother’s arriving late we ate later than we expected and showed up at 6:15. Apparently Dan had already given up on us so we ended up waiting around till about 7:00 before deciding to head back to the house.  We were able to trade emails with him and found out that he just panicked that we weren’t showing and left after a couple minutes of us being late. I was surprised primarily because of how late we were compared to what we said on New Year’s Eve.  I thought he might have figured that out.

At the house we primarily got me packed up and ready to get on the plane that night but we also relaxed a little bit while waiting.  After all was said and done we had to get a taxi to the airport. My first flight out of Lima was to be delayed by weather in the US but we were told to go in for the normal time just in case. So we got to the airport. My check-in was quick. The lady at the desk told me the delay shouldn’t be a problem for my flight from Houston so I should be ok with my already set flights.  I met Daniela in the open area and we stayed at the food court of the airport until it was time for me to head in. My flight remained delayed by some time but I still needed to make sure I got through security and immigration without being too delayed. We didn’t eat anything or even do any shopping. We just sat and talked until it was time for me to go. The security line was a bit rough but immigration was quick.  So probably I left a few minutes earlier than I needed to. Of course we wanted to be together as long as possible.  I think in some respects we are getting too used to this part of the trip. I don’t like it much but it won’t be for much longer I hope.  So I got in and found they were a bit more delayed than they said and spent a couple minutes shopping but not long. That covered the difference and when I got back we were basically lined up and ready to board.

The flight boarded reasonably well. I was in the inner aisle and had a Chinese couple next to me. They were quiet I think. As soon as I boarded I fell asleep and didn’t really wake up until less than an hour before we arrived to Houston. The plane was a 767-300. I didn’t even make it to the safety briefing before I was asleep.

We arrived in Houston. I go through the Global Entry kiosk and had an added step of being checked for ebola by a live officer but that was quick. Luggage wasn’t too bad and I was able to get myself through customs (the non-Global Entry folks were pissed at our speed through the line) and on my way to baggage recheck and then on to my gate (no security recheck needed as I was in the same terminal).  I didn’t have to wait too long before we were boarding. I did buy a snack for the morning because I really didn’t eat on the other flight and this flight wouldn’t have any food. But it was only some bugles that I ate most of before we got on board.  The boarding was quick again but I was literally surrounded by children. Some were quiet and some were obnoxious. The family with 3 kids and another on the way had no control over their children. I was still so tired I was able to sleep through most of that as well.  We landed maybe a little bit early. My bag was one of the last off the belt. Still Dad was waiting for me and we were on our way home with basically no traffic in short order. The Bruins were playing and lost in a shootout before we got home.

Pictures from Peru Christmas 2014

The remaining unposted pictures from Peru Christmas 2014 can be found at the following links.

Day 7 http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AbM2bZq2cuWjWJg

Day 8 http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AbM2bZq2cuWjWQA

Day 9 http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AbM2bZq2cuWjWYg

Day 10 http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AbM2bZq2cuWjWjA

Day 11 http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AbM2bZq2cuWjWrg

Day 12 http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AbM2bZq2cuWjWyA

Day 13 http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AbM2bZq2cuWjW6g

Day 14 http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AbM2bZq2cuWjXFA

Day 15 http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AbM2bZq2cuWjXNg

Peru Christmas 2014 Day 14

We had to wake up in time to get mostly packed up because we had a city tour in Arequipa for the morning but we would be flying back to Lima at 9 in the evening that day. The hotel was kind enough to let us leave the stuff in the room for the day because they had not sold the room and did not charge us for it.  We had a brief breakfast in their restaurant in the lobby which was South American version continental breakfast. I had coffee, orange juice, toast and some fruit. Daniela mainly finished the lamb she took back from the day before which the kitchen was kind enough to heat up for her.

At around 9am our guide for the day picked us up at the hotel lobby for our city tour. It was private. I am sorry I do not remember her name.  We started in a private car that drove us up to a couple different scenic points of the city first. In those points she explained a bit about the history of the city as well as the local area which again had tons of pre-Incan steps around as well as 3 volcanoes, one of which is still active though if I understood her right hasn’t erupted since 1450 or so just before the Spanish came.  The city used to have 2 main bridges over the Rio Chili but nowadays there were a real lot of them.  At the first point there was a statue of an Incan who was supposed to provide good luck.  She also explained about a local potato called maca and the local Arequipan papaya which is small and very different tasting from normal papayas.   The second site was also mostly scenic and we got a bit more detail about the city. 

