Continuing South in Peru...

(In case you are new to looking at blogs, on this one  you can click on a photo to enlarge it.  When
you are through looking at it, look for the X in the upper right hand corner to close.)

Working our way farther south along the coast of Peru, we enjoyed a boat trip to the Ballestas Islands, often called "The Galapagos of Peru."  It is a wildlife sanctuary, home to 300,00 birds!      We saw brown pelicans, Peruvian Boobies, Inca Terns with red feet and beaks, Humboldt Penquins, pelicans, cormorants and South American Sea Lions, all happily living together.  Even the sea lions have no enemies because there are no sharks in the waters along the coast.

Another adventure was going dune-buggying in the huge sand dunes on the northern reaches of the Atacama Desert, the dryest area on Earth.  Unknown to us, our guide sent a camera with our buggy driver who insisted on taking pictures of us!  In my halting Spanish I said "no dinero" because I thought he was going to try to sell the pictures to us!  Of course he insisted on taking pictures (I am
sure he was hoping for a big tip from Alex, our guide)---anyway, here are a few.  It was breath-taking, not only speeding wildly up and down the dunes but enjoying the scenery!

 Ready to Roll---hang on to your hats!

Enjoying the shade of the buggy on the dunes

 

 Sand as far as we could see in all directions!

 The oasis where we started---that is us going up the dune.

One more shot in the dunes---it was just like being in

one of those desert movies where the oasis is a

mirage and the guy on the camel is lost!

Another very interesting thing we did was to fly over the Nazca Lines in a four-passenger Cessna.  I had wanted to see the lines ever since Charlie introduced me to the knowledge---no-one knows why they were created by the Nazca culture about 2000 years ago.  They were made by removing the dark volcanic rock that covers the light sand.  There are over one thousand designs scattered over a thousand square kilometers; 1500 kilometers of lines, all on a plateau between two river beds (dry) running from the Andes to the Pacific.  Below is my one good photo and my favorite geoglyph, the hummingbird.  They weren't really discovered until the 1930s and when the Pan Amerian highway was built it went right through one of the figures because no-one knew it was there.  Only after passenger air service was introduced did pilots notice the unusual designs and line.

You may have to enlarge this to make it more clear.

 

We enjoyed traveling to southern Peru and going up into the mountains to get to the Colca Valley,

a valley advertised as being deeper than the Grand Canyon.  In one particular place the Andean

Condors ride the air currents coming out of the canyon, which was quite spectacular.  They have a

wing span of ten feet and we saw 10-12 at once floating up out of the canyon!  En route we crossed

over a pass that was 16,000 feet and also had a chance to stop along the way to purchase hand-made

treasures to take home from local ladies.

 Penny and Marie at the pass---over five miles above seal level!  (the little

stone cairns were like the ones we saw in Iceland---you add a stone and make a wish.)

 Penny with her new hat, purchased from this lovely lady.

After the picture was taken she adjusted it on my head

so I could see better.

 Looking across the Colca Canyon with all the Inca

terraces which are still farmed.

 Peru has so many geologic faults that they even post signs

along the highways warning you of them---in case the earth

has opened up or heaved.

One of the condors sailing on the thermals---absolutely awesome

in the original sense of the word.

We genuinely enjoyed our wonderful trip and owe our guide Alex thank we'll never be able to give

him.  He planned a full ten days of learning, sight-seeing and adventure.  Many days started at 3 am and ended when we got to our hotel at 10 pm but it was sheer delight.  Please come visit me and we'll

look at the rest of my pictures and I'll over-whelm you with the history of pre-Inca civilizations!!!

 

 

Lunch on our final day in Peru, with our guide, Alex.

Marie and I enjoyed our final pisco sour, the national drink

of Peru which we learned to love when we were

in Peru four years ago!

Go to Peru when you can---the people are wonderful and there

is so much to see and do that is new to North Americans!

Return to Legendary Peru

Greetings to all who follow me about via this blog.  My traveling friend of 48 years, Marie from Minneapolis, and I have recently returned from an amazing trip back to Peru.  When we were there in 2009 we learned much and saw much about the history of the Incas.  This time we focused on the
ancient civilizations from 2000BC up to the Inca era (1200-1400 AD). 

We were fortunate to travel with Alex, a professional guide we had met on our previous trip, along with two great drivers and very comfortable Hyundai mini-bus.  What a great way to travel!!!  The traffic was crazy with not much recognition given to basic things like traffic lights and turning lanes!  Our drivers were very skilled and we always felt very safe with them.  Alex had done such careful and detailed planning for our trip that we always felt very safe and well-looked after in spite of little details such as crazy traffic!

We had one Saturday night taxi ride in Lima that was a bit edgy...my journal reports: "...the taxi made daring maneuvers when crossing on-coming streams of cars while making a left-hand turn---oh, did I forget to say there are no left-turn traffic signals?---and there was extreme crowding from all sides creating more lanes of traffic than the street was designed to accommodate. All together the taxi ride was something to recall.  It seemed somewhat dangerous but we (and the taxi) escaped unharmed.  The driver was cheery, very skillful, and had nice Peruvian music in his car!"

