Anne and I (Chuck) are back in San Francisco after our four-week visit to the country of Peru.  Still not at home (until Monday) I make this report with difficulty (using Alex’s computer) but want to let everyone know we had a wonderful time visiting the tropical nation on the west coast of South America.

We joined a birding tour and covered considerable territory but still, with the exception of Lima and a bit of the Pacific coast south of Lima, our travels were within only the southeastern part of the country.  On the first day we visited the shore to see coastal deserts, marshes, ocean beaches, and cliffs.   A short ride in a very small boat brought us to views of penguins and Peruvian boobies.  The next day we flew from the coast to Cusco where we began a more than two-week trek by van, boat, taxi, and bus across and down the east slope of the high Andes Mountains through puna grasslands, fog forests, and rain forests to the rough gold-mining town of Puerto Maldonado. 

The travel went well but we were fearful at times in overloaded boats, “Keystone taxis”, and roads so narrow that at least twice one of the rear wheels of our small bus dangled in space as the driver scraped the cliff on the other side to stay on the road. 

We enjoyed vistas of large tropical glaciers, the sight of Andean hill people commuting (on foot) and even valley farmers plowing fields with oxen.  Our birding was graced by king vultures, various parrots, large toucans, and glorious tanagers.  At times the birding stopped as the participants ignored the guides to gaze at tapestries of ferns and orchids growing on wet cliffs along the road that took us from the high passes to the Amazon Basin. 

The travel was not always comfortable but was in striking contrast to the life experienced by the poor in Peru.  They did not wear life-vests in worse boats or have internal plumbing in the various shacks that at first made us uncomfortable to look at.  We passed families of four traveling in “economy car” motor scooters with no helmets.  They were Peruvians of means.  We feared resentment but it seems in southeastern Peru there is “relative prosperity” provided by the massive tourist trade.  Everywhere we were greeted warmly.

The Incan architecture, especially the masonry, is as impressive as reported.  The “ghost town” of Machu Picchu is fabulous both in being relatively intact (the Spanish colonialists mined other places for building stone) and because of its location on a narrow ridge between two deep valleys surrounded by much higher mountain ridges.  It seems to have been an Incan’s (king’s) seasonal retreat and show palace.  Discovered and cleared by an American student adventurer of some means, the site now fuels the economy of the District (State) of Cusco.  Each year the grounds are improved and more ruins exposed to view.  The local people, most of largely Native American descent finds pride in presenting works created by their ancestors to foreigners who view them with awe.

The visit to Machu Picchu culminated our tour, which took us back to Cusco for departure.  There we left the group, spent one more day in that town which has plenty of historical and archeological interest, and then returned to the town of Ollantaytambo in the “Sacred Valley” near Machu Picchu.  There we spent six nights in one place to develop a sense of the place and the people. 

We got there by a tour taxi that brought us together with two other members of our tour to visit a few significant Inca sites.  The last of these was at Ollantaytambo and we were dropped off at the hotel after visiting the “fortressa.”  We were a little taken aback being on our own in a little town with rough streets, obvious poverty, and poor environmental management.  I wondered if we would survive six nights there.  Certainly we would soon be desperate to depart.  I thought I had made a terrible mistake including this last stay on our itinerary.  We were both exhausted from the tour.  Home seemed to beckon!

We did survive and came to enjoy Ollanta town after a few days.  We learned the ropes and overlooked the negatives.  When we crossed the market area at the entrance to the ruins we would be accosted by people peddling souvenirs.  A simple “no gracias” and a turn away sent them looking for someone else.  Some got to know us by the end of the week.  The trash is everywhere except where government cleanup is provided.  Some day the country will become conscious of it and stop the liter and random dumping, but for now it is a part of life.  It feeds the dogs, another negative.  The butcher section of the central market house was disgusting on first view with no refrigeration and many flies.  By the second time it was less shocking.  We didn’t buy there, of course, but we assumed our restaurants did. 

