Three Weeks in Peru: an Overview in Photographs

On Peru's airline, LAN, Carolee and I flew from LAX to Lima. Beth flew in to Lima from Miami on American. We met at the hotel Leon de Oro in the Miraflores distsrict of Lima, the designated meeting place for our Intrepid tour group. After a meet and greet--our group of twelve + one tourguide ranged in age from thirteen to seventy, three of us from the USA, two from New Zealand, seven from Australia, and tourguide Claire from England--and then an introductory briefing, our tour officially began Sunday afternoon, June 21, in Miraflores' main square, La Plaza de Armas.


Miraflores (Lima)

From Lima, the next morning we drove to Paracas and took a boat to the Ballestas Islands, "the poor man's Gallapogas."

That afternoon we rode dune buggies and sandboarded on towering sand dunes near the oasis of Huacachina.

From the sand dunes we headed to Nazca for the night.

Then, the next morning we viewed the Nazca Lines--one of the world's most mysterious archaeological sites--by air. (The plane I rode in held a pilot and five passengers.) This one is one of my favorites, the monkey.

And here is the hummingbird:

The following day we continue our drive down Peru's desert coastline to Puerto Inka. Here are Darci and Beth relaxing in hammocks situated above the beach.

A gorgeous beach but one cold ocean (Humboldt Current); plus, June is winter in the southern hemishpere.





The following day we continued the journey to our next destination, Arequipa; as cities go, this one tied with Iquitos as a favorite for me.

Monasterio de Santa Catalina (a nunnery, actually) in Arequip--absolutely stunning use of line, shape, color, and landscaping.




From Arequipa we turned inland toward the Andes.

Here is our first view of Lake Titticaca at the archaeological site of Sillustani just outside of Puno.


One of the floating island villages--built on reeds--in Lake Titticaca.


Taquile Island in Lake Titticaca, an island we visited where knitting is strictly a male domain and women do the spinning.




Next, Cusco:







Machu Picchu








The Sacred Valley: first Ollantaytambo, a living Inca village. Ancient ruins design two surrounding mountainsides.

The Sacred Valley: Pisac--an important farming area for the Incas. These ruins stand above the current village of Pisac down in the river valley.

A weaving village we visited in the high country above the Sacred Valley.

The Intrepid tour ended back in Lima, Sunday, July 5. That evening Carolee and I set out on our own for an Amazon adventure when we flew to Iquitos--an Amazon River town arrived at only by boat or air. The next morning we boarded a boat and then we spent four days at a lodge further down river in the Amazon jungle.

The Amazon is way muddy, astonishingly wide, and achingly beautiful.

For our last two days in Peru we returned in Iquitos.




Here's the market in Belen, a floating village now encompassed by Iquitos:

Adrenalin Heaven

New Zealand is the motherland of adventure sports. For this distinction, The Rough Guide to New Zealand credits New Zealand’s “extraordinary range of climatic conditions and geographical phenomena” in combination with the “innovative Kiwi approach to adventure activities.” In fact, two Kiwi speed skiers pioneered commercial bungee jumping, and the first commercial operation was set up just outside of Queenstown (South Island) on the Kawerau Suspension Bridge—still one of the most popular jumps in the country.

When Beth, Jalyane, and I took our excursion from Hamilton to Rotorua—one of New Zealand’s bastions for adventure sports-–Jalayne polled us on what sorts of things we all might like to do . . . realistically-speaking all the way to in-our-wildest-dreams-speaking. And actually, finances and moral support (as in someone else to do it with us) established themselves as the major criteria separating our realistic desires from those of our dreams. I confessed that I have long harbored a hankering to bungee jump. Jalayne wanted to sky dive. And Beth offered diplomatic smiles and murmurings without ever committing to anything! In the end, while at Rotorua, Jalayne “Zorbed” and we all “Luged.”

When Beth and I met up with Jalayne in New Zealand, she was just finishing a stint of student teaching at Fraser High School in Hamilton. She already knew a Zorb experience topped her to-do list while in Rotorua. For a short while Jalayne’s enthusiasm for a Zorbing opportunity had both Beth and me figuring we would like to Zorb also . . . that is, until we became first-hand witnesses of the Zorbing process.

Basically, while within the interior of a cushioned ball--along with some water to enable sliding and sloshing--one rolls down this hill!

I just don’t do round and round stuff anymore; dizziness pushes my nausea button. Beth and I revised our own to-do lists and, instead,offered our services as photographers for Jalayne’s Zorbing adventure.

That's Jalayne inside the ball at the far right.

Jalayne "Zorbing" down the hillside.

At the bottom, the guys ready and waiting to assist Jalayne when she emerges.

Before our trip to Rotorua, we consulted with Jalayne’s host family to help us prioritize the multitude of adventure sport possibilities in Rotorua when only two or three would be able to fit in our time frame. The Luge polled at the number one position, and I suspect that all three of us would now concur with said rating; we had an absolute blast “luging” down that mountainside. The tickets we purchased included three trips up the lift and three trips down a luge path. The rules required everyone to take the “Scenic Route”—easiest, not as steep or as curvy—for the first run. Beth stayed with the Scenic Route for all of her trips, but Jalayne—who I discovered has a penchant for speed just like her auntie—and I moved to the intermediate path for our second ride and to the advanced for our final ride. While descending the mountain on the gondola after our adventure, Jalayne and I both confessed that WHEN we return to Rotorua and the Luge, we will do the obligatory first run on the Scenic Route and then move right to the advanced path! (I shared tales of some of my New Zealand adventures with a Kiwi friend from church, one born and bred in the Hamilton environs, and when I told her luge stories, she stated most matter of factly, “Oh, people die on the luge all the time.” . . . Okay, from the lift I did see a crash on the advanced run—somebody missed a curve—but the victim was proceeding down the mountain on foot . . . with only a slightly perceptible limp!)

