Last Days in Lima

Last days in Lima

I must apologize, we have been home for more than a week now and I wasn’t finished telling you about Peru. Let me finish the story.

On Wednesday, May 9^th, we needed to checkout of the Country Club Hotel and move to the JW Marriot in the Miraflores District. Before leaving though, we arranged to combine the hotel transfer with a private tour of the capital. That way, we could see some of the sights in the central Lima and move our luggage to the new location. The concierge at the Country Club Hotel arranged the tour through a firm called Peruvision and an hour later at 11:30 AM, a nice car pulled up with a guide and a driver. We loaded up the luggage into the trunk and then we went downtown.

There is so much to see in Lima. There are numerous museums, public buildings, churches and parks and they are all open to the public. My advice is to review the attractions that are popular in the online travel sights and then get a good local guide.  Our guide came with an itinerary that included two venues that I really wanted to see and the rest of the planned route sounded great too. As usual, I would keep the guide busy with reams of questions and Mrs. Gym recorded the sights with her trusty camera.

Our driver let us out at Plaza Mayor, which is a very good place to start. This is where Francisco Pizarro founded the city in 1535. Today, the buildings facing the square are prime Peruvian examples of the baroque style of architecture. The buildings are brightly painted in yellows and oranges and most have ornate protruding balconies. The most notable buildings that surround Plaza Mayor are the Government Palace, the Cathedral of Lima, the Archbishop’s Palace of Lima and the Municipal Palace of Lima.

The cool area around Plaza Mayor

Archbishop's Palace taken from Plaza Mayor - a great example of baroque accents
and the protruding wooden balconies that are everywhere around Plaza Mayor

Plaza Mayor - looking toward Government Palace
where the government of Peru does its thing

The fountain in the middle of Plaza Mayor

Our guide’s name was Mirabel. She may have been diminutive in stature but she had a larger-than-life personality and a vast knowledge of the subject matter. Unfortunately, we had just missed the changing of the guards and the Government Palace is not open to the public but it was still interesting to have been as close as a 9-iron shot from all of Peru’s federal power brokers. In addition, the Municipal Palace dominates one corner of the square, so in addition to the national bureaucracy, the municipal government building also faces the square. What we were here to see in detail though was the Cathedral, and the burial place of Francisco Pizarro.

Peruvian guide Mirabel

Municipal Palace from Plaza Mayor

Cathedral of Lima from Plaza Mayor

The tomb of the famous conquistador is directly to your right as you come though the front entrance. There is ornate tile on the floors and walls of the chapel and the tomb is off to one side. It is interesting to note that they had to replace the remains once when they found Francisco’s real remains in a crypt under the church and realized they had some other guy buried there for a century or so.

Tomb of Pizarro

Stunning tile artwork in Pizarro's chapel

Another famous guy that spent some time here while he was alive was Pope John Paul II. He made two visits, the first in 1985 and a second, in 1988. These trips to Peru were made during the height of the terrorist troubles in the country. In 1985, he endowed two crowns to the Virgin de la Evangelizacion. Then he came again in 1988 and gifted a rosary to the same chapel.

Pope John Paul II twice left priceless gifts for this chapel.
In 1985 he he left two white gold crowns and in 1988 a
priceless rosary.

Numerous other beautiful chapels line-up along the sides of the cathedral and for centuries, if your family was rich enough and dedicated enough to a chapel you could ensure that you had secured a place in the tombs underneath that chapel, as a burial place for your family.

One of numerous beautiful chapels
along the side of the Cathedral

another chapel

another

and another

a good shot from the back of the cathedral looking to the alter

Our next stop was the Convento de San Francisco. It is located about two blocks behind the cathedral. This place is famous for the incredible artwork that adorns the exterior walls between the church and the monastery and its catacombs. It is an interesting place to visit because it is the only church in Lima where you can descend into the catacombs and view the bones of 70,000 faithful that are on display. For the most part, these folks were buried by sprinkling the bodies with lime and then stacking them in 5-meter deep, common graves. The burials took place between 1673 and 1808 and because none of the bodies are new, the only things that are left today are femurs, humerus bones and skulls. All the rest has turned to ash. They actually did some kind of sorting recently and have stacked most of the bones in neat piles. It is a startling to see the massive piles of thousands of these bones neatly stacked in the 5-meter deep pits. It makes you wonder what it smelled like upstairs at Sunday morning mass all those years prior to the last burial.