The town bustles with tourist traffic.  Most visitors stay one night, perhaps visiting the fortressa and then taking the train to Machu Picchu.  An old Inca town, the main street and the bridge are one lane wide.  Taxis, buses, trucks, and cars jockey to enter the wider intersection at the bridge and turn down toward the train station or cross the bridge to the fortressa ruins.  Not much room for pedestrians, but it all seems to work somehow.  Our hotel sat at the intersection and I loved watching it from the balcony.  A web-camera there would entertain the world. 

At breakfast we watched the children go to school.  They wore uniforms of sorts and casually negotiated the terrible crossings of the bridge and the intersection at ease.  Mountain people in traditional clothing arrived on foot, all carrying a satchel for market and often a baby.  Many crossed the bridge to sell wares at the tourist market. 

We spent the morning of our first day again touring the fortressa.  We had it to ourselves on a Sunday morning.  We climbed again to the fabulous temple and then explored the agricultural terraces and the waterworks.  The Inca people diverted part of the stream into channels that flow down each of the streets of the “old town” part of Ollantaytambo.  The water still goes there through open channels down the center of the narrow pedestrian streets.  One must walk with care not to step in a hole or channel. 

On most days we took at least a morning hike often to some fabulous ruin that is scarcely visited by tourists.  Our longest went to one that the residents seemed particularly proud of as being their own.  To get there we walked the same path as the mountain people and passed by their hovels and livestock on our way up the mountain.  After exploring the castle we came out to the small road and found two native women weaving.  One had a tiny baby in her satchel.  Anne wanted me to ask its age.  The girl replied, “un mes” (one month).  Anne bought a shawl from each of the women.  I was glad there were not three there.

We once rode a local bus to begin a hike that took us back to Ollantaytambo.  The bus was an unmarked van.  We walked to “the bus terminal” and I spoke, “Pachar.”  Someone pointed to the van.  It looked full, but I noticed that the back seat was vacant.  We sat there.  A mountain native followed us and we filled the back row. The driver got in and finally two more men entered the front of the van and crouched.  Only 16 people, not too bad.  The suspension will fail on a different run, I thought.  There was no request for money and we wondered how we would know our stop.  Then someone shouted, “Pachar?” to us.

I said, “Si!” and the van pulled over at a bridge.  We squeezed forward and I said to the driver, “Tres soles?”

He said, “Si, bueno.”

I paid him, said gracias, and we went on our way.

We could have taken public transportation to Cusco for a few more soles, but our luggage would have been on the roof and we would have had to change buses at Urubamba.  Instead we took a tour taxi for a half day for $75 US and made stops at three more tourist stops.  One was at a colonial church built high on the mountains, the second was at the remarkable circular terraces of Moray, and the third was at the town of Salineras where people have been harvesting salt from a spring for centuries and have fashioned a large set of terraced lagoons to prepare it for market.

We arrived again in Cusco in preparation for an afternoon flight the next day to Lima to start our trip home.  We had almost 24 hours and that was not to be wasted.  We dined, walked about, slept, visited three museums, and bought a bottle of Pisco before making our way to the airport. 

We enjoyed a supper in the Lima Airport Hotel and relaxed a bit before returning to the terminal for our one a.m. (ugh!) departure to San Francisco via Miami.  Our Peruvian adventure (and our second winter and spring of Year 2014) was over.  Our arrival into the U.S. brought us into autumn.  The days will now be getting shorter and the sun’s shadow will point north at Noon.  So strange. 

Our first sight at dawn was a boat in Florida Bay.  We approached the airport from the Everglades, passed the airport, and turned around over Miami Beach.  The United States looks so lovely when one has been away.  Even the officer at the Point of Entry seemed a welcome sight.  We had five hours to relax and enjoy the Miami airport before our second long flight to SFO.  We arrived there at five p.m. or about 21 hours after we left our hotel for the airport in Lima.  We were tired, we were ecstatic, and we were about to be greeted again by Alex when we arrived at his apartment.  So good to be home (of sorts.)