Rotorua, as seen from the Gondola.

Jalayne and I--ready for our second run.

Riding the lift, accompanied by two luges below the chair.

Looking down from the lift at two of the paths.

Beth ready to take the "Scenic Route" one more time.

Jalayne at the beginning of the advanced path.

Me at the bottom of the advanced path.

As part of our “Cape Reinga via Ninety-Mile Beach Tour,” Beth and I had the chance to go sand boarding on these huge dunes at the north end of Ninety-Mile Beach. I only had time to squeeze in two runs down because I volunteered to return to the bus for my camera in order to photograph Beth’s second run down. Due to the immense amounts of sand and the likelihood of close body contact with it all, we left our cameras safe on the bus. It was certainly a good call on my part because I flipped on my second run down: Having learned how to tweak for greater speed on my first run, I had reached exhilarating momentum that second time but found myself heading for some vegetation where the dunes met the riverbed; while attempting a slight weight shift to initiate a wee bit of a curve, I lost my center of balance and flipped! No “ow-ies” but my body collected sand in every fold, wrinkle, crevice and orifice!

Trudging up the dune--an exhausting process.

Beth at the top of the dune before "flight."

More conservative—or shall I say prudent—when it comes to speed, Beth still looks to be flying down that slope.

Beth ready to ford the river to come back to the bus.


On our last full day in New Zealand, Jalayne decided that she would bungee jump with me if we could locate a site. Because we would all fly out the next morning, we were headed to Auckland. Jalayne and I both thought perhaps the Skytower in Auckland would offer a bungee jump opportunity, but, no, it is just a “skyjump”—like a free fall. Neither of us chose to spend $80 on an adventure that didn’t meet the criteria. Instead, we took photos of someone else taking the leap.

So, I still haven’t bungee jumped!

Finally . . . Kyoto

After nearly four years of living in Japan, I can now add Kyoto to the places I’ve seen in this country. In truth, I haven’t traveled extensively in Japan at all: Yokosuka to Yokohama or Tokyo mostly, with winter forays to ski locations—to include Hokkaido, mind you—and that pretty much sums up all my travel adventures in Japan . . . until Memorial Day weekend.

Theresa—a friend and colleague who has lived in Japan FIVE years, who has received a transfer to Sigonella and will move to Sicily this upcoming summer, and who had never been to Kyoto either—and I rendezvoused at the Yokosuka-chuo train station early Saturday morning, just as train service began for a new day, so we could train it to Tokyo’s Shinagawa station. There we would connect with the Shinkansen, perhaps more famously termed the “bullet train,” headed to Kyoto. It would be the first trip on the Shinkansen for both of us as well.






Japan—beyond the vast sprawl of the Tokyo/Yokohama metropolis, a sprawl that long ago annexed Yokosuka, the city where I reside—still displays the sizes, shapes, and colors of the Japanese signature style of construction: cramped, functional, and largely aesthetically unsatisfying. The difference is that outside of its major cities Japan looks like pieces of a puzzle picture of Yokosuka dispersed across a table surfaced in rice paddies. (A rice paddy in my area is rare, miniscule, and always singular in number.)

That said, Kyoto is a truly Japanese city while Tokyo is an international city. And, despite all of its modern functionality, pockets of “old Japan” continue to exist within Kyoto. Along with the Gion district—think geishas—all manner of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, castles and palaces, have sites within the space of Kyoto. Nijo Castle, with its “nightingale floor,” and Fushimi Inari Taisha, with its thousands of torii gates, were my favorites of the places we visited.

Originally constructed in the seventeenth century as the official Kyoto residence for a Shogun, Nijo Castle is comprised of several buildings, including a palace where the Shogun actually lived. The palace has the “nightingale floor”—a floor that squeaks/chirps/sings like a nightingale when you walk on it. It was designed to help protect the Shogun from assassination, especially by ninjas! And, yes, shoguns, samurai, and ninjas are true characters in the story of Japan! No matter how quiet the footstep, the transfer of weight makes the floor sing. It is just so amazingly cool!

(DISCLAIMER: Because no photos are allowed to be taken inside the buildings, I have only exterior shots of Nijo Castle.)








Dedicated to the fox—farmers believed foxes were messengers of the harvest god—the shrine in Fushimi actually has over 10,000 torii covering the paths of various “philosopher walks” up and down a bamboo forested hillside. It, too, is way cool!

(That's Theresa philosophizing as she walks!)







If any of you will come visit me in Japan this next year, I promise to take you to Kyoto. Then you, too, can traipse across the “nightingale floor,” composing nightingale songs, and meander through tunnels of torii gates inside a bamboo forest.

Gion District edifice and geisha...who's probably not an authentic one...just a temporary geisha...someone who paid to be dressed and painted like a geisha for a few hours