We saw a church built in the 18^th century that was made with the local white volcanic rock. Volcanic rock in the region of Arequipa is either white or pink. The pink is not as sturdy as the white so most structures using volcanic rock are made with the white with maybe some pink for decoration. Though it was a catholic church it was set up on the outside with a really gothic/Incan look. The guide explained that most people out these ways didn’t fully just convert to Christian or Catholic but I will say hedged their bets and wanted to continue to work with their own gods.  I am sure that was the case for the vast majority of the peoples in South America being force to be Catholic by the Spanish. 

We headed to the Plaza de Armas and she explained to us about the square and the cathedral which was neo-classical style though made of the volcanic rock.  We didn’t go in that one but did go into another church built by the Jesuits.  This had some impressive decoration in the section that was built by brick rather than volcanic stone on the inside because apparently the plasters used don’t stick to the volcanic rock. The Jesuits had initially had the whole church painted in a style representing the jungle that was still in this one chapel/room.  Unfortunately they wouldn’t let us take pictures in there.  The outside was also a gothic/Incan mix.  The main part of the church was more baroque style at this point.

After that church we walked our way to the Monasterio Santa Catalina which was a convent founded in 1589 or so. It is still active with 15 nuns now. The place is termed, “A city within a city.”  This because the nuns were originally permanently cloistered in there with only contact to the outside world from a couple speaking rooms near the entrance.  The inhabitants were typically the girls of rich families who were sent there at age 12 or so as novices and were made into nuns by 18 or sent back out to be married depending on the family’s choices.  I don’t think the girl typically got a say.  It would be easy to say that in those days the women lived pretty well with servants and large spaces because they came from families who paid dowries to the convent to keep them there. If there family didn’t have enough money then they had to work as a servant to pay off their dowries on their own.  The convent was really huge and covered a few different “districts” that were built up in different centuries: 17^th, 18^th and 19^th.  By this point we had switched over to a guide form the convent instead.  The primary guide of the day left us inside the convent and was done with her part of the day.  Also, outside we met the “Most Kind Peruvian” as voted by a contest. I believe he used to be a policeman but now worked for the convent as a crossing guard for traffic so visitors could get in without getting run over. He said hello to everyone in different languages including English and was always smiling. We took a couple of pictures with him before we entered the convent.

The convent had a nice garden as well as an interesting laundry area. There were several chapels though most of that was converted into other working areas when the convent was turned into a standard convent of equality rather than the place of status it had originally been. There was one beatified mother superior at the convent. Her two miracles were explained to us. First supposedly after she died and was buried her remains were exhumed 9 months later and were still perfect. Second a person with cancer supposedly ate the dirt from her grave and was cured of the cancer. So John Paul II beatified her when he visited Peru in the 80s. I think we spent about an hour inside the convent.  You don’t get to see the active nuns who are cut off (but apparently can get permission to leave by the mother superior these days unlike before). Daniela bought some sweets made by the nuns in the convent too while we were there.

The tour car took us to the travel agency that Daniela works with to provide people tours in Arequipa. They had provided all we took that day.  We met with the owner for a few minutes and she explained about her company and provided some wisdom to Daniela because her business had been around for over 20 years.  After that few minutes the owner drove us to downtown Arequipa to meet up with Daniela’s family so we could have lunch. They were all waiting anxiously. It was her aunt and uncle and cousin.  We all piled into a taxi that drove us out to a restaurant that was a fair bit out of town.  The treated us to lunch. They ordered us a mixed plate that had chicharon, rocoto rellenos, pastel de papas (it was like au gratin potatoes), estofada (beef stew), lambs’ feet (pata de cordero) as well as rice and some other snacks. It was far too much food. The lamb foot was rather unpleasant to me being like rubber with a flavor I didn’t care for.  Her uncle ate a dish of meet from the nose of a cow served in a sauce with tomatoes and onions. They ordered a second dish of that and asked us to eat some of that as well. It wasn’t really that bad honestly. I was stuffed already by the time that came through. The got us some local chicha (which is fermented like a sort of corn beer) and some anis acholado which is like anisette.  We ate and talked for a couple hours before we had to return to the hotel and get our stuff ready to leave.

We packed up and had maybe another hour and twenty minutes so walked to the downtown area and talked and took some pictures before returning in time for our private transfer to the airport.  We got checked in and the plane boarded on time (we met Dan the guy from New York getting ready for his flight also and spoke to him briefly).  The flight was uneventful except for a few bumps and a harder than expected landing. We had a snack on board somehow.  Daniela had prearranged a safe taxi for our arrival. The luggage took forever still we got back to the house around 10:30 or so. Daniela’s mom was waiting outside for us and we talked for a while but I had another incident where I had to run to the bathroom though I had believed I was better by then. Maybe about 11:30 we called it a night.

