Home safely

Updates soon.

Two days in Lima

After a morning of shopping in Ollaynta, a 2 hour drive to/through Cusco, we picked up my GoPro, dropped off Mat in Cusco, and got to the airport in plenty of time for our flight back to Lima. We arrived back at our Lima hotel around dinnertime. As I mentioned, we took the Executive upgrade which gave us free food for the remainder of our stay in Lima. What I didn't mention is that we got a decent room upgrade as well: 10th floor with a view.

I don't think there was much we did that night (Sat) but rest from our recent adventures.

On Sunday, we got up and walked toward the beach. There, we saw many walkers, joggers, cyclists, and surfers. Our wandering took us to Laramar Shopping Plaza which is right at the ocean. It was around 10AM, and most stores didn't open until 11AM. We wandered North toward Kennedy Park, which was very busy. It was full of people, cats, regular art, humourous Global Warming art, and peaceful Global Warming activists. They were giving out free t-shirts for a group walk around Lima.

Possibly because of all the hubbub, we couldn't locate the Peru FWT (Free Walking Tour) ... so we went shopping in a department store. Jeff picked up a pair of dress shoes for about $22, but otherwise we just browsed.

We wandered back to the hotel, via the waterfront mall again. The stores were all open now, so we browsed. We also picked up some foodie gifts from a grocery store. Some of the prices there were quite inflated: $80 for a pair of glove liners, $700 for a suitcase, and $220 for small backpacks.

We still were not feeling well, so after dinner, we took another rest night.

On Monday, we walked up to the LAN office and got our US$45/person credit processed. It took half an hour, copies our passports, our Visa credit cards, our phone numbers, and our email addresses ... and the credits should show up in 2 weeks. Guess I'll write a letter to LAN.

That made us nearly 25 minutes late for the FWT, but we caught a glimpse of them and fell into step as they walked up to the busses. We all hopped on a bus that took us downtown. There, we caught the (daily) changing of the guard, and the tour launched into the history of Lima. After our "beginner's lesson on buying Peruvian gifts", we thanked the tour operators, left the group, and shopped for a sweater (or two) for Kate.

We hopped a bus back toward the hotel and quickly ate, repacked, and checked out. Now, what do we do for the next 9 hours?

(To be continued...)

Mistura

Foodies: we're sorry we missed this year's Mistura in Lima, Peru. It was in full swing as we drove past it on our way to/from the airport upon our arrival (we didn't know what it was)... but it was all but packed up when we returned a week later.

We just got back to Lima

We got back safely to our hotel in Lima this afternoon. They offered us a cool upgrade from "Deluxe" to "Executive" for $40/night (which we took) which gives us access to their Executive Lounge where they offer free "light" breakfast/lunch/dinner, free drinks, and free use of computers/Internet. It also allows us to do a late checkout at 3PM on Monday (our flight isn't until 11:50PM).

The bad news is that Kate seems to have something similar to me ... stomach issues that affect her appetite, etc. She is resting comfortably, which is more than I could do the first night I got it.

I hope our fellow traveler, Victoria, is doing better now. The last we saw Jordan and Victoria was when we all disembarked the train from Machu Picchu at 11:30PM last night.

If Kate is feeling alright tomorrow, we'll probably just do some walking/shopping, with lots of rest/eat stops back at the hotel.

I'll try to post more (pics and tracks) tomorrow.

We tried to outdo ourselves again today

We hiked from our hotel in Ollantataytambo to Inti Piunku (Sun Gate) and most of the way back. Let's see if I can convey how difficult that was.

If you have done the Grouse Grind, increase the temperature, add 30% to the elevation gain, double the distance, put potato-sized rocks all over the trail, and bump the altitude up (i.e. thin the air) to 2823-3938m (9262-12920ft).

Here's the track to prove it (the GPS accidentally got turned off for most of the first 45 minutes).

Tomorrow we head into the jungle (and Machu Picchu) for 3 days, so we may not have wifi

The second half was as good as the first

Our guides drove us up to Moray, where we walked around. Then we hopped on the bikes and rode down the hill, though the town of Maras, and to the Salt Mines of Maras. We walked around the evaporation ponds, then cycled a bit further. We reached the bottom of the hill the same time as a Dutch couple we saw previously in a restaurant. We shared our ride with them (they had walked all the way from Moray) back to Ollanta. Kate and I had dinner (Kate had the Alpaca Brochette and a Pisco Sour, while I had a the local version of a hamburger and a drink dubbed "Machu Picchu"), then we went back to our hostel and crashed. Here's a set of tracks from Moray to the bottom of the hill. The little loop we did was on foot at the salt mines.

Great cycling day and it's only half done!

