Photo TR : Cusco, and Lima Peru

Hello TPR friends! My wife and I just got back from our trip tp South America to celebrate our 5 year anniversary. The theme park comes at the end of the report, but there was a lot of cool stuff to see and do before we got there. So, please read along and learn some interesting facts about Peru while you wait for the coaster!

I cashed in some of our AA miles for first class tickets to Peru. Our routing was Kansas City-Dallas_Miami-Lima_Cusco. We left KC at 7 am and got in around midnight.

Here are the pics!

pizza here is amazing!!!!

off to work now, but pics of Machu Picchu and the park are coming soon!

this was NOT a safe place to be at all!

This is Pisac below us.

we first tried to give out shoes here....but it turned into a huge scene and we left.

i liked chewing the coca leaves better than drinking the tea....it hit you much faster!

There is 500 different types of corn here.

This stuff helped me way more than those pills! Coca tea!

slug bug!

on the way to Pisac market

The kids have to start working really young... we brought a suitcase full of new shoes to give out to the working kids...pics of that later.

Peru is known for the wool of these guys...we bought tons of hats and scarfs made from them....they are tasty too!

Baby Alpaca!

People were selling stuff everywhere! This was on the side of a mountain!

Cusco!

The segment from Lima to Cusco, was on LAN, and, as you can see from the box, this was our "snack"

My wife bought these the first day...then we used something better that we will show you later.

When all else fails, we can always count on you Mcdonalds!

90% of these people were offering us a taxi.

And, on the international segment, you get a bed!

This is domestic first.

When you fly international first with AA, you get to stay in the Admirals Club before your flights.

The theme park comes at the end of the report, but there was a lot of cool stuff to see and do before we got there.

Such a tease!

Seriously, I'm looking forward to the whole PTR!

The coaster can wait. Yay for awesome culture reports! I'm anxious for more.

Oh, and Happy Anniversary!!

Certainly looking forward to this! Happy Anniversary!

AMAZING photos!...Do post more soon!

Thanks everyone for the nice replies!

Here are some more pics.

The native children are abundant at the ruins, and charge one Soles each for taking their picture while they sing you a song. Three Soles equals one US dollar.

more pics later!

more steps...going down is NOT easier than going up!

can everyone see the profile of the face in the side of the mountain?

While we were here, I THOUGHT we were high up...just wait until later!

It would take all day to explain how they got these huge boulders to fit together, and bring them from 2 KM away....but in this pic you can see the way they cut the stones to give a tight fit. The area is prone to big earthquakes, so they had to make them very tight, and used no mortar to hold them.

This double doorwaymeans that the area that you are ready to enter in holy.

ok...here is the start of the thousands and thousands of steps that we walked while we were in Peru. This is the ruins of the area that was built for Ollantaya, who the town is now named after. They built it in the side of this mountain to have a good vantage point to see who was coming for them. Actually, that is just what the historians THINK, becasue they Incas left no written text of their history.

more of our hotel

Entrance to our hotel...i could never pronounce it right and had to show the "taxi" guy our key to get us to the right place.

Peru taxi! In asia its called a tuk tuk..everyone here called it a taxi. It cost less than $1 for both of us to go anywhere in town...but the streets are all cobblestones, so walking is much better than these death traps!

National plant of Peru.

This is the view from our hotel window in a town called Ollantaytambo...say that 3 times fast! It is in an area called the sacred valley, and it is one of the last places to start your journey to Machu Picchu.

more steps...going down is NOT easier than going up!

Good Lord, I always wanted to go to Machu Piecu (sp???) but looking at those steps and equating what happens to me whenever I try to go down stadium steps, I'm having second thoughts.

Cool report, the sky is such a pretty shade of blue.

Awesome TR so far guys! I really like how you guys brought shoes for the kids out there. I'm sure they appreciate it! Don't get hooked on the coco leaves.

more steps...going down is NOT easier than going up!

 

Good Lord, I always wanted to go to Machu Piecu (sp???) but looking at those steps and equating what happens to me whenever I try to go down stadium steps, I'm having second thoughts.

 

Cool report, the sky is such a pretty shade of blue.

The steps at Machu Picchu were even worse than those! The pics of MP are coming soon!

Trout and some type of potato.

more pics soon!

Lunch!

Salt pans. there is a small stream tha flows out of the mountain, and the stream carries tons of salt with it. They divert the water to the diferent pans, and let it evaporate. The pans are handed down as wedding presents to the next generation.

Us at the very bottom. Percy told us that people come here and lay on the bottom all day to soak up energy that is magically flowing from the bottom..

The incas made the steps come right out of the wall. At first we thought it was so cool! But after you go all the way down and back up again, we wished the Incas had invented the escalator!

Its a long way down there!

OK, on to more culture! This is Morray. It was built as an experiment, to see how crops grow in different temps. Every level you go down, the temp goes up half a degree F.

He was Aprils favorite!

group shot. All of these kids got something, either new clothes, or new shoes and socks. The kids on my lap didnt want to get up!

We bought these shoes here in the states for about $10 a pair. But, the look on these kids faces, was way beyond $10!

This kid also got a new sweater. He had like 5 t shirts on, when I asked him to try on the new sweater, he ripped those t shirts off so fast!

Next set of kids. That is our friend Percy puting the shoes on. He did most of the driving for us while we were there.

Right about the time we took this pic, the sheep started to get away from the field they were supposed to be in abd the girls started screaming at them to get back! As we were leaving, the girls stayed in the same place, brushing off the dirt from their new shoes....is was very cute!

The woman that is half in the picture, is some really hairy Australian woman who was biking all over Peru and stoppped to watch us give out the shoes.

These arethe first two girls to get new shoes today! They were working in the field with their families sheep, and our friend Percy called them over.

This is about the exact opposite of what it looks like in Missouri where we live.

The world needs more people like you guys. That had to be hard to deliver so much, yet have to unfortunately run out of gifts at some point.

Also, if you don't mind, what's the name of the place you stayed at? It looks really cool.

EDIT: Nevermind. I just logged onto a computer with a better screen, and now I can make out the name of it in that pic.

Again, can't wait for more!

Thank you very much!You are right, it is very hard when the suitcase is empty. We have done this on every continent we have been to, and it is the same feeling every time!

Here is the link to the hotel we stayed at. If you want to go to MP and dont want to walk the 4 days Inca trail, this is THE place to stay at before you head up!

http://www.pakaritampu.com/

thanks to all that have followed so far!

my wife is only 5 feet tall, so you can see how small the native women are!

next up will be the coaster!

thanks for hanging in there with the culture part!

The bulls on top of your house, will bring you good luck and prosperity...we bought several to take home as gifts.

We had lunch and some cervesas