Feb 13 Return to the ship

After way too short a night, we're up and ready to travel back to our ship.  We have a 45min drive back to Cusco and the airport.  This morning our guide takes us on the high road to Cusco since we had come in by the low road (and it was dark then).

We drove across a high plateau with farming everywhere.  It was primarily potatoes up here at 12000'.

 As we come into the outskirts of Cusco, we round a traffic circle with the locals carefully watching the action...and conveniently located near a restroom.

 We stop at Saqsaywaman Fortress for what our guide described as the ultimate Inca construction.  No one knows for sure what it was for.  It was incomplete at the time the Spanish arrived, and 80% of the stones were removed to build the Spanish buildings (and the churches on top of other Incan sites) in Cusco. 

 Cusco below us

 Here again the workmanship is exquisite, the rocks fitting together almost seamlessly. 

 And these stones were HUGE.  The largest is estimated at 125 tons, and probably 30% larger when transported to the site before it was dressed and fitted into position.

 A (probably) inadvertent paw print.

 To our guide, this site was more awe inspiring than Machu Picchu, primarily for the volume of rock and the workmanship of construction.  What we saw was only the 20% that didn't get carried away for other projects.  Machu Picchu has a far more beautiful location, but this is the Sistine Chapel of workmanship for Gilmar.

 One of our young Oceania minders fell prey to the Incan souvenir picture opportunity.  According to Gilmar, the llama is real, but what she's holding is actually a baby sheep.  Only $1 per picture.

 And we bid goodbye to Cusco and head back to the airport.  What surprised me most was the quantity of Incan settlements and building in the entire Cusco -- Sacred Valley area.  There were foundations and walls everywhere.  Terraces going up the hillsides for farming.  This is much more than just Machu Picchu.  But two days in the area only gave us a brief glimpse of the Inca world.  If I had two weeks, and a large oxygen bottle, it would be interesting to see more.

 We flew from Cusco to Lima, but since our boat had already been there, and was now 150 miles further down the coast in Pisco, we had to bus to get there.  Once again AKORN provided excellent coaches and guides for each coach to tell us about what we were passing.  As we drove through Lima we could see a bit of Peru.  Here's a ubiquitous tuk-tuk.  Half motorcycle, half cart, ready for interurban transit.

 A middle class housing area.  Median income in the middle class is $1K/month, which allows living in something like this.  In Peru taxes are lower on dwellings under construction, so buildings are perpetually "not finished" to keep the costs down. 

 Peru is a desert, getting only 2-3" of rain annually.  But the city is green because several rivers run through it.  This was true of our entire journey from Lima to Pisco via bus.  There would be green stretches along the highway with lots of irrigated farms.  Then there would be a desert stretch, located too far from any river for irrigation.  Then it would turn green for miles as another river appeared.

 We stopped midway in our 5 hour drive for restroom, snacks and drinks.  I did not try Inca Kola because they didn't have Diet Inca Kola. 

 Here are some guys hitching a ride on a lumber truck.  According to our guide, these are Venezuelan  refugees.  They have come to Peru because of the horrible economic conditions in Venezuela.  They grab a ride however they can and find work in Peru.  A couple of decades ago the flow was in the other direction, but both countries have changed their economic fortunes in the interim.

 Even the desert can be used for farming.  They grow corn in the irrigated areas, then put up the sheds to raise chickens in the dry areas.  We saw chicken farms all along the drive.  Chicken is a staple of the modern Peruvian diet.

 Near the bay in which Insignia was docked is the monument to Peruvian independence.

 Home sweet home.  Complete with cool towels, hand sanitizer and drug sniffing dogs.  Best of all, when you took a breath, you got a bunch of oxygen. 

 And to celebrate, sunset on sail away.