Joining us tonite......The Parents

I am incredibly fortunate to have very cool parents.

- They are game on for anything
- They like to drink
- They never complain
- They like to drink
- While fast approaching their 80s, they are fit and active
- They like to drink

When they read this, I can hear them mutter, “she is making us sound like alcoholics.”  It’s NOT all they do, but at the right time, they can scrounge for the wine opener like terriers.  I am also incredibly fortunate to have a captain that agrees to a month long trip with my folks.  I LIKE my parents, and after the inevitable rocky patch during my teen years, I believe we have grown to appreciate the strengths and put up with the weaknesses of each other.  My mum is a gamer, and my dad has become quite funny in his later years….who knew?!  I have NEVER been embarrassed by my parents, and as such they have been given invitations to visit me in all the places I’ve lived over the last 30+ years, meet all of my friends, and yes, drink through all the good (and a few bad) times.  They have struggled through epic snowstorms, brain numbing cold, seemingly endless construction projects and long distances.  They have slept in attics and in dreary and dodgy hotels, and we all have been rewarded with memories to last us all for our remaining days.  For all you parents out there reading this, if you wonder why your offspring don’t invite you to hang, consider if you left your “cool” behind when you became a parent, and remember that no one likes a complainer or whiner. 

 Last year, along with my sister, we all rendezvoused in Guatemala (captain included), burning through a few Central American countries, driving in road rally conditions (we would have placed in the Guatamala – Dakar race), survived robberies and sea assaults on neighboring borders.  2013 gave us another opportunity to cross off a bucket list item, Machu Picchu, Peru.  

As anyone knows, a country always has more to offer than just one destination, and if we were going to “do” Peru, we were going to “do it to death.”   I had a spent a few months fine tuning an itinerary which would have us never needing to head back to Peru again, as we would have been able to say that we’d done it all there. 

Day 1 - Lima Presidential Palace and Marching Band

I reckoned that if I was going to keep everyone happy (and that included the captain) I needed to satisfy everyone’s tourism desires.  Ron was keen on anything morbid, so we spent most of our first day looking at bones and torture chambers in downtown Lima.

Catacombs!

Bones and More Bones

This is a crap photo but we actually weren’t supposed to take any – oooohh, contraband pictures!  And yes, all those slightly blurry things are bones, and this was only one chamber unearthed under the church.  One room just had skulls; one room femurs.  There were some 70,000 fortunate souls who got to be buried here, but the indigenous need not apply.  
 

Torture Techniques of the Inquisition

This is what happens when the captain disregards the Admiral’s requests.  

 

Translations depend on who you are.  The guidebooks say that the meaning of Paracas is raining sand.  The locals will tell you that it really means raining shit.  They ARE referring to the sand, but the fact that it gets everywhere due to the wind, makes for the true intent of the word.  Paracas is south of Lima along the coast, and the home of “the poor man’s Galapagos”, the Ballestas Islands.  

Being on the water is ALWAYS fun

Off to see the Penguins!

Sand Candelabra is 150 years old, despite the wind and weather

Reminiscent of Cabo

First Penguins!

Pretty Birds

Sea Lions in Peru are just like the ones in Mexico and Oregon

I have a love affair with jellies.  I'm not too keen on swimming in the same cove with them, but when we all respect boundaries, I'm ALL about them.  The shoreline and water in Paracas was teeming with them, in all shapes and sizes (mostly jumbo), and I was enchanted.  

 If you are interested in staying in Paracas, the newly opened Zarcillo Paradise is a great place.

It’s located just steps away from where you jump off the bus, and a short 10 minute walk to the newly renovated waterfront, but the real reason to stay there is a guy named Alex, who when he saw our feeble attempts to make a Pisco Sour, stepped up and showed us how to do it the Peruvian way. 

Peru, home of the Pisco Sour

Key Ingredients

Making Simple Syrup

Alex, our new best friend with the final product

The first of many Pisco Sours, but one of the best

And so…..the drinking begins. 

Northern Peru is worth visiting!

When people think of Peru, they automaticallly think Machu Picchu.  In the past, The Shining Path was also top of mind, but those days seem (gratefully) to be over.  Peru is still a country of the haves, and have-nots, but with the return of a strong tourism base, there is foreign money making its way into the wallets of many of the “common man”.  They can spot a gringo from a mile away, and are quick to exploit all, and I mean ALL, opportunities to wrest yet another few dollars from visitors to their country.  One can ignore it for only so long, and then it all becomes a bit tiresome.  Nowhere was this more prevalent than in the entrance fees to most of the National Parks and attractions and was one of the reasons we really enjoyed the archaeological sites we visited in the north.  Not quite so commercialized.

Chiclayo and Trujillo are fast becoming known for their most recently discovered sites at Sipán, Túcume, Chan Chan, and Las Huacas de los Moches, and it’s easy to add a week or two to your trip to experience it all.  As we had a week before we needed to be in Lima, we were able to knock quite a few off our “sites to see” wish list.  

Sipán combines all the good features of a blockbuster movie – buried treasure, the black market, grave robbers, archaeologists and murders.  You can just envision an Indiana Jones type character stalking amongst the hills and burial sites.  The latest gold-smothered tomb was only just recently discovered in 1987, so one can imagine that there are still countless others still in hiding.  Which is why this area is so interesting.  

Sipan Tomb

Jars of food for the afterlife

Túcume was featured on a television show called Ancient Aliens, which loves to espouse ridiculous (?) notions of aliens descending on Peru in olden times and showing the earthlings how to build.  Granted, this valley has dozens of crumbling pyramids, and at the height of its construction and prosperity must have been something to see.  Millions of adobe brick were used to construct these solid pyramids rising hundreds of feet closer to their gods.  While rain and sun eroded now, they still evoke wondrous thoughts.  

So much work!

A quick stop in one of two of the only restaurants in town, and I was waxing lyrical about an Arroz de Mariscos dish…..I even had to visit the kitchen to complement the chef, who dissolved in giggles when I commended her.  

Lunch!

 

A trip to these parts would not be complete without a visit to the magnificent Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipán in a small community called Lambayeque.   Yawn….another museum, and well worth every minute spent there!

Jewelry to be buried in

An 8-hour bus ride south and we were in Trujillo.  We didn’t have time to visit all the sites, so we got a tour one day that encompassed the “best of”.

La Huaca Arco Iris (Rainbow Temple) started off the day, smack dab in the middle of town.  It was rediscovered, as so many of them are, when construction crews were set to “put up a parking lot”. 

Chimu Defense Wall

Holding up the Wall

Chimu Bas-Relief

Next on the Pre-Inca hit parade was Chan Chan, and it was spectacular.   At its height, some 10,000 structures dominated the plain, comprising nine royal compounds, and the impressive friezes were carved with depictions of fish, waves and sea life; understandable as the ocean was within reach. 

Immense and Brown

Ancient Storefronts

Pretty impressive when you consider that these are all made of mud, and are almost a thousand years old.  We’ve seen some structures in modern-day El Salvador that looked like they were made last year and weren’t going to last the week.  Maybe Central America needs to have some help from the Ancient Aliens on their building techniques. 

Everything was decorated

Lots of airflow between rooms

More Decor

Royal Bird Sanctuary....for the kitchen

Rounding out the day was a visit to the surf-town of Huanchaco.  We wondered aloud if THIS might be a good place to open up a palapa bar.  Even better than watching the surfers, was to sit with a coldie and watch the fisherman riding the waves on their tortora reed boats.

Surfing, Peruvian Style

Tortora Reed Boats

Catch of the day

Hey, Honey, wanna start a palapa bar?

A fittingly named beer, and the end to another great day

Las Huacas del Moche, La Huaca de la Luna and the currently being excavated La Huaca del Sol, were on our next stop.  A great museum, some REALLY ugly dogs, and a pretty impressive recently excavated wall were well worth the time we spent to go. 

Murals!

Sacrificial Platform nicely decorated

Some work holds up better than others

As busy then as they are now

Who's better looking, me......

Or him......

Or this?  Can you believe they are SUPPOSED to look like that?!