Category: Peru 2010

You want pictures? Today, you get pictures.

We woke far too early at Casa Bella B&B. We tried sleeping in, but construction was occurring nearby, and 8:30 a.m. isn’t early for construction workers. By the time we showered and organized ourselves, breakfast had already been served. No problem. We were directed to a Starbucks a couple of blocks away. We mistakenly assumed we would find the chain all over Peru. The Starbucks near the Casa Bella B&B was the only one we encountered. Which was great until we started craving North American coffee…

At the Starbucks, My Liege whipped out his stolen English-Spanish phrasebook. From that point on, he did a most excellent job of diving into conversations with anyone and everyone.  Not one ounce of trepidation, which I thought pretty cool for a middle-aged guy who didn’t take ANY languages beyond grade ten French. And he was a jock, so likely he wasn’t paying attention.

M.L. and I learned that he was better at initiating conversations while I, for some strange reason that eludes us, could decipher entire Spanish sentences spoken our direction. We believe I relied on body language and snippets of words-similar-to-what-they-are-in French and ESP and genius IQ and “Making Things Up.” Whatever, it worked. We made a great Spanish-learning team.

In the afternoon, we took a city tour organized by the B&B at our request. A guide named Gladys picked us up with a driver and a handy-dandy mini-bus that could hold, I guess, up to 20 passengers. We were 5, not counting Gladys and the driver (whose name now eludes me). The other couple were from Belgium, and then we were joined by a young woman named Nikki from Scotland who had quit her job to volunteer at a Cusco school for 10 weeks (by that I mean she paid a handsome sum of money to work at the school for 10 weeks). By a funny twist of fate, we wound up meeting her again in Cusco. We recognized her by her accent and her fear of attacking pigeons.

As you look at some of the pictures, you’ll notice Lima is cloudy. They’re not really clouds. It’s more like a haze that never burns off. Gladys the Guide told us Lima is like this 90% of the time, which begs the question why the Spaniards who conquered the Inca moved the capital of Peru from Cusco to Lima. Cusco is sunny. I guess they had other things on their minds.

We enjoyed Lima much more than we expected. I’d heard it was a place to use as a base for one’s travels, but we could have used another day enjoying the architecture (and resting). We found excellent Italian food in Lima each of the three times we stayed there. During the city tour, we stopped at some ruins inside the city that housed a big museum, but couldn’t find the time for a more extensive visit (maybe if our flight hadn’t been delayed five hours!).

The highlight of the city tour was the Convent of Saint Francis. The library of ancient books was breathtaking, and we were able to visit the catacombs. Photographs were outlawed in both places, so I bought postcards. At one point, as we surveyed the interior of the church from a balcony of sorts, I noticed birds flying around inside. Loved it!

We headed back to our B&B for a good night’s sleep. And we needed it, because we were heading to Nasca (of the famous Nasca Lines) the following day, and the only way to get there was by bus. A big bus and a long bus ride. Or car or other transport, if you’re crazy enough to want to try driving yourself out of Lima. The traffic was insane. It was like there were invisible four way stops everywhere, and the drivers somehow communicated to each other (through visual cues or aggressive vehicle maneuvers) when it was their turn to go. Peruvians have traffic down to an art form, but by North American standards it was crrrrrrrrazy. My hat is off to anyone who tries driving in Lima.

As promised, pictures and anecdotes about my trip to Peru! It’s our 25th anniversary in August. The Peru trip was our early celebration.

Why Peru, you ask? Primarily, it was on the dh’s bucket list. He’s always wanted to see Machu Picchu, and I figured if we were flying all that way, we might as well spend a solid length of time (3 weeks) and explore more than the ancient Inca sanctuary. Sounds like a plan, no?

Second, my parents did a ton—and I mean a TON—of traveling when I, my brother and sisters were in our teens. My father’s job prevented him from working every spring. The ground is too soft for logging machinery. That time of year is called “break up.” So when we were teenagers, every year they’d fly off somewhere without us—for 4-8 weeks! My paternal grandparents lived next door and were assigned with the task of taking care of us. They were wonderful grandparents! (This was the same grandfather who lived to 106). But they grew up on farms and they raised their children on farms, and farm kids know how to take care of themselves (if you can milk a cow and shoot a gopher and crawl eighteen miles in five-foot-deep snow uphill both ways to school at 5 a.m, you’ve got it made). So it only makes sense that children raised by kids raised on farms should know how to take care of themselves, too, right? My grandparents were there “if we needed them.” And we needed them every Saturday, to drive us to the store to bulk up on groceries. Otherwise, we took care of ourselves.

Grocery Tip: If you buy too much fruit for the week, DON’T put the bananas in the deep freeze thinking you can take them out in five days and they’ll be fresh. They’ll turn black within the hour.

