Thank you so much! What great ideas! I would never have thought of the dehumidifier packets. Will definitely bring some. I know my husband will think I'm nuts, but I'll show him your post & convince him to pack some. I am nervous about not having enough battery time on my camera & my iphone. Any suggestions? I'm assuming you both took the anti-malarials, yellow fever & typhoid vaccinations. If so, did you feel ok when you took them? We are just getting started as we leave in 3 weeks.

Yep, took all the drugs including Diamox for altitude and had no side effects from any of it. All I can suggest is take extra camera batteries and if they are rechargable to recharge them before you hit the jungle. I have a 3GJuice battery for my iphone that will give you a few more hours, but once again it has to be charged up which I neglected to do before we got to the Amazon. I ordered mine from Amazon for the Amazon. LOL Keep your toiletries in a zip lock. I had the nasty morning surprise of finding a huge cockroach in my toiletry bag on my toothbrush. UGH! FYI, the lodge we stayed at provided biodegradable bar soap and shampoo, maybe yours does to.

Our lodge also provided bar soap, but not shampoo. I just brought a bar of castille soap, which I used for hair. I'm not even sure if it was biodegradable.

I wouldn't bother to bring cosmetics because you will just sweat it all off. BTW the mosquito net functions a bit as a hairnet when you push it back off the forehead.

I did get the YF and had an itchy red patch about 2 inches by 3 inches for about two weeks. Unless you are going to another country that requires the YF certificate because you were in Peru, you might consider not getting it, especially if approaching or over the age of 60. I took Malarone and didn't have any problems with it.

I did not go to high altitude on the recent trip. Prior trip I spent 3 nights in Ollantaytambo and then 3 nights and Cusco and didn't take Diamox. Except for a slight headache in Cusco at night I was fine. However, I didn't hike the Inka Trail or go to Puno.

Our lodge had a recharge station for cameras etc with some limited assigned slots for recharging, which actually was enough for the small camera. So bring the recharge connections. The spare batteries might be needed for the headlamp depending on how much you use it. Also get a strong beam if you plan on going looking for wildlife at night.

If you have a cheap watch I recommend bring it. Good backup if the moisture sensitive electronics stop keeping time!

March 27, 2010 Amazon Here We Come

We had an early flight out of Cusco to Puerto Maldonado this morning. David arrived to take us to the airport and I asked him if we could settle our bill with him. He said we could do it later in the car. We had an idea of what the tour and hotel costs would be but were not exactly sure as we had made some changes on the fly. Both Margee and I had been hitting the ATM’s for US dollars as that is what David wanted to be paid in. So as we drive along Margee speaks up and asks what we owe him. He pulls some paperwork off of the dash and tells us a number. Yeah! We are within $20.00 of each other. Margee hands me her cash, I add mine to it and hand it over. That was easy.

We get to the airport and we formally shake hands with David and off we go. Inside the airport we wrap our backpack rain covers over the straps and hand the bags over at the check in counter. I hate loosing control of my bag and pray it arrives in Puerto Maldonado the same time as us. We paid our airport taxes and go through security into the boarding area.

I am still looking for cute little souvenirs for some guys I work with and decide to buy each a small bull. I know I overpaid for them but they will have to do. All the gals I shopped for will receive a cute little stuffed llama.

We board the plane and I head for seat 9C. Well, there is a nun sitting in it. I didn’t know what to do so I simply held out my ticket and pointed to 9C. She shrugged at me, got up and moved to another seat. OK, no bad karma for kicking the nun out of her seat.

It was such a short flight that we didn’t even time to nap. The plane stopped on the tarmac and they rolled up the stairway. I love getting off a plane like this. It’s much more fun than a gangway. I always feel like a celebrity and like to do a parade wave. We are both thrilled that we are out of the altitude and into the humidity. I immediately feel like I can breathe again and of course I need to strip off layers of clothing. It is heaven sent.

Inside the terminal a young man walks right up and asks “ Bar bar a, Bar bar a”. Yep that’s me; you must be with Posada Amazonas. We watch the workers toss luggage onto the carousel and we are relieved when our packs come by. The Posada Amazonas guy grabs both bags and leads us out to a bus in the parking lot. We wait a few minutes for two German gals to show up and we are on our way. Our guide for this journey and for the rest of our stay is Armando. Armando is a nice young man with developing English skills. Too bad my Spanish skills are not more developed because we had a hard time communicating. My good buddy Margee translated as needed, bless her heart.