We also enjoyed four short commercial air flights to reach the more remote parts of Peru.  Lan Peru
air always serves snacks on every flight, even if it is only a thirty minute flight.  Each passenger
receives a small box of goodies---on two flights we received bags of "KRAPS"!  Imagine our surprise
when we bravely tore open the bags and discovered crackers much like Ritz.

We spent most of our visit on the west coast of Peru, which is desert.  It is the northern extension of the Atacama Desert, the driest place in the world.  The beaches were beautiful though the sand is constantly blowing and moving so we felt fairly gritty most of the time. [Travel hint for your file: do
not take your basic black shoes, slacks and hand-bag to a desert.  I looked dusty the entire trip!]

 Here we go...

Alex (guide), Marie, & Penny at the Pacific Beach

Marie, Jony (driver) & Penny

 You will need to come visit me to look at pictures and hear tales but here are a few highlights.
The interesting thing about the ruins we saw is that most have been discovered since 1980.

                                                         750 AD Pyramid---buried in the sand

Marie & Luis (guide) hiking out to the pyramid ruin

at Tecume' (too-ka-may)

Sand-buried pyramid, not yet excavated

 

Marie and I with the lunch ladies at Tecume'. 

Drinking chicha (corn liquor-sort of Peru moonshine)

 at Tecume',out of little gourd cups.  We only had

a few tastes (rather fiery! ) but I look

like I had enjoyed a lot!

 

As we worked our way southward along the coast, driving on the Pan American highway, we were interested to see large fields of sugar cane, lentils, avocados, and rice, all irrigated with water from several of 41 rivers which run from the Andes to coastal Peru, slicing the desert coastline into neat sections of desert.  Because this is sandy desert soil (yep---I really had dusty shoes here!) many areas have net "sand fences" to keep sand off the highway and out of the irrigated fields.  (Much like US prairie snow fences.)

 

When sugar cane is mature, it is burned, standing in the field, to remove the foliage.  We stopped to see where men were cutting the burned canes with great machetes.  It is then loaded on to huge trucks with front-end loaders.  It was good to see that some of the work is now done by machine.  Three crops of cane are harvested from a planting.  Then re-seeding is necessary.

 

 Sugar cane field

 Loading the cut cane for transport

Dashing out of the cane field;  ungathered cut cane behind me

 

Alex had arranged a nice treat for us:  to stay overnight in a very nice hotel on the beach at Huanchaco, a resort city just south of the sugarcane area.  We could see surfers and great rollers from our hotel porch and the seafood promised to be very fresh!

 

 Our lovely hotel on the beach at Huanchaco

 Fishing boats made from tortura reeds

Standard transport mode most everywhere; we

finally traveled in one from the local  market

to our hotel in Chivay (about 35 cents!).

 

One thing Marie and I always like to do in other countries is visit the markets and grocery stores (if they have them).  In Peru we had several chances:

 

 Ducks--note their big feet!

 One variety of Peruvian corn; this is served often.

Note it's huge, starchy kernels.

 Sharks, for the very popular ceviche

 Diced shark, ready for ceviche.  The

butchers had the sharpest knives I've ever seen.

 Baby goat (cabrito) for dinner? 

 Yucca root; one of the new foods I ate on this

trip:  boiled, fried, and batter-coated

 Guanavana fruit (gwan-av'-a-na), a

strange-looking fruit which makes a delicious

sort of pina-colada-tasting drink.

 

 

This part of the market is known as "the witches' market."

Here is where you buy all your potions---to fall in

love, or to heal your fevers, or ????  I bought

a doll that had come from the Amazon Basin for

my kitchen witch!

 

Considering I haven't posted anything for four months, I believe I'll pause here.  More to be

posted in the next day or two.  Coming:  Peru's Galapagos, Penny and Marie sand-duning in

a buggy, the Nazca (Nasca in Peru) Lines, and topping out at 16,000 feet in the Andes!











Visiting Family & Friends

For the last two months I have spent most of my time visiting family and friends in Colorado, North Dakota and Pennsylvania rather than blogging.  (That will certainly tell you where my priorities lie,
won't it?)  I am posting this from York, Pennsylvania, the home of Suzanne, James and Audrey (4),
where I will be a few more days.  Then it is home to Silverton for a couple of months of snow shoveling (I hope), visits by the fire with friends, and time to reflect on my wonderful visits.

There have been some great adventures as well as visits.  How many of you have enjoyed driving across Wyoming on the back roads, where not even the buffalo roam anymore---just a few sheep, the occasional cow, and a few oil rigs pierce the great, open sky with their derricks.  Who has been to the Snyders of Hanover pretzel factory where 250,000 pounds of wheat are turned into pretzels of every conceivable size and shape each day?  Have you driven through the beautiful farm country of SW Lancaster, Pennsylvania (Amish land) where green fields roll away to the rivers and streams, often being cultivated by a team of six horses?  Or, had the great good fortune to attend a symphony
concert with your five-year-old grandson who hopes to play the tuba one day? (Think Denver
Sympony with Finn after a 70th birthday dinner with his family---James Bond music!)