We cycled over 30km downhill and passed through 1300 meters of vertical (according to the Garmin)! The weather and the staff were great! And the staff tracked down my GoPro! I left (or dropped) it at our Cusco hotel. I will call and authorize a staff member to bring it to Ollanta.

We're taking an hour off for lunch: fresh lemonade and soup/sandwich at a restaurant back in Ollanta: La Esquina. Afterwards, it's more cycling from some Incan ruins to a salt mine.

Here are the tracks ... probably some of the coolest tracks we'll ever make.

Having dinner at Cava Mora in Cusco

The ravioli was good, the alpaca, divine.

Arrived in Cusco

We have safely arrived at our hotel in Cusco. We are headed out to make the best of our time here ... which is very short.

Park day, travel night, arrive in Lima

I don't know how I figured we could do all this stuff, and have time or energy left over to blog it.

Oh well, here's our Thu/Fri in a nutshell:

We decided to focus on San Francisco parks on Thursday, so we packed up, checked out of the hotel (leaving our big bags), and headed to Golden Gate Park via bus.

We were happy just to stroll through the park, so when we saw the $7pp option to see the Botanical Garden, we walked on past. We encountered a park worker who offered us some information, and then let us in an access gate for the Botanical Garden (saving us $14!). She said "oh well, it USED to be free".

From there, we wandered down to Park Presidio Boulevard. We caught a bus that took us up that street, right to the near end of the Golden Gate Bridge. We caught a glimpse of the whole bridge before the fog rolled in and hid it for the rest of the day. From there, we (energetically) decided to walk to Fisherman's Wharf: 4 mi or 6 km along the waterfront. This took us through part of the Presidio, to a park cafe called "The Beach Hut" next to the St. Francis Yacht Club where we had lunch. From there, we wandered to and through and Fort Mason, right to where we could take the "F" cablecar to Pier 39. From there, we walked another  1.5 mi or 2.6 km to Pier 1, the Ferry Building.

We grabbed another cablecar from there to Montgomery (near our hotel) and paused there long enough to give our passes away (1+ days left on our 3-day pass), then went to the hotel and grabbed our backpacks. We got back on BART in the direction of SFO, but unfortunately, not on a car that actually went there. Kate realized this before it was too late, so we hopped off and on the next cart that did get us there ... still in plenty of time for being 2 hours early for our 7:50PM flight.

We flew to LAX, where we found we had to transfer to Terminal 6. This took some time, but again, we had plenty of time to get our 11:30PM flight to Panama City. A brief stop for a late dinner (and a long walk to the furthest gate) and we boarded the plane. This leg was 6.5 hours plus a 2 hour time change.

Another brief stop and another long walk to the furthest gate (and a US$3.25 bottle of water) got us on our flight to Lima.

Once in Lima, we grabbed a "Taxi Green" who said he could take is to our hotel for 70 Soles. He was good ... he deeked around a traffic jam, drove us along the oceanfront, and right to our hotel. Kate and I cleaned up and went for a hot tub and dip in the pool. After that, we walked a block or two to a restaurant called "Tanta". We had a great 3 course meal, bought a bottle of water for the night, and retired back at our hotel.

Tomorrow is another travel day: taxi to the airport, fly Lima to Cusco, then check into our Cusco hotel.

Hopefully I'll have energy to blog and post pictures/tracks tomorrow.

Urban Adventure Quest day

We took 4 cable cars, a bus, and walked 17 kilometers today. We outlasted our GPSes. We're beat. We watched a movie and went to bed.

Oh yeah. And we nailed our Urban Adventure Quest, without cellular.

Great evening in San Francisco

We arrived at our hotel around 5PM. We are very happy with our hotel and room. We enjoyed free glasses of wine in our hotel lobby, then we went for a walk to find a place for dinner. We had a great meal at Chinatown Restaurant in Chinatown and continued our walk around the area of our hotel.

I'm quite sure the wobbly path was not caused by excessive wine, but from GPS reflections from all the tall buildings here.

The picture of the stairs where our room should be is just a bit of an illusion. Our door is in and to the right. :-)

Katie here:

SF has not disappointed, but I am surprised by the feel and architecture. I sometimes feel as though I have stepped back in time and at other moments, I could be in Europe. I will say that there are a lot of well-coiffed men in this town.

Waiting for our first flight

I had brunch with my parents at McD's (thank you for the bon voyage card and the Soles!) while Kate had Fritatas with Jeannie. Got checked in at YYJ no problem. Waiting to board our first flight, but work won't quite fade away ....

BTW, you can't call or SMS us now for 2 weeks, but you can comment in our blog, or Skype me (nerdjeff), or FB me, or email me, or Tweet me ....