Armando explained that they were going to give us “snakes”. One of the German girls looks at him and says “snakes”. Armando says no, “snakes”. Ok, we are not getting anywhere here and none of us want snakes. He said it one more time and it dawned on us that they were going to give us “snacks”. It was hilarious. He gave each of us a hand woven basket made by Infierno locals. Inside was a yellow beverage that turned out to be tomato juice. We also got a local orange which was green. Banana chips which looked like banana chips and candied Brazil nuts which at first we thought were moldy but actually had sugar frosting on them. It was all delicious and fun but everything sure looked different than what we are used to.

We stopped at the Posada Amazonas office and they encourage all of us to repack and bring a small bag with just the bare necessities. Margee and I had been traveling 20 days with just the bare necessities, how can we leave any of it behind. We solved the problem by pulling out a Rick Steve’s lightweight bag and stuffing all our souvenirs into it. We left that behind but took our packs with us. Armando said we could hire someone to carry it and we thought about it but decided against it. At this point we were pretty used to carrying our packs and since we offloaded the souvenirs they were pretty light again.

Back in the bus we went on a 45 minute drive on a dirt road. There was a lot of road construction going on but no pavement yet. We got to the port which consisted of a very rickety stair case going down the hill to a spot in the mud where the boat is tied up. The hand rails are iffy and the stairs are all catty wampum. It was a thrill a step as we lumbered down with our packs. I think I briefly regretted not hiring a porter to carry my bag, but I banished the thought quickly. Armando grabbed our hands as we made the last giant step onto the moving boat. We looked for a dry spot on the floor of the boat, dropped our bags and put on life vests.

Armando introduced us to his uncle who was the driver of the boat. He gave us a little wave and off we go. It was a lovely 45 minute boat ride up (down?) the Tambopata River. The thing we both noticed is that these was no garbage in the water. No plastic bags, no plastic bottles, and no trash on the river banks. I was impressed with how clean and natural it was. We saw turtles sunning themselves and a few birds.

We arrive at the “dock” and I use that term loosely. Up the rickety staircase we go with backpacks bouncing. We wanted to bring them so no complaining allowed. It was a ten minute wide eyed walk through the jungle. There were so many plants and trees and the water was dripping all over everything. The sounds of animals and birds surrounded us. It was absolutely wonderful and exactly what I was hoping for. Suddenly we came upon a clearing and there was the lodge.

We had to take our muddy shoes off before going up the steps. A young gal offered us a fresh fruit drink and wet towels to refresh ourselves. She invited us to sit down and relax while she gave us a brief overview of the lodge, meals, and activities. We are in room 7 so we grab our belongings and go check it out. We walked through a hanging fabric curtain into our room. There are two double beds with mosquito nets over each, one table with stools and a hammock that Margee immediately claimed. The most amazing thing is that there are three walls and one open area with a three foot railing that opened up to the jungle. We were told not to worry as “nothing big will come in”. I wondered how “big” is “big” but I was afraid to ask. There was no electricity but they provided us with two candles. We also had a sink with running water, a flushing toilet and a nice shower. There were oil lamps outside in the walkways that they lit at night for a few hours.

As we settled in, I discover a huge bug in the bathroom. I figure I can chase it to the open wall and out to freedom. Problem is, bugs don’t necessarily go where you want them to go and it freaked me out. I shrieked so loud I am surprised they didn’t send a rescue team to our room. On second thought, they are probably used to Gringos acting like idiots around the wild life!

Armando gave us about 30 minutes to relax then we met up to select rubber boots and go on a nature walk to the canopy observatory tower. We walked along a beautiful trail and tried to avoid the largest mud puddles. We went through some areas of primary rain forest and some of secondary jungle. We could hear lots of animals but didn’t see any except for bugs, bugs, and more bugs. Especially ants of every size and color you can imagine. I was afraid that if I stopped walking they would pick me up and carry me away. After a fairly long walk we arrived at the tower. It was tall, really tall, 120 feet to be exact. We climbed slowly up the stairs and the higher we got, the more it swayed. By the time we reached the top, Margee was a bit unnerved and the view did not hold much interest for her. I enjoyed the view and took lots of pictures from different levels of the tower. We could hear another tour group tromping through the jungle and so we started to make our way down. We didn’t reach the bottom before they started climbing so we had to squeeze past each other. I loved the view; Armando said we could see Brazil and Bolivia from the top.