Peru Christmas 2014 Day 13

I am sure that we woke up late. I think it might have been around 10:30 or so but since we got to sleep some time deep after 3am it made sense in a way. I don’t think we really drank that much so neither of us really had any sort of hangover but I had an emergency trip to the bathroom in the night and I was hoping I was better by morning.  We got cleaned up (I was pleased to find out the shower worked better) and headed out to a restaurant that served farm raised (on the premises) trout as a primary dish to meet her friend Elisabeth Yenny (call her Jenny) and her husband Fulvio who is originally from Italy. Jenny also worked onboard the same cruise ships Daniela did back in the day and that was how they met.  Jenny lives in Arequipa and the couple had a pizza shop that they were deciding to close and open a different one due to location issues.  Also to come along were there friends Lucecita and her boyfriend Andrea (also an Italian) and another couple that I am sorry I really can’t remember their names but they were more quiet than I was.  The wife was pregnant.  Fulvio was sick from eating bad calamari during their New Year party wherever they went so he really didn’t eat or drink much. 

Guess what, I had to again run to the bathroom (which didn’t have a seat and only had paper towels outside of the stall) because I again had an emergency. I had had a little bit of beer before this and I stopped immediately.  Apparently the restaurant was on some sort of holiday menu which meant it only had about half of what it typically serves and everyone got upset and we decided to go somewhere else.  So they settled up the beer and we all piled out and walked to a new restaurant about 7 blocks away with a short ride from a local family’s van. 

The new restaurant was on what Fulvio called Calle de Cholesterol.  Their specialty was also chicharon and all sorts of other deep fried things.  Daniela ordered lamb ribs. I had a dish of white rice because of my stomach. They had a lot of beer amongst everyone but I just had water. We had spots of dancing as this place had live music that continued throughout the time that we were there. I think we met at the first restaurant somewhere between 12 and 1 and left the second restaurant around 6:30 or so.  They were all very funny people but it was of course very difficult to follow everything because there were only a few spots of English in the conversation. I did my best to keep up but at times I had to tune out because it was too much concentration with all the people talking and the music in the background.  They were definitely a partying sort.  It was a long day for me.  After that Daniela had hoped to have dinner with her family but I begged off and she agreed probably because she was full from the lunch. We went back to the hotel and took it easy for the night. 

Peru Christmas 2014 Day 12

We once again woke up early and got cleaned up and packed because that was the only night we were spending in Yanque.  We had a brief breakfast at the hotel restaurant (which was included) and then hung around watching the animals until the bus came to pick us up.  The bus brought us to Yanque’s Plaza de Armas and we did a bit of local tourism in Yanque where we watched local children dance and looked at all the stall selling stuff on the square.  After a few minutes we all got on the bus and were brought to another small town nearby called Maca where we visited the town and the church and even had our picture taken with animals.  During this tour we met a Canadian couple from Nova Scotia and I talked hockey for a bit. Mike was a Bruins fan. His point being it is the nearest NHL city to Nova Scotia and we don’t speak French.

The tour continued on to the Colca Canyon where the primary target was to see condors flying. We had a few different stops along the way. Getting there they gave us a bathroom break and then we arrived at the canyon where we waited for about an hour and a half or so before we started to see a few condors flying around.  As we had only seen a couple at the scenic point we started on our way back towards Chivay.  However on the way we got out of the bus at least once because we spotted more along the way and the guide stopped and let us get out and take more pictures.  We were able to get some really good ones. Aside from those stops we had a couple more scenic stops. In one Daniela bought a couple of cups of frozen sancayo ice cream. Sancayo is a fruit from a cactus in the region. It is tart like a lemon and filled with lots of black seeds. The kind without milk started to look like saliva as it melted but the one with milk was more like ice cream.  I liked the one with milk more. So did Daniela.  With the scenic stops and one more bano break we were able to get to a local restaurant near Chivay.

It was a buffet restaurant. I took more than I ate. We split a beer. It had a variety of foods but I was still not feeling very hungry possibly from being sick or from the altitude.  After lunch we redistributed passengers and then took a ride on to Arequipa. There was little guide talk on this about 3 hour ride and we took turns falling asleep some. When the bus arrived in Arequipa it dropped most of the passengers off at their hotels if they wanted or at the Plaza de Armas.  Before we got out we made a deal with the Canadians, the couple with the Japanese and the guy from New York to meet at 11pm right at the Christmas tree in front of the Cathedral.

