Hola de Cuzco

Good Morning Everyone.

As you may know from yesterdays blog I am now in Cuzco. Yesterday was a free day and frankly it was a kind of a long day. I spent the morning trying to contact the travel agent who arranged by trip to see if he could change my flight back to Quito from Lima, since as it is I will arrive in Quito at midnight. That means I wont get to may aopartment until almost 2:00AM. Unfortunately I could not reach him and I will try a little later. I spent th rest of the day just strolling around town.

Cuzco is a pretty large city. It has a beautiful old colonial center with some magniuficent looking old churches. It is a hard city to walk arround in though, because every sidewalk is up and down stairs, and after a few hours of that it takes its tole on me. By supper time my legs were pretty exhausted.

Every city and town in the third world has its people on the streets who try to sell you stuff, everything imaginable from towels and lottery tickets to sunglasses and hair dryers. Here the street vendors just sell mostly art and craft type stuff. What is different here is the volume of street vemdors and their persistence. They are thicker than flies, and a some dont take no for an answer easily. It really is different here in that respect, and unlike most other places, frankly here they are really annoying.

Last night I was very tired and went to bed about 8:00 PM and slept until 4:00 AM. When I woke up I looked out the window from my hotel room. It looks out over one of the plazas here and I have a great view of the facade of one of the museums. The way it was litghted up was beautiful, so I decided to grab a quick shower and take my camera and see what else might look good in the dark. It was a great idea and I found some great light on some terrific subjects. I came back to the hotel and had breakfast abot 5:00 and went back out to shoot some more as the sun was coming up. It was terrific.

I will stroll around town some more this morning and then this afternoon I have a planned tour of the city that will run until supper time.

Tomorrow I have to be ready to be picked up at 5:00 AM to go to the train to Machu Picchu.

Machu is quite a bit lower in elevation, and closer to the jungle. They say it is very humid and there arethere are lots of mosquitos. I need to pick up some repellant and pack a small bag of stuff for my one nigjhts stay at a little village near Machu, called Aguas Calientes. I will arrive at Machu aboiut mid day tomorrow and have the rest of that day at Machu. I will stay over night at Aguas calientes and return to

Well, I will stop there for now. I will probably make my next entry after going to Machu.

Adios for now,

Glenn+

Back to Arequipa, The White City

Dear Everyone,

Since my last entry I have had problems with the internet access at every place >I have been. So I will do my best to try to catch you up.

I had a great flight from Lima to Arequipa, was met promptly and professionally at the airport and taken to my hotel which was lovely, except that their internet didnt work. I was then taken on a tour of Arequipa, which is called the White City. It has that name because it is in the heart of volcano country and during the Colonial Period, when Spain was colonizing South America volcanic rock is the most prevalent building material avaiable. Here the volcanic rock is white and virtuially all of the buildings are built of white volcanic stone--hence, The White City.

I had a lovely dinner and the next morning I was picked up early and taken to a village near Colca Cañon. The village is called Chivay and it is exactly what you would picture a small Andean village being--a csmall central square with the Church on one edge of the square and the municipal building on the opposite side of the square. It was a 5 hour drive to get to Chivay and along the way we went up to 15,000 feet in elevation. We saw wild vicuñas along the way. They are like llamas but have a much longer necks and their wool is infinitely more valuable.
I started this post yesterday and in the middle the computer cut me off. So I will start again.
While in Chivay they were still celebrating Carnival. They played and danced all night and even were continuing when we left town after lunch the next day. This is a relatively poor community so the little girls ansd ladies wore their best dressses and added lots of paper decorations as well as balloons and some even tied plactic wash basins and kitchen pots and pans to their dresses. The music was provided by the men and boys who played drums VERY LOUD and they played home- made flutes made from PVC pipe with holes drilled in them for the finger holes used to change the notes Beautiful music it was not, but what it lacked in suffistication it made up for with creativity and community fun.
We went to Colca Cañon and it was gorgeous and we saw lots of Andean Condors. I got some great shots too. we also saw an Andean Fox, a very rare sight-no photo though he was too fast.
Last nuight back in Arequipa I had dinner with a British fellow I met on the trip to Colca. He was a lot of fun and we had a greaqt time.
This morning I was picked up at the hotel at 5:30 AM and went to the Arequipa Airport to catch an early flight to Cuzco, the gateway to Machu Picchu. I am now in Cuzco and have the entire day free. Cuzco is over 11,000 feet in elevation. the weather so far today is clear. Lets hope it continues. Tomorrow afternoon I have a city tour of Cuzco, and very eaqrly, like 5:00 AM the next morning, I take the train through the Sacred Inca Valley for two days at Macchu.
Well, that is it for now. I will be back later with more stories.
Love to you all,
Glenn+
PS Youprobably have noticed I dont use apostrophes. It is not because I have forgoten how to spell, the problem is I cant figure out how to do an apostrophe on the Spanish Keyboard. They are very different and some things ae just hidden.
Adios from Cuzco, Peru

Greetings from Lima, Peru

Hello everyone,
I am in Lima, Peru. I arrived last night, was met promptly by the reps from the travel company who took me to my hotel. They were absolutely fantastic. They had my itinerary and went over it with me, answered all my questions, and directed me to an excellent restaurant for dinner. I must say, never having traveled where I was alone, without a group, with my own private ininerary that was arranged through a travel agency, in this case AAA, I felt a little uneasy at the get go. They told me peopole would met me at every juncture and take care of everything. I wanted to believe it, but I had some uncertainties about would everyone get the communications, and would they really be where they were supposed to be. But all my anxieties are put to rest.
A quick summary of the last few days. Sunday I went to church at Christo Librador and it was marvelous. The priest invited me to celebrate and I enjoyed it very much. I felt so welcome. The church was full and the Holy Spirit was very present. I stayed for coffee and emapañadas. Empañadas are sort of like sandwiches and they are a little different everywhere you go. These were like fry bread filled with a little cheese; very very good. After church I went to Old Town to see and photo some of the Carnival festivities. The photos came out terrific. I had to keep the camera coverd with plastic to protect it from the karaoka that was flying everywhere.
I memtioned in my letter to the parish the other day that Bishop Ramos and Chris Morck, his asistant were in a very bad auto accident. It could have been a catastrophe, had they not had their set belts on. The seat belts literally saved both of their lives. Please keep them in your prayes as they recover at their homes both physically and mentally from such a horrible experience.
The hotel here in Lima is marvelous. It is part of a chain in Peru called Casa Andina and I will be staying in a couple more on this trip. At dinner I decide to try the national drink of Peru called a Pisco Sour. WOW!!!!! It is a very powerful drink. The waiter gave me the recipe but I would only drink one when I knew I had the rest of the week off. Needless to say I slept very soundly.
It was a shock to get off the plane in Lima from Quito. The shock was the sudden change in altitude from 10,000 feet to sea level, from the cool thin Andean air to the soft breezes of the ocean. Now I get back on a plane and go up again. I am not sure of the altitude in Arequipa, but I am guessing it is about 8,000 feet. Tomorrow I go to Colca Cañon, a huge cañon that they say is over twice as deep as the grand cañon. It is also a place where Andean condors are commonly seen. I will stay one night at the cañon and return to Arequipa and prepare to go to Cuzco.
Well, I must go and take care of a few incidentals, like getr some Peruvian money, called nueva sols, literally, new suns, before my ride to the airport comes for me. I will most likely have access to internet in Arequipa and will let you all know what I find next on this great adventure.
Love to you all,
Glenn+