Peru and the trek to Machu Picchu 2015

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Friday, February 20, 2015

Today is our last day of our wonderful Trafaglar Tour, last night in Cuzco. So sad. Unfortunately all good things to come to an end. Todd woke up at 5:00 am to work on checking school stuff and responding to email, he also type of some of the blog.

Cindy and I ate breakfast at 8:00ish this morning, we needed to get back to our room to make sure our luggage is in the hall by 8:40 am. Not sure I mention this before but since we have to give up regular luggage at the Sonesta hotel on Tuesday, when arrive this hotel, Novotel Cuzco, our luggage was waiting for us at this hotel, in our assignment room on Wednesday evening. I have to admit, I was a little nervous, however Trafaglar never disappoints.

We returned to our room by 8:40am, however all the luggage was picked up. We had our luggage outside the door at 8:41. Thankfully a person from the hotel came by at 8:55am and asked us if we wanted our luggage brought to the lobby. Thank goodness we had our luggage out because when we meet in the lobby the luggage was already on its way to the airport.

Our tour group was required to meet in the lobby at 9:10 am so we could head to the Cuzco airport to fly back to Lima. Checking in at the Cuzco airport was less stressful than checking in at the Lima airport. The crowds were less here. After going through security, shoes on and bottle water OK, we headed to our gate to relax until our flight departure at 11:20am. I had the great conversation with a dad for Florida and saw some awesome pictures of his home.

While on the flight, one hour+ to Lima, we were served a light snack. Like I mentioned in a prior blog entry, it is amazing that most international airline carriers provided meals, US flights provide nothing, except you have to pay for meals if the flight length is over a certain threshold. The flight was uneventful, other than the views was semi obstructed with the wings.

We landed in Lima around 12:45 pm. Once we disembarked, we headed to the luggage area where someone took our bags off the belt and had them waiting for us. What good service. The porters brought the luggage over for us to make sure it was all there and then took it to the bus. Once on board we headed back to the Novotel Lima, this is the first hotel we stayed at the start of our trip.

We arrived at our hotel at 1:45 pm and we had free time until 4:30 pm. Cindy and I ate lunch at the hotel restaurant, 365. We split a Panini. We did not want to be too full for our early dinner at 6:30 pm.

We meet the entire tour group in the lobby at 4:30 pm and we heading off to our final stop of the tour, Museum Larco. It is the nicest of the Peru museums in Peru. It houses the largest Pre-Columbia art display in South America. Our final event this evening is a tour of the museum with a curator and then dinner on the grounds of the museum.

The museum was beautiful and when entering the grounds, the flower gardens were outstanding. Here is a little information about the museum. “The Museum has several permanent exhibitions. The Gold and Silver Gallery showcases the largest collection of jewelry used by many notable rulers of pre-Columbian Peru. It comprises a collection of crowns, earrings, nose ornaments, garments, masks and vases, finely wrought in gold and decorated with semi-precious stones. Ancient Peruvian cultures represented their daily lives in ceramics, and this gallery holds the world's largest collection of erotic ceramics. The Cultures Gallery exhibits 10,000 years of Peruvian pre-Columbian history. This chronology-based gallery provides visitors with a comprehensive view of cultures that existed in pre-Columbian Peru through the extant indigenous art that has survived since the 16th century Spanish conquest. This hall is divided into four areas: North Coast, Center, South and cultures from the highlands. Showcases have been ordered according to cultural sequence:

· From the North Coast: Cupisnique, Vicus, Mochica and Chimu;

· From the Central Coast: Lima and Chancay;

· From the South Coast: Paracas, Nazca and Chincha;

· From the Highlands: Chavín, Tiahuanaco, Huari and Inca.

Other galleries include the Lithic, Vault, Ceramics, Metals, Textiles and Storage in which visitors have the opportunity to view the Museum's entire collection of classified archaeological objects.”

This artifacts and art was absolutely incredible. There was a mummy on display. In Peru, mummies were in sitting positions, where as in Egypt they were laying down. I enclosed several photos for your viewing.

After the very informative tour of the museum, we proceeded to the museum restaurant for our farewell dinner. Our farewell dinner started off with a Pisco Sour, surprise. The national drink. I think we had one Pisco sour every evening. For appetizers Cindy had the Cream of Vegetable (soup), Todd had the Causa Limena (mashed yellow potato seasoned with lime, stuffed with chicken and vegetables in a mild yellow aji pepper tartar. This was yum. For dinner, Cindy and I ate the Aji de Gallina Ravioli (Lima’s favorite dish: ravioli filled with shredded chicken in a mild yellow aji pepper sauce. During our meal we are offer two beverages, we drank Peruvian wine. As I mentioned in prior blog entries, the Peru wine is not good. For the finish of our meals, we had dessert. Cindy had the chocolate mousse and Todd had the lucuma mousse.

It was great socializing with our tour group one more time. We sat with the same family from NY that we did at the luncheon at persons home. Nice way to end the trip.

The dinner was finished at 8:15 pm and then we had to return to the hotel. After we arrived at the hotel, we had to wait in our room until 10:45 pm for a scheduled pickup. Our flight was not scheduled until 2:45 am, however apparently it takes a while at the airport to check in, go through security and then immigration.

When back at the hotel, Cindy and I took showers, put on fresh clothes, and made sure our checked bags were correctly packed. Around 10:00 pm we headed to the lobby had our Pisco Sour, haha, and then our driver took us to the airport. The driver actually called the room one hour earlier, however we weren’t ready. The drive to the airport took forever. Without traffic, it is about a 20 minute trip, however for some reason, the traffic was crazy this evening. The driver took us on back roads, however there was still traffic.

The check in process at the Lima airport was not complicated. The entire process took about 35 minutes. Once through security, since I have an admiral’s club membership, we will able to access the Sumaq VIP Lounge. When we first walked in, the lounge was super full and no place to sit, however there was an upcoming flight to Miami so the lounge cleared out nicely. What I love about the international lounges is you always have food and drink. In the US you get nuts and coffee.

Our flight was scheduled to depart at 2:45 am, however we never started to board our flight until 3:10 am. There was a labor dispute with the flight attendants. Thank goodness they were able to work out whatever they had to work out. Cindy and I were very fortunate to fly business class home. Like coming to Lima, I was able to use some of my miles to upgrade. Most of the flight to DFW, we slept, however we were served two meals, so we were able to be awake for that.

This is final entry for our travel blog. We thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Peru. We were very lucky with the weather and create memories like no other. We are thankful each day that we are fortunate to be able to travel and enjoy many parts of the world. We are also blessed to have good health.



Until our next trip, we hope you enjoyed our blog.

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Comments

[Susan mclaughlin]

Enjoyed your blog. Brought back memories of my trip. You did a great write up with such interesting detsils. Where did you find the time?