Humming Birds, Potatoes and Salt Mines

I started off the morning feeding baby alpacas but as I was going back to my room I tripped up the steps, fell and cut my nose and bruised my forehead.  The hotel staff were very concerned and called a doctor to come to the hotel and examine me.  It was not a deep cut so only a bandaid but the bump concerned them.  The doctors returned later in the day to make sure I was okay.  I love being pampered.

Our first stop of the day was at a hummingbird sanctuary where we spied a Giant Hummingbird, a long tail hummingbird, tanagers, turtle doves, a thrush and many small green and orange hummers. The sanctuary is run by a local man who is concerned about the birds and the environment.

Our next stop was at the home of a milliner, a lady who makes hats for women of Incan descent.  Each hat reflects the education of the wearer or her marital status.  Her husband works the salt mines so they are fairly well off and able to help others in their community.

On our way to the salt mines we stopped to see Moray (pronounced Mo rye) which was discovered by a plane flying over it.  The three circles resemble crop circles from above but are actually deep, terraced holes built by the Incas to experiment with growing crops, mainly potatoes, at different elevations and different temperatures.  We saw the largest hole and were told that the temperature from the top to the bottom can vary by as much as 52 degrees.  Over 3,000 varieties of potatoes are grown in Peru and it is believed that the Incas created many hybrids by using this terracing. 

A short drive up the hill took us to an overlook for the salt mines.  A salt water spring feeds the 3,000 pools where the water is evaporated and then the salt removed to begin the process again.  Because this is so open, when the rainy season begins in late October the mines are closed and the miners become farmers. Each pool is owned by individuals or coops. The area of the pools is over 800 years old and is thought to have been established by the Moras who conquered the Incas.

Lunch was at a Hacienda established in 1572.  The building was beautiful with many antiques and the food was very good, with lots of local foods including llama.

Cusco

It was a short flight to Cusco where our guide, Carlos, met us at the gate and directed us to our van driven by Wilson. Cusco is the 7th largest city in Peru with 400,000 people and is the safest city with a no crime culture. There are more women than men, it rains 32 inches a year and their flower is the Kanu. It’s at a very high altitude, slightly over 11,000 feet. 

Our first stop is at the Museo Machu Picchu de La Casa Conca run by Yale University.  Hiram Bingham discovered the ruins in 1911.  It wasn’t until 1914 that the ruins were uncovered and explored.  There are 178 buildings, which housed an estimated 700,000 Incans.  We’ll learn more as we travel.

Our hotel is located in the Sacred Valley along the Urubamba River with expansive lawns and luxury quarters. We couldn’t walk back to our room from the restaurant, up 2 flights of stair without stopping to catch our breath at least twice. 

View of our hotel from the river bank. 

Incan History

We met our guide, Ruth, and the other couple, Sherry and David, this morning before heading out to explore more of Lima.  

Lima is a city of 11 million people divided into around 40 districts.  It is also the longest city at 60 miles in length.  We are 10 degrees south of the equator. Lima is a dry arid city with only 2-3 inches of rain a year but there are 50 rivers that drain the Andes and supply the city with water.

The main economy in Peru is mining (silver, gold, copper, arsenic, and lithium), fishing, farming and tourism.

Ruth took us to a rich part of the Barranco District.  Barranco means cliff as it sits on the cliffs overlooking the ocean.  Most of the land at the bottom of the cliffs is rock and soil that has been moved building the city. On top of that are highways, parks, beaches and many recreational areas.

Barranco is where we find art and cultured. We visited a very nice neighborhood with beautiful homes and a restaurant where we will dine tonight. We then stopped at a park with buzzard sculptures and a bridge of sighs. These are sighs of love as we held our breath when we crossed the bridge so that our wishes will come true.

We were introduced to Chanukah Granda, a famous Peruvian singer-songwriter.

Now for some history.  We visited the Museo Larco. Italian archaeologists discovered a treasure of over 25,000 artifacts on a relatively small area of land.  They have determined that the pottery was pre-Incan people called Moche.  There is no written record, only the pottery and paintings, and a few textiles and mummies, to tell their story.