Back at the lodge, we both decided we needed a shower to freshen up. I went first and turned on the water knowing it would be cold. It was actually refreshing though I didn’t want to spend too much time luxuriating. Margee asked how the water was and I told her “tepid”. I guess I did not describe it accurately as Margee yelled at me from the shower “this isn’t tepid!”

I wanted a cocktail of some sort so I walked to the bar but there was no bartender. I decided to relax and read my book for awhile and enjoy the sounds of the animals I couldn’t see. Margee hung out in the hammock and read her book and napped.

Dinner was buffet style and pretty good though there were only a few selections to choose from. We sat at a large table with the two German girls, Armando, another guide whose name escapes me and a family of five from the States. We spent our entire 4 day/3 nights with this same group and they were delightful and enjoyable companions.

At dinner, Armando tells us we have to ready to go to the Oxbow Lake at 4:30 am. They will light the gas lamps and knock on our wall to wake us up. It’s been a long day and will be an early morning so we turn in early.

It was kind of scary wandering back to our room using our headlamps. We lit our candles which attract a variety of flying bugs. We both tucked our mosquito nets under the mattress and tossed in anything we might need during the night such as water bottles, Kleenex, and my iPhone for an alarm. Neither one of us wanted to wander out of the “safety” of our mosquito net cave for any reason once we were settled.

My senses were on high alert all night long. There was a noise that kept going off over and over and over and it sounded almost mechanical. After several hours of listening to the noise, it stopped. Or I fell asleep. I don’t know which but that darn noise drove me crazy. I think I did sleep a bit but not for long and not soundly. I kept wondering what was crawling around us all night long and what is that noise in the roof and did I hear a monkey outside, can jaguars get through the railing……..

March 28, 2010 Tres Chimbadas Oxbow Lake

Before the crack of dawn, employees of the lodge lit the oil lamps and knocked on our wall to wake us up for our Tres Chimbadas Oxbow Lake excursion. We had 30 minutes to get ourselves together and meet the other folks at the lodge. I brushed my hair and my teeth and vacated the bathroom for Margee. She asked quizzically “did you shower?’ Nope, we only have 30 minutes. I’ll be lucky to stumble down fully clothed at this hour. It’s another extremely early breakfasts and I can barely choke down a couple of mouthfuls of waffles. I’ll be hungry later but now I can’t force anymore down. Margee is looking desperately for coffee and I think she scored if you consider a concoction of powdered coffee, powdered creamer and sugar a good cup of coffee.

We met up with the same group as yesterday but Armando is gone. He went back to Puerto Maldonado to pick up more tourists. In his place if Jihm, who is very personable and speaks excellent English. Margee is happy she doesn’t have to translate today. We also had another guide named Carol join us.

We put on our cute headlamps and followed Jihm down the dark, scary trail, trying to stay close to each other. It was even muddier than yesterday so the trail was a challenge in the semi dark. We board the boat and go for a thirty minute boar ride and then a forty five minute hike to arrive at the Tres Chimbadas Oxbow Lake.

We arrive at the lake and board a catamaran with no engine. There is an oar/rudder at the back of the boat and Carol and Jihm take turns paddling us along. It was very quiet and peaceful and we were intentionally silent because we didn’t want to scare the wild life away. We saw some birds and enjoyed watching them fly around. Everyone had their binoculars and cameras out and we are scouring the water trying to find the resident family of giant river otters. Carol set up a big, powerful, monoscope and we take turns looking at birds through it.

Finally we see the otters. It was a family of five or six and they were hunting fish out in the middle of the lake. They floated right by us and one had a big smile on his face because he was eating a good sized fish. We were thrilled to see the otters as they are endangered and only about 60% of the tourists catch sight of them.