Then there was the day I spent at Gettyburg, reliving the battle at the wonderful new museum
where I learned that by 1850 the United States enslaved more people than any other country in the world.  Somehow this stunned me...or the day I went along on a cattle moving trip in ND in a four-wheeler!  Picture me wrapped in a large fleece blanket (yep---Trav---it was the one that went to
Virginia with you!), seat-belted into the four-wheeler with Dean Helling, rocketing along through a
dry cornfield after black angus cattle that had other ideas about where they wanted to go!

Roosevelt Park Wildlife

While visiting my sister-in-law,Corinne, in Medora, which is the gateway town to Roosevelt Nat'l Park, she took me on a lovely afternoon drive through the park with the hopes we would see some of the wildlife that live in the park.

Lucky us!  We saw:

Beautiful, haughty white-tail buck

Prong-horn Antelope

The silly and fun-to-watch but destructive
North Dakota Flicker or prairie dog...

...but my favorite are always the American Bison.  The great shaggy beasts always represent what used to be on our grand prairies; Lewis and Clark heard them thundering across the land when they were still miles away; the American Indian sustained their lives with nearly every part of these pre-historic-looking creatures.

A great bull, watching over his herd and keeping his eye on us.

The bull's young-looking herd.

Bison spread out over the sunny hillside.

The backdrop for all this wildlife was the North Dakota Badlands, beautiful to me in all kinds of weather, with or without the animals.  It looks like this:

Thanks Corinne---it was a great afternoon!

Driving to North Dakota

Because my birthday this year caused me to ring the 70 year bell, I decided it deserved a little jaunt to celebrate!  The first phase of the celebration took place in Poncha Springs/Salida where I met my adopted twin, Pete Varne and his wife Tish, joined by my good friend from Pocha Springs, Karen Timbrell, and Varney's friend from Salida, Ed Berg.

We started our evening at Vino Salida, a small local winery which is developing more new wines

The Vino Salida Building---Makes Its Own Statement!

each year.  It shares a delightful and funky looking Butler building with an auto parts store! After tasting a number of wines, we purchased some and headed for dinner at the Twisted Cork, where Pete shared one of Vino Salida wines.

70th birthday desserts at the Twisted Cork
 

The gap to St. Elmo

 

   
                                          Karen and her dog, Gizmo, in front of the St. Elmo Store,
                                             which is actually open in the summer.

                                             Penny & Gizmo in front of a B&B

                                               Useful signs on the Main Street!


 On Saturday Karen took me to St. Elmo, which is up a secret canyon in the range of mountains west of Highway 50 en route from Poncha Springs to Fairplay.  I had always wondered what was through "the gap" between the mountains! We drove on a narrow trail through the trees and back through the gap and there we found the remains of the 1880s mining town of St. Elmo!


There are some wonderful log homes remaining:

                                                          This one looks quite liveable.

                                                                  
                                                Note its great dove-tail-style log joints!

                                               Another well-maintained 1880s home

                                                   I liked this view...

Today I left Pocha Springs to drive up through northern Colorado's mountains and across Wyoming to North Dakota.  What an interesting drive!

                                                     Unusual clouds...

                                          Dozens of coal trains, nearly 2 miles long

Central Wyoming seems to be a beehive of energy development.  I saw dozens of coal trains,
nearly two miles long, headed to ???? from great open pit mines.  Countless oil rigs developing new wells, tankers hauling oil in all directions.  Meanwhile the antelope, sheep, horses and cattle continue to munch around all the well equipment!

The two good things I saw before I got to Gillette?

                                           Bill, Wyoming is alive and well!  This is the
                                           entire town, by the way!

                                            There is a great deal of development and they
                                             seem to name their restaurants wisely!!!

Over and out....

Visiting the Chapmans

While Lee and I were wandering about in Iowa we visited our long-time friends, Karen and George Chapman who now live in Mount Pleasant, Iowa.  They formerly lived in Silverton and were family friends for many years so it seemed like old home week to me to visit them in their new home.

Their new home is really a lovely old mansion, built in the 1800s.  It is so large it has two staircases
to the upper floor---one for VIPs and the other for the rest of us!

This is the front of the house.  In the tower at the top they have a Christmas tree each year.
What an amazing place it is and they seem to be enjoying Iowa a great deal.

George took me to the Old Thresher's Museum where they have what seemed like every known
steam engine-tractor-device as well as complete sets of Farmall and John Deere tractors plus
all sorts of other agricultural relics.  I plan to return for the Labor Day Steam Engine event
when they haul the steam machines out and fire them up.  What fun!!!

Chapman's took us on a tour of the area and to dinner at Bonapart's Retreat, a charming country
inn where I had the best pork chop ever!  Thanks again, Karen and George!

I managed to forget to take any pictures of our friends so I'll close with this nosy little Iowa squirrel!