The pottery were drinking vessels and the beverage is a fermented corn drink.  It is estimated that these artifacts are over 3,000 years old. One mummy they found was a 6 year old boy curled into the fetal position before being wrapped in many layers of cloth.

Jewelry was also found.  They had the large hole in the ear lobe and they also wore large and elaborate nose rings.  Some of the pottery was very erotic.

We again visited the Plaza Mayor but this time we entered the Cathederal of Lima.  Pizzaro, a Spaniard, laid the first stone of this church in the early 1500’s but this is the 3rd building due to earthquakes.   The ceiling is all wood and the organ has 5000 pipes.

We next visited the Monastery Santo Domingo, built in the 1600’s to house over 100 monks.  Today there are still 30 monks living and working here. It has an extensive library and is covered in Moorish tiles from 1660.

Historical Plazas of Lima

A long Uber ride took us to the historic district of Lima, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There we walked through Plaza San Martin also known as Plaza Aramis or Army.  It is surrounded by the Presidential Palace, City Hall and the San Franciscan Cathedral where we toured the underground catacombs. The church was completed in 1620.

Following a short tour of the interior of the church (no photography allowed) we headed into the crypts. They estimate that over 25,000 individuals were buried here.  Most of what is seen is skulls, tibias and femurs as those are the largest bones that have not deteriorated yet. Supposedly St. Francis of Assisi is buried here as is a body part of Jesus.  Bones are moved after two years to make room for others.  It was not known until after 1968 how many persons were buried here when the tombs were opened, cleaned, organized and opened to the public.

Another Bucket List - Perú

After spending almost 18 hours Friday at the Kansas City airport due to technical difficulties and changing airlines we arrived in Lima Peru at 6 am Saturday morning.

Since we had reservations at the world’s best restaurant, The Merito, we met up with our friends, Lanny and Katy, after a long nap and Ubered to the restaurant.  It definitely lived up to expectations.

Later in the afternoon we walked around the Barracon neighborhood.  A small bar beckoned then we were ready to take in some of the night life.  John and Lanny felt like they needed a midnight snack (at 9 pm) so we found a food court and some tasty smashed burgers.

Goodbye Oslo

We flew from Oslo to Frankfort to Denver and then to Kansas City before driving the two hours to our house.  It was a 27 hour travel day. This time around all our travel plans worked smoothly and we arrived home unscathed.  

It was a grand trip all the way around. From Eastern Europe to Norway, from river cruising to ocean cruising. Totally different environments and yet all these countries are connected by their history of war and invasions by Germany.  They have recovered and are still discovering freedom from oppression and what it is like to self govern and live life to its fullest.

Museum, Museum, Museum

The weather was threatening rain later in the day so we decided to go to the outdoor museum first and then the indoor ones later in the day.

The Norwegian Museum of Cultural History is an open-air museum with more than 150 buildings relocated here from all over the country and was established in the late 1800’s.

The center of the grounds is the Stave Church, a medieval building made of pillars planted into the ground and then built above the ground.  The roof is all wood.  There are no seats inside the church and the walls are carved and painted with the stories from the Bible and pictures of Norwegian saints.

All around the grounds are buildings where people lived, worked, slept and farmed.   Storage barns, sheep sheds, cow barns and horse stalls dotted the whole area.  

Next stop was the Fram Museum depicting the voyages of Roald Admunsun and his attempts to reach the North Pole.  They held two of his ships and told the story of his attempts to fly over the pole.  All well done and very interesting.

The third museum was the Kon Tiki and Ra Museum showing the voyages of Thor Heyerdahl from Peru to Tahiti on a raft made of 9 balsa wood logs overlaid with more wood, a small cabin and a sail. They floated on the currents to prove that peoples from South America could have arrived on the Pacific Islands.  Keep in mind this was accomplished in 1947.

A few years later he did the same thing with rafts made from reeds he named RA and floated to the Galápagos Islands to prove that natives from Ecuador had arrived there ages ago.

By this time we are museumed out!  It’s time to pack our bags.