Jihm ties the boat up to a branch near the shore and he and Carol hand out fishing poles. We are going to fish for piranha. I can hardly wait!! The poles are basically long sticks with an eight or nine foot piece of fishing line and a hook at the end. Not fancy, but they worked. Carol had a plastic bag of cut up mystery meat that we used for bait.

There is a technique to Piranha fishing. You swish the tip of the pole in the water to stir things up, then you bob the hook up and down a few times before you slowly lower the baited hook down until you can just barely see it. Then you wait for the tug and yank back as hard as you can to set the hook. If you are lucky you would pull in a beautiful yellow piranha about 3 or 4 inches long. Yahoo! The kids on the boat are catching and releasing as fast as they can bait their hooks. I on the other hand was fishing but not catching. In a frustrated moment I put the pole away and of course someone else on the boat catches a darn fish. I grab the pole again, put bait on the hook and with great determination drop it into the water to be rewarded immediately with a tug. I caught one! I caught one! Margee said I was grinning from ear to ear.

The kids took turns paddling us back across the lake. We backtracked to the lodge and are very happy because a gal greets us with juice and sandwiches to tide us over until lunch. Good thing, by now I am hungry.

I decided not to wear the rubber boots anymore as I have developed a couple of hot spots that I don’t want to turn into blisters. We are going home in a couple of days and I can always put my wet, dirty shoes in zip lock bags and wear my second pair. We had a few hours to relax so we both took lovely “tepid” showers and worked on our trip recordings. We got caught up except for the two days in the Colca Canyon.

Later in the afternoon we went on another boat ride twenty minutes downriver to the Ethno botanical garden. The Centro Nape is a communal organizational that produces medicines out of forest plants and administers them to local patients who seek their assistance. There is a nice trail and scattered along it are medicinal plants with name signs. The curator patiently explained in Quechua what each plant was used for. Then Armando, Carol and Jihm would take turn translating for us. When Armando translated, Margee would have to translate what he was saying. I have a short attention span and this pushed my patience. At the end of the tour we were offered medicinal liquids to try, they must have been 100 proof because the one I tasted knocked my socks off!

Back at the lodge we enjoyed another nice dinner, sat at the bar and drank cocktails and enjoyed chatting with the other tourists before hitting the sack.

March 29, 2010 Parrot Clay Lick

I must confess I did not make a recording for today. After 22 days I ran out of steam.
We had another early morning but not nearly as early as yesterday. We met up with our group and guides about 6:30 am and had breakfast. The plan is to hike to the Parrot Clay Lick and arrive right after daylight. I chose to wear my own shoes today so I did a bit a puddle jumping instead of slogging through the middle of the mud. The clay lick is a twenty minute walk from the lodge. One of the kids was especially loud this morning, if there was any wildlife around, he scared it all away. Finally someone asked him to tone it down a bit and he did.

As we got closer to the blind, Jihm indicated for all of us to be as quiet as possible. We entered the blind and quickly settled down. The blind is a man-made structure with three sides, a roof, floor and built in benches located in front of “windows” cut in the walls. We are situated with the river on our left and the clay lick is actually the river bank to the right of us. Quietly we stare through our binoculars at the clay river bank looking for any movement to indicate there are birds there. We stared for 20 minutes to no avail. Finally, way down the bank I see a flutter, there are two parrots sitting in a tree. I watch them hoping that more birds will come. No such luck. Jihm told us that the birds are scarce after it has been raining, and we had been rained on a lot. Usually there are Mealy and Yellow-headed Amazon parrots, Blue-headed parrots and Dusky headed parakeets. We were all a bit disappointed as we hiked back to the lodge.

I decided I had done enough hiking and that I would spend the rest of my last day in the Amazon lying in the hammock reading, or enjoying the comfortable couches in the lounge area. Margee decided to go on another nature walk to a farming community. She reported back that it was more entertaining than the medicine garden tour. Darn, I guess I should have gone! The group also hiked two hours to see the largest tree in the vicinity, a Ceiba tree. She has a picture of it where the entire group is standing in front of the tree and the truck extends past them on both sides.