We got settled into the hotel room and immediately went on our way downtown to meet Danielas cousin Marita at her Ice Palace ice cream shop.  It was on the way to the Plaza de Armas from the hotel.  She gave us some ice cream to try from the shop. Her family has four Ice Palace shops around Arequipa.  I had coffee and coconut and Daniela had some fruit flavors.  Marita came out with us to help us shop for New Year’s Eve. Daniela needed some accessories and we needed the Peruvian traditional yellow underwear for each of us.  We walked around all over Arequipa it felt because her cousin knew all the places to shop for what we needed.  When we were done with that we went back to the hotel and got cleaned up and dressed up for the evening.

First we were invited to her Aunt and Uncle’s home to have dinner. We walked down to meet her cousin and then we took a taxi to their home.  They were already dancing when we got there. There were several friends and relatives.  We of course started dancing right away and they served a few different drinks in the course of the night. I think there was some Bailey’s, followed by champagne and then when we had dinner, wine.  One of the guests worked for Es Secur as a radiologist and was familiar with Hologic’s products which was kind of neat. We had our plans to meet the people from the tour at 11 but the night was going by pretty fast and they insisted we eat with them so we did and ended up leaving a bit late.  They served two types of salad, apple sauce, chicharon, some rice and potatoes.  I took a bit of everything except too large a chunk of the pork.  I ate most all of it except for the pork I ate all the meat and left the fatty stuff behind.  There was a lot of it.  We left I think around 11:30 to meet people we were supposed to find at 11.  They got us a taxi and we took it to the main square.

At the main square, near the Christmas tree, we did find the two Canadians and the guy from New York. They were already a couple to a few beers into the night and of course by then the fireworks had already started. We watched all the local people shoot off their fireworks. There were professional grade bombs going off but they were just being set off in the crowd sort of randomly.  Of course some openings like mosh pits had formed and people were mostly staying out of those points. There were a couple that set off really low and even one I think that exploded just off the ground. I know I saw an ambulance waiting in the square but as much as I teach Daniela I am not sure any did actually get hurt. It is just an assumption based on all the chaos.  After the new year turned and everyone wished each other Feliz Ano we stayed for a little while longer watching until a dog that was going nuts by the fireworks kind of made us decide it was best to get out. There was a point he tried to attack some exploding firecrackers. 

We walked out of the square to Calle San Francisco and eventually found a bar/club called Carusso on the second floor of a small plaza on the street and paid 15 soles each to get in. They said they had no tables left to sit at but the goal was dancing anyway.  So we bought some beers and started dancing. They did a DJ mix of Spanish and American music. After a couple of hours the other 3 foreigners had their fill of dancing and decided to leave. We escorted them out and continued on dancing for probably another hour before deciding to leave ourselves. Daniela was wearing new shoes and her feet were killing her. We took a taxi to the hotel and crashed for the night. We had asked the hotel if we could switch rooms from the first because the shower didn’t function great and the lack of any light blocking curtains made the room bright at 5am. When we got back to the hotel they moved us down a floor to a room that was almost identical except it had a sheltered window which meant not as much light could get in.

Peru Christmas 2014 Day 11

We had another early day for the idea of taking tours so we had to wake up at around 6am or so.  After we got cleaned up we had a short breakfast in the hotel. We were picked up by a tour bus that brought us through the region on our way from Puno to Chivay.  We had to cross through the mountains and go to altitudes of 4920 meters at one point on the trip. We had a few scenic overlooks along the way but it was a couple to three hour drive between the two points.   We met a couple (not sure if they were really a couple or just traveling together) that was a woman from Arequipa in Peru and a Japanese man from Saporro who is living in Chile.  They were very funny. The Japanese guy spoke Spanish and a little bit of English as well.  We also met an American guy from New York named Dan who was traveling alone through Peru and didn’t really have set plans so asked us what we were doing to have a good idea what to do.  We told him we would meet him at 4pm to try to get him booked on our tours for the next couple of days.

Actually we spent the night in Yanque not Chivay. Yanque is about 15 minutes away from Chivay downhill.  The tour bus dropped us off at Chivay’s Plaza de Armas and we immediately took a taxi to the hotel called the Eco Inn Lodge.  We asked the taxi driver to bring us back to the city at about 2pm.  This gave us enough time to get settled in and take a brief nap before we the taxi actually did come back and pick us up and bring us to Chivay. We ate a quick lunch at a restaurant suggested by the taxi driver which was primarily a buffet place but we ordered off a menu because neither of us wanted buffet. Daniela had a set menu that had quinoa soup along with medallions of alpaca and all the tea she could drink.  I had spaghetti with hauncaina sauce with fried beef. I ate most of the spaghetti but the meat was a bit too much for my stomach still so I left a fair bit of it behind. The guide for our next couple days found us at the restaurant and told us we needed to be at the bus for 3:40 but we were a few minutes late.  We had told the guide about Dan and fortunately he found him and signed him on so he would go through the Colca Canyon on to Arequipa with us.  We had to do some shopping because Daniela needed a swimsuit.  That was what put us a bit late.