Monastery of San Francisco is to the left of this photo and
the church below which the catacombs are located is pictured here.
Sadly when we descended into the catacombs we were not allowed to
photograph all those neatly piled bones

Having toured central Lima and two pretty cool historic sites, we jumped in the car and headed toward the beach. Our next hotel was in the Miraflores District. Remind me to never rent a car while in Lima. A wise man from Cusco once told us that in Peru, red lights are only a suggestion and crosswalks painted on the roads are just decoration. As we made our way to the JW Marriott in Miraflores District, we learned that lines on the road to divide lanes were decoration too. Describing the traffic as chaotic though, would be going too far. There seems to be some kind of order to the traffic. It is that the bold triumph and the meek that perish. If you want to get anywhere, you simply pick a line and you press forward, never looking in the rearview mirror. To be honest, there are less scrapes on Peruvian’s cars than there are on Canadians cars.

What we tried to show here was how there is a total disregard for lane
lines which are neatly drawn on the roads.

The JW Marriott in Miraflores District is not only an ultra-modern landmark built on top of the cliffs, overlooking the Pacific, it is the epitome of that real estate credo, “location, location, location”. The hotel has a beautiful view, the nearby shopping venues are outstanding and the neighboring community is safe and full of character. Mrs. Gym and I camped out at the Marriott for our last two nights, we did some shopping and we explored the neighborhood around the hotel. On Saturday morning, we said goodbye to Lima and boarded an Air Canada jet that would return us to our home and native land.

JW Marriott in Lima

view from #2411 in the Marriott

the pathways along the edge of the cliff above the waterfront

Miraflores is a surfer's dream

Parque de Amor is not far from the Marriott

Larcomar Mall is built into the cliff in front of the Marriott

Miraflores District

Miraflores modern?

That concludes another chapter in our world travels. We hope that we can bring you another chapter before the end of the year.

  

Exiting the Andes

Exiting the Andes

On Wednesday, May the 8^th, 2013, we got up bright and early and packed up our belongings. After the breakfast that was included in the Monasterio package, we went to check out and meet with Eyner our guide. Our guides had looked after us, and our luggage, very well for two days. Now they were going to take care of the last task of getting us to and through the airport, for the return flight to Callao (Lima).  On the 20-minute drive to the Cusco airport, Eyner offered some interesting discourse on Incan gastronomical practices that are still popular in the Andes today. He said his family still eats guinea pig on special occasions. In fact, the real connoisseurs like Eyner’s mother, prefer the delicate meat in the guinea pig’s head. Apparently, there is also a small bone in the temple of a guinea pig that, if found, is revered by the locals as having the same qualities as the wishbone in a turkey or chicken. Who woulda thunk it? We said goodbye to Eyner at the airport but still had Luis with us to see us to Callao.

We only experienced a one-hour delay of the StarPeru flight departure on the return leg and thank god that our head guide, Luis was still there with us at the airport. Our group may not have made it through there without him. The Cusco airport was a bit of a muddle, especially when your Spanish is no muy bueno.  The only way to describe the scene is that the departure lounge was like an large arena, with multiple, poorly numbered doors leading to air bridges that planes randomly park beside. Gringos must guess which corner of the arena is best to wait for their flight to come in to. And, by all means stick close to your local guide in the Cusco airport, if you have one.

After leaving Cusco, we arrived at the Callao International Airport with no further issues and loaded onto the bus that would take us into Lima from Callao. As we drove in from the airport, I realized what I had been missing and inhaled deeply of the sea level air, thick in oxygen.

Luis dropped us off at the Country Club Hotel, another Orient Express property. The one-night stay at the Country Club Hotel would be the last time the group from the M/S Marina would be together.  That night and early the next morning we said goodbye to the survivors from the Andean expedition, some of which we had we had met three weeks before, at sea in French Polynesia.

We still had three nights to explore the capital and the next day, we would be moving from the Country Club Hotel in the upscale district of San Isidro, to a hotel on the beach, in an even nicer district called Mira Flores.

Front Door of the Country Club Hotel in San Isidro District, Lima 

Lobby of Country Club Hotel

Country Club Hotel wins Gym's 2013 Best Shower Award

Marching on to Machu Picchu

Marching on to Machu Picchu

That first night in Cusco was pretty bad. Extracting oxygen from the thin air at that altitude, was quite an exercise. Despite staying at the Monasterio Hotel, a very comfortable 5-star property operated by Orient Express, trying to sleep at 2+ miles above sea level was hard work. In fact, I woke up in the middle of the night and opened the window to the noisy street below because I thought my dear wife and I had used up all the oxygen in the room.