I want to mention the sound of the jet propulsion lab that we kept hearing. The noise would start in one area of the jungle then you would hear it coming from another direction then another. It would build up to a crescendo then die out. We could not figure out what it was. When we mentioned it to Jihm he had a laugh at our expense. The noise came from groups of Howler Monkeys! Amazing.

During our walks we always kept our eyes open for wildlife. Armando, Jihm and Carol were terrific in pointed out animals, birds, bugs and interesting plants to us. We saw many monkeys in the tree tops but didn’t manage to get very good photos because they were so high up and hidden by the leaves and branches. There were interesting birds everywhere and we did see a few parrots. There were more bugs than anyone could possible want. We used Deet and kept ourselves covered up but the mosquitoes were incessant while hiking. If you stopped moving you were a target. If you kept moving it was better. We also saw a capybara hopping between buildings at the lodge. We tried to follow it to get photos but it disappeared into the brush. On one of our hikes, Jihm pointed out a branch overhead that crossed over the trail. It had a row of bumps on it. We couldn’t figure out what the bumps were, until he explained they were curled up bats!

Probably the scariest animal of the entire trip was a black feline that followed us into our room one night. We thought we had chased it off until Margee saw the gleam of its yellow eyes in her head lamp. She shrieked, “The cat’s in our room!” To say that Margee does not like cats is an understatement. Being the brave big game hunter that I am, I shooed the poor thing out of the room through the railing. Remember, the railing that won’t let anything big come in.

Margee was packing up her bag in preparation to leave in the morning. She had not been in the pack for a few days because she had either hung up or laid all her clothes out on a shelf. Well, a huge cockroach had taken up residence in her backpack. That same morning I am digging through my toiletry bag and find that a cockroach was residing on my toothbrush. I hate cockroaches!

We enjoyed our last evening with our new friends, had a nice dinner, drank some wine and finished packing up our bags. Tomorrow we are off to Lima for a day, then home.

Very nice report. It sounds like you had a very interesting time &, though you didn't see all of the wildlife you would have liked, it still must have been amazing. Thank you for all of the time you spent doing this report. I have certainly enjoyed reading it, as I'm sure others have, as well. I hope you add your last day in Lima. I'm looking forward to going guitar shopping when I'm there!

Thanks fball, I appreciate you reading my report. I am working on our last day in Lima, should have done this weekend. Now I get to go through my 1000 pictures and Marges' 1000 pictures and thin it down to 500 or so. Next step is a scrap book will the pictures, diary and all the bits and pieces of paper we picked up along the way.

March 30, 2010 Lima and home

Today we left Posada Amazonas to start our journey back home. We had our final breakfast, tipped all of the guides and hoisted our backpacks on for the last jungle hike to the boat. I decided to wear the rubber boots and change into my shoes when we got to the boat. I tucked my last pair of clean pants into the boots and walked carefully to keep them clean. Margee decided to wait and put clean clothes on when we reached the office back in town.

We have a lovely chat with our new friends and enjoyed our last boat ride down the Tambopata River. We disembarked at the dock where the bus was waiting to take us to Puerto Maldonado. I wasn’t so worried about my luggage anymore and was agreeable when they tossed my pack up on top of the bus roof. Margee was not so agreeable and kept her pack with her.

The road back to town was wetter and muddier than the first time we drove on it. It didn’t seem to bother the drive at all though we spun our wheels and slide uncomfortable close to the ditch on the side of the road a few times.

We arrived at the office where we had left our bag of souvenirs and we collected it up and repacked some of the items into our back packs. (Nope, my pack did not fall off the roof!) They didn’t give us much time so Margee quickly changed and we hurried back to the bus. Ten minutes later we are at the airport, Puerto Maldonado is not a very big town.

We have the hang of this airport thing pretty well, check in, drop off our bags, pay our departure tax, go through security, collapse on a hard chair and patiently wait. I did wander over to a shop and buy an ice cream treat. Margee disappeared for a few minutes and came back looking gorgeous with her makeup on. I didn’t bring makeup on the trip with me; she is always full of surprises.