The tour for 4pm was actually a visit to a local hot springs. Daniela remembered a specific springs but that was not where we were brought. Apparently the one she remembered is much nicer but that had a few pools under maintenance and was too crowded to bring tours to with its now limited number of pools. So instead we went to one just below our hotel Yanque that I think was called Chacapi.  We did spend a fair bit of the hour in the water. It was very windy and the springs were open air mostly so we stayed in the sheltered pool.  The water was warm but not boiling hot. It actually turned out to be reasonably pleasant even if we spent our time at the deeper part where Daniela could not touch the floor and I could barely tip toe to reach it.  I didn’t take any pictures of the hot springs.  After the hour was done the tour bus brought us back to the hotel where we got cleaned up and then went to the reception area/restaurant and had a dinner of only dessert. I had quinoa ice cream with some sort of fruit sauce on it and Daniela had a banana crepe. They were both very good. We accompanied those with a pitcher of hot chocolate.

When we finished that we went back to the room and watched a movie on TV that was in English but they only gave the title Votas de Amor in Spanish for some reason. There weren’t even subtitles in Spanish for it. It was a romantic film starring Channing Tatum as a guy whose wife gets a brain injury in a car accident and loses 5 years of her memory.  She apparently never regained it but they fell in love all over again.  It was supposedly based on a true story.  I am sure it was a touch fantasized.   After that we called it a night.

Peru Christmas 2014 Day 10

We had to get up early to get picked up for our tour to Lake Titicaca. We had a short breakfast but the tour arrived early so we had to rush and still they drove away and had to come back for us.

The start of the tour brings you to the port at the lake and we boarded a small boat that held about 25 people.  The guide explained about the lake and about the cultures that existed and exist on and around the lake. The main focus of the tour was to visit the Uros and Taquile Island. First we rode out through the reeds to the floating islands of the Uros.

Yes, floating islands. They are all artificially made using reed roots and reeds. The islands are apparently well designed enough to last 25-30 years.  The Uros moved to the lake many years ago and were originally Aymara, a pre-Incan culture.  I am not totally sure what motivated them to move onto the lake itself. It was explained somewhat as escaping persecution from other cultures. Originally they built reed boats but those only lasted about 3 years at best before they would sink. When they learned how to build the islands obviously they were more permanent.  The thing is every week they have to build up their island with more reeds. This includes raising any of their homes up higher as well. They said it takes about 4 people to pick up one of their reed based homes.  They prop the houses up a bit higher than the rest of the walking surface. It is odd to walk on the reeds. You feel like you are sinking in or destroying their ground on them as you create indentations.  They primarily subsist of fishing. They obviously would have difficulty with agriculture however they do also eat the new reeds which provide a few nutrients and moisture. We tasted them. It was a bit spongy but not terrible.  Their new mode of income now is tourism and they take turns sharing the tourists among the 23 islands they have.  The island we visited was a new island for tourism and their boat was very new comparatively to the others we saw.  They spent some time explaining to us how the island was built and they sang some songs and danced a little.  They were of course very pleasant. We got to visit inside one of the houses.  They sold some handicrafts and we got to take a ride on their reed boat to the other side of the islands.  The men were all off fishing I presume because only the women and children were in town.

After the reed boat ride we got back on the tour boat and took a ride to the island of Taquile. The highest point on that island was easily over 4000 meters.  We had a long climb up from the lake to get to the first stop which was a nice vista where the guide spoke a bit about the culture there. They were of course conquered by the Spanish but their primary language was also Aymara.  They lived off of agriculture and raising animals aside from tourism as well. We ate lunch at a restaurant in one of the communities on the island. Apparently they share the tourists among the different communities where are basically different families (similar to the Uros).  The restaurant served quinoa soup and fried trout and it was very good but I was very low on appetite from the sickness or the altitude or both so I didn't eat much.  The sun came out while we were on the island and by the time we were done I was very badly sunburned. It was mostly a walking tour which brought us up to the plaza de armas then down to a new launch point to get back on the boat. The island was very beautiful and there were many great views of the lake from different vantage points.

The boat brought us back to the port where we met Roxana and got a tour bus back to the hotel. I felt like crap by the end of the tour so I stayed in and went to bed and Daniela went out to buy a few things and to get some food. I fell asleep early still trying to recover from all that was wrong with me.

By this point I suspect pictures will be posted when I get home.