Following that iffy sleep at 11,000 feet above sea level, we were up bright and early on Tuesday, May the 7^th, 2013, to start a three-stage journey up to Machu Picchu. This journey would involve a 1.5-hour mini-bus trip from Cusco to the train station in Urubamba, a 3-hour train ride to the base of Machu Picchu itself, and finally, a harrowing 25-minute bus ride up the sheer wall of the mountain to the gates of the ancient site.  That’s right, we had to endure a 5-hour journey just to get to the ruins and of course that journey was repeated in reverse later on, so that we could return to our hotel rooms in Cusco. Would we have enough time to see all the sights? Was this all going to be worth it?  The answer to both these questions turned out to be a definite and resounding yes! Machu Picchu was so worth the effort.  And even though we had only a single afternoon up on the mountain, our guide said we saw 85% of the important sites.

Now the journey wasn’t as bad as it sounds. After a good breakfast at the Monasterio, we met up with Eyner and boarded our mini-bus for the first leg of the journey. It was a mostly clear morning and the visibility was good. Our driver then took us up and out of Cusco and through a very lush farming area on the highway to Urubamba. Every so often we passed farmers stooped over in their fields wearing the same garb you would expect them to be wearing. The wide-brimmed Andean hats and colorful wool tops offer maximum protection from the equatorial sun.

Driving from Cusco to Urubamba we had nice views
of the farmland on the high plateau between the two towns

At two points on the highway we were higher than
 12,500 feet above sea level

small plots of land with numerous different crops

The train ride wasn’t hard to take either as we were going to go in style aboard the Hiram Bingham Train.  There are other trains that travel the narrow-gauge rail line down the Sacred Valley of the Inca but the Hiram Bingham is the only five-star way of getting from Urubamba to Machu Picchu. You cannot drive to Machu Picchu. You must take the train or you can hike the Inca Trail. That hike is a four-day hike that you do with porters who carry everything you need on their backs. They run ahead and set up camp for you each day before you get there. Mrs. Gym and I want to hike the Inca Trail the next time we go to Machu Picchu. Of course, this time around we didn’t have the four days it took to walk there, so we took the train. And if your going to take the train, why not the Hiram Bingham?

Hiram Bingham was the English gentleman that stumbled across an entirely neglected and overgrown Machu Picchu in 1911, when he was out for a hike. There is a plaque that honors him at the gates into Machu Picchu and of course, the 5-star train we traveled on which is operated by Orient Express, was named after him. We were pampered by very well trained attendants and served a 4-course lunch in our dining car seats on the way up to the mountain.

As we boarded a little music was provided 

We were seated in the dining car

the band played in the observation car at the back

narrow gauge rail

we just crossed the river

the sacred valley

the Urubamba river which eventually flows into the Amazon

The third leg of the journey was not as refined or relaxing as the second leg had been. We left the train at the terminus and crossed a bridge over the sacred Urubamba River to jump into buses. The buses then lurched into motion and began to crawl up a near vertical slope along a series of tight switchbacks that led to the gates of Machu Picchu. At any point along the road, you could look straight down through the window to the river that became a thin blue ribbon as we climbed up the mountain. That was easier than watching the buses pass each other with inches to spare after they roared around the blind, hairpin corners. Amazingly, there were no scratches on any of those buses.

Aguas Calientes, Peru, where the train stops below Machu Picchu

switchback roads for buses from Aguas Caliente

a bus entering a typical tight and blind curve

Having arrived safely after the five-hour trip from Cusco, we then stood at the gates to the famous Unesco World Heritage site of Machu Picchu. But at the gates you can’t see the runs. You have to walk about 50 yards around the corner of the mountain and all of a sudden this indescribable panorama opens up to you. You have seen it before in documentaries or in coffee table books but those images are no match to the real thing. It leaves you speechless.

Plaque to Hiram Bingham at the gates to Machu Picchu

Gym and Mrs. Gym with the ruins in the background

they farmed the terraces

looking up from near the royal chambers

looking down from the ruins

the sun cooperated here

water still flows from the springs the Incas tapped

more farmland

entrance to the royal chamber

looking down from the sundial

cutting the grass

the sundial at the top

temple of the condor

the condor's wings are bedrock

As I said before after we got down to business we climbed pretty well every major staircase in the ruins and as Eyner said we saw 85% of the most important sites and Eyner was an excellent guide. Eyner’s passion for the ruins shone through as he described each site along the way. Near the end of the tour someone asked him how many times he had been to Machu Picchu and he didn’t know but he pulled a photograph of him on his first visit. In the photo, a very happy little 8-year old boy is holding his father’s hand in the ruins not far from where we had just been standing.

Eyner our guide

We left the mountain at about 4:30 pm and by the time we were settled in the train, it was dark. After we got rolling, the train attendants served us a 5-course dinner. We finally got back to the Monasterio Hotel at about 11 pm and we went right to bed. It was a long day and we were exhausted. We also must have climbed up and down 1000 stairs. We slept better the second night. We were just beginning to feel like we were acclimatizing to the altitude and our 2-day trip up into the Andes would be over the next morning.