We boarded the Lan Peru plane for the short flight to Cusco, then another short flight to Lima. We had a long layover in Lima so had several things planned for the day. We arrived in Lima and walked out of the gate expecting Renato from TaxiLimaPeru to be waiting for us with a big sign. We looked around and didn’t see him. We figured he was running late so we just waited. A gentleman from Taxi Green approached Margee and asked in Spanish if he could be of assistance. Taxi Green has a booth inside the airport with tours and prices listed on a board. Margee explained that we were waiting on our guide to pick us up so he thanked us a walked away. A few minutes later he came back and again asked if he could be of assistance. By now, we have given up on Renato so Margee explains to Alejandro that we need to pick up a guitar in Miraflores, we want to go shopping, we are hungry and would like to eat at a nice restaurant and if we have any time left over we want to do a little site seeing. She explains that we have to be back to the airport by 9:20 pm for our 12:20 am flight our. The two of them negotiate for a few minutes and then we have a deal. We walked over to the left luggage room and lock our bags up in a locker and off we go.

Alejandro speaks no English but he had a lot to say in Spanish. Margee listened to the entire history of Peru and the rise and fall of all of Peru’s political leaders. I think she became numb at some point because she stopped translating. I wasn’t the best audience anyway as my stomach was giving me problems.

Margee tells Alejandro where the guitar shop is in Miraflores. He suggests several good restaurants in the area, and tells us there is great shopping also. He drives us around and shows us where all these suggested places are and we set a time and a location for him to pick us up later. He drops us off near the guitar shop and we are on our own. We go into the guitar shop and I am looking around thinking that they rearranged things since we were last in. Margee is talking to the owner and he has no idea of what she is talking about. She pulls her receipt out of her wallet and that explains all, we are in the wrong shop. The one we want is right next door. We didn’t know there was more than one guitar shop on the street, in fact there are three. We express our apologies and slink out the door. Next door is the shop we want and it definitely looks familiar. Margee goes up to the counter and hands over her receipt and the proprietor tells her the guitar is not ready. Oh boy, this may be a problem as we are getting on a plane in a few hours. Margee goes on to explain that she had called just a few days ago to confirm that the guitar would be ready on March 30th instead of March 31st as we had originally ordered. Evidently the guitar was done except for the strings but the custom carrying case wasn’t. The proprietor called the case maker and confirmed that it will be delivered later in the afternoon and that he would also have time to put the strings on the guitar. We agree on a time to return and leave with our fingers crossed that this is going to work out.

We are really hungry by now so stop at one of Alejandro’s restaurant suggestions. It is a very nice Swiss Restaurant called La Tiendecita Blanca on Ave. Larco. I had a lovely fish entre, Margee had pasta and we both toasted our successful trip with a wonderful glass of Chilean wine. We topped off our slightly expensive lunch with a shared ice cream dessert. It was a nice way to celebrate our great vacation and our impending trip home.

There was time to spare before we were scheduled to go pick up the guitar so we walked over to the shopping area Alejandro had shown us. There were some very nice gift shops that had every souvenir possible from all over the country available. We are admiring some jewelry and we look at the gal behind the counter and realize it is Teo. We met her on the Paracas Tour back on March 10th and again in Lago Huacachina on March 11th. It is a very small world. She and her American boyfriend were on a little vacation but as we know all vacations come to an end and she was back at work in the shop.

Margee is watching the time so we wrap up our last minute shopping and walk back to the guitar shop, fingers crossed all the way. As we walk up to the counter, the shop owner holds up the guitar now complete with strings. We are admiring it when a young man enters the store and hands the custom made case over to the shop owner. Perfect timing, it is Margee’s case. It is so freshly completed that some of the glue holding the furry liner inside is still wet but that’s OK, it’s here and Margee is thrilled. Hopefully her boyfriend will be thrilled with the gift. She settles the bill and we walk out of the store with Margee happily toting the guitar.

We walked across the street to Parque Central and Parque Kennedy. I tried to talk Margee into posing for a Kodak moment, strumming the guitar with the open case at her feet, but she refused. I even offered to put money in the case but she didn’t go for it.

Parque Central had an outdoor photo exhibit set up. There were dozens of poster sized photos of Peruvian people who were murder victims. It was very moving and unnerving. On a brighter note, there was a crafts fair going on at Parque Kennedy. There was a variety of holistic and mystical items for sale as well as the typical tourist souvenirs. There were many local people enjoying the parks including a cat lady. She was feeding wild cats, dozens of wild cats. Margee walked out of her way to avoid contact with any of them. I don’t blame her, you don’t know what kind of diseases they may have and I don’t want to bring anything nasty home to my pets.

We decided that it was time to go to our meeting point to wait for Alejandro. There was a nice park bench available so we take a load off our feet. It is fun to sit and watch the people go about their activities. Across the road was a little booth selling sodas and snacks. An old lady was sitting in a chair next to the booth and she stared at us. It was disconcerting as she was so intense. Eventually she got up and hobbled off down the road. We patiently wait on our ride but both of us are checking our watches and wonder if we have been stood up. I had written down Alejandro’s full name, phone numbers and taxi number so we were prepared to borrow someone’s call phone and call him if we had to. (My iPhone battery is still dead from the Amazon.) Thank goodness before we resorted to that he showed up. We piled into the car and he apologizes for being late. He had gone home to take a nap and had overslept!

When we had arrived in Lima at the beginning of our trip we wanted to go to the Fountain and Light show but unfortunately it was closed. We told Alejandro that’s where we wanted to go. We hit rush hour and the traffic was terrible. I was sitting in the front seat with a bird’s eye view of the horrible traffic and my stomach was still unsettled. When we arrive we discover that it is closed again and we are very disappointed.

Alejandro felt bad about this and offered to stop so that we could enjoy a soda somewhere. I tell him (via Margee) that I need a restroom but want to go to the airport. Traffic is so bad that it will take awhile but we would rather be early than late. Back on the road, he takes a turn into a dark residential area and my survival instincts immediately go on high alert. In a not very nice tone I ask “where the hell are we going”. Even in English I think he got the message and he reassured Margee in Spanish that it was a short cut to try and by pass some of the traffic. Within a few minutes he was back on the main road and shortly we turned into the airport. He parked the taxi and we all went inside the airport where we settled our bill at the Green Taxi desk and picked up our luggage from the storage area.

We checked in with Delta Airlines and checked our two backpacks through. We were both done with carrying them. We had all our souvenirs in our Rick Steves bag and were set to go. It was a long trip home, Lima to Atlanta, Atlanta to Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City to Sacramento. But when you pay about $450.00 round trip, it’s hard to complain. My husband Tom was waiting for us in Sacramento but he didn’t bring a big sign with our names on it unfortunately.

Thanks for sharing ... enjoyed revisiting Peru through your eyes.

I enjoyed your last day in Lima. Thanks for spending so much time on your report. It was a great adventure. I'm looking forward to mine!

What a wonderful trip. You are a great story teller.

Thank you for your kind comments. Now I am watching for cheap air fares to take a quick trip back just for Machu Picchu.

Did you see Lan peru just opened direct flights SF-Lima? Not cheap, but maybe they will have specials.

Look into airfares mid January. Often there will be good sales on LAN. May seems to be a very slow month for Lima (since the fog starts) but really not a bad month to go to MP.

Barb-We just got back from Peru. We got a good airfare from Boston on Lan for May. As mlgb said, it may be foggy in Lima in May, but visibility at MP was fine. I enjoyed reading your report. Maybe, after I get some things done here, I will get time to write mine.
Shelley

Shelleyk, how was your trip?

Our trip was very good with a glitch here and there, but nothing that ruined the trip as a whole. We did Lima, Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu, Cusco and Puno in 11 days on the ground. One of the biggest surprises to me on this trip is that I got altitude sickness for around 10 hours after we landed in Cusco and went straight to Chinchero, which is at 13, 500 feet. Thank goodness we were there for only a few hours and then checked into a hotel in Yucay (Sacred Valley). After several doses of aspirin and a good nights sleep (no food eaten since landing in Cusco) I felt much better. I do not know why I was so surprised to get altitude sickness. My husband worried about getting it for months before the trip, and he was just fine. I guess I was in denial before the trip, but I sure know what it is like to get it and I hope not to ever repeat that feeling again.

I am sorry you didn't feel well. We didn't have problems with the altitude because we took diamoz. We both had problems with our stomachs on and off the entire trip but nothing that slowed us down. It's all part of traveling I guess. Looking forward to your report.