See what all my parents’ traveling taught me?

Viewing pictures of their travels also exposed me to what the world had to offer. My parents went to Peru in the mid-Seventies. There were a handful of tourists at Machu Picchu the day they were there. Now it and other specific areas are what I call “Peruvian Disneyland.” Especially when the huge tour bus groups arrive. More on that as my tales progress.

Note: We flew to Peru on airmiles. You know what happens when you fly somewhere on airmiles, right? Especially when you’re starting from small town, Canada and you only book the flight 6 months in advance. Altogether now: “You get crappy flights.”

Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate that it only took me 6 years to save up enough travel miles to fly My Liege and myself from small town B.C. to Lima and back again. Wait, as it turned out, I didn’t have enough travel miles to fly from B.C. to Lima and back. I was short by a few hundred. I did, however, have enough travel miles to fly from Alberta to Lima and back. So my mother, bless her heart (and I don’t mean that in the Southern way), donated enough travel miles to get us from small town B.C. to Calgary, Alberta. Then our travel miles took us from Calgary to Lima. I was so proud.

We left on a Saturday afternoon and had to overnight in Calgary, so we chose the Calgary Delta Airport hotel. It’s right in the airport, and we had to get up at 4 a.m. on Sunday to catch our flight to Houston and then Lima. I would totally recommend doing this, and I would do it again. I didn’t want to worry about even catching a shuttle to the airport. I wanted to just be there.

Cue an early rising Sunday morning on Eldest Son’s 22nd birthday. Sorry, E.S., hope it was a good one! At the airline counter, we decided to do the self check-in. Rather, an official-looking man was standing nearby and encouraged us to use the self check-in. The previous night, My Liege said, “If we get an opportunity to upgrade to First Class for less than $100 each, we’re doing it.” He’s traveled a lot for work and knows what he’s talking about. Plus, he hates getting squished by rude people in coach. Well, I guess he didn’t get much sleep, because as we stood there wading through the computer self check-in, at one point the program asked, “Would you like to upgrade to First Class for $79 each?” My dh looked at me, and I said, “Kinda defeats the point of using airmiles, doesn’t it?”

Cindy, nooooooooooooooooo!

I thought no matter what I said M.L. would check YES, UPGRADE US TO FIRST CLASS. WE WOULD HAVE PAID $100. But he clicked, NO. Only after we’d sent our bags on their way and were ensconced in the waiting area with huge Starbucks cups did we truly realize the error. By then, it was too late. The First Class seats with all that extra room were taken. And not once during any other leg of the trip were we offered another chance to travel First Class—unless we wanted to pay $1700, I kid you not. That’ll teach us.

Travel Tip: If you and your husband agree that you WILL upgrade to First Class for a very reasonable price, if given the opportunity, try to prevent his sleep-deprived self from taking your wit seriously and clicking NO.

I don’t mind traveling coach. I always travel coach. Have only gone First Class once, an upgrade on a trip to Las Vegas. But these were looooooong flights. A 6-hour flight from Calgary to Houston, a 3-hour layover, and then another 6-hour flight from Houston to Lima. Plus, needing to get to the airport 3 hours early for whatever reason. They always want you there earlier than a liquified grasshopper.

But we went coach and had a good row partner, so all was fine.

Then we got to Houston. A 3-hour layover sounded decent. We could go through U.S. Customs, complain about the fact that Canadians are now only allowed one carry-on despite that we weren’t staying in the States, just passing through; get something to eat, and stock up on English reading material. But the 3-hour layover stretched to 8! Yes, 8. Apparently, our plane was “broken.” Yes, that’s what the man at the desk told me. Some kind of mechanical failure. And another plane wasn’t available for 8 hours.

Ahem.

Spending 8 hours in the Houston airport reminded me of that movie with Tom Hanks where he was forced to live in an airport for an ungodly length of time. Tom seemed to make out okay in the movie, but I wonder if the real live person he played went insane? I learned I couldn’t stand to live in an airport for two days, let alone over a year. The bookstores were nice, and the Panda Express was great, but come on!

By the time we got into Lima, it was 4 a.m. So much for arriving at 11 p.m. and getting a good night’s sleep. Gah, now that I think about it, we rose at 4 a.m. on Sunday and arrived at 4 a.m. Monday. Even now, that sounds exhausting. But! Our driver was there to pick us up. We’d booked into Casa Bella B&B in the San Isidro section of Lima (I found it on www.tripadvisor.com and then later realized it was also recommended in my Frommer’s.) They said they’d keep an eye on flight changes for us and would be there no matter when we arrived, and they weren’t lying. We were so glad to see our driver. Especially because, being raised in Canada when French was the only option for a second language in high school, we didn’t know a lick of Spanish. I’d bought Levels 1-3 of a popular language learning software, but M.L., ahem, lost disc 1 several months before our trip. I emailed my father in the winter in Mexico, because I knew he also had the software. Turns out he, ahem, had lost his disc 1, too! Men! I finally broke down and purchased a second copy of level 1. It arrived 2 weeks before our trip and we were both too busy to attempt it.

Travel Tip: If you buy language learning software, for Pete’s sake, take the time to LEARN language learning software. If you’re buying it for your husband, keep track of every time he uses it! Lock up disc 1 somewhere he can’t find it and require him to sign it out for periodic use. Threaten whipping if it goes missing. If you’re feeling rebellious about the remaining two weeks before your trip and only have time to learn the words for dog and horse and ball and airplane, at the very least pick up a handy-dandy English-Spanish (Latin America) phrasebook. I recommend the Lonely Planet series.

Being the brilliant sort that I am, I did the latter. M.L. stole my pocket-sized phrasebook the moment we landed in Lima and held it hostage until we left Peru three weeks later. But that was okay. I took a lot more French in high school than he did, and I helped one of our sons with his French in school, as well. If you don’t know a lick of Spanish, knowing a bit of French is the next best thing. The languages are similar, as it turns out. Similar roots, anyway. It really helped.

All right, all right, I know you want pictures! I know you’re feeling mighty ripped off at this point, but you’re only getting one picture today. I couldn’t record my Peru trip for posterity without including our 24 hours of travel (not counting the flight to Calgary the previous day).

I know my hair’s a mess. Don’t judge me! It’s 4:30 a.m.! This is M.L. and me in our room at Casa Bella B&B. Ain’t we sweet?

I’m back!! In more ways than one.

It’s been a month since I announced my break from blogging. I bet some of you thought I couldn’t do it. You doubted my will. You counted on my addiction. Sure, it’s one thing to give up blogging for a month, but could Cindy really give up Facebook, email, and Twitter? Yes, she can and she did. But there’s a knack to it.

I didn’t check Facebook, Twitter or my email AT ALL for a little over three weeks. But I had help. Yes, I cheated. You see, I didn’t write one word of my WIP during my Tech Break, either. No, I took myself away from temptation altogether. I went to Peru.

Not fair, you cry! Why not announce that I’m going on holiday? Well, number one, I didn’t want to become a victim of one of those websites that lists people who announce on Facebook and/or blogs that their houses are empty for a set number of days or weeks. To be honest, I didn’t really have to worry about that part because, between my two sons and their girlfriends, I had at least 1-4 people staying here at all times. Yes, Allie McBeagle missed me, I heard, but she quickly glommed onto E.S.’s girlfriend. I’ve been back home for a week now, and routines are slowly getting back to normal. I’m hoping to return to the WIP this week, but I’m still in holiday mode, and if it takes me another week to get my creative motor running, so be it. I’m busy catching up on family and business-related (non-writing) activities and responsibilities.

Why did I go to Peru? Well, I didn’t go alone. I took the dh with me. We’re celebrating a major anniversary in August, and this trip was our celebration. Three weeks. Our travels took us from Canada–>Lima–>Nasca–>Lima->Huancayo–>Cusco–>The Sacred Valley–>Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu–>Cusco–>Puno and Lake Titicaca–>and then finally home. We rode four planes in 24 hours from Puno to make it back.

Okay, confession time. I didn’t check my email AT ALL. I didn’t even type Facebook into a browser, but my dh is a bit of a different story, and I took advantage of his weaknesses to check in on the family through his GMail account. His Blackberry stopped working once we left the States (so much for taking it for emergency reasons). But nearly every hotel or B&B we stayed in had Internet access/business centers, and one of our kids was going through a university residence dilemma that of course cropped up two days before we left. We HAD to check in, because it’s a health issue. That’s my excuse. Also, the dh is addicted to email. I swear, sometimes he checked his GMail twice in one day!!! But I, I, who was afeared to check her email in case an editor had sent me something that HAD TO BE WORKED ON RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE, abstained.

Aren’t you proud of me?

I returned home to find one email from an editor. I won’t announce what it said yet, because we’re still in the Cindy’s Asking Questions Again stage. I do have some other writing news, but this post has gone on long enough. Return later in the week to find out my second good piece of writing news.

Both My Liege and I took a ton of pictures and we’re in the process of narrowing down Those That Befit the Photo Albums. I’ve decided to relate our trip through blog posts and will start doing so later this week. So you’ll find lots of Peru piccies, travel advice, and anecdotes, in the next several weeks.

My last piece of news is that I became a great-aunt for the fourth time on May 14th! A day before we left on our trip. Thank you to our niece for ensuring we got to gaze upon our new great-nephew while he was a newborn.

Now…the laundry awaits! What have you been up to while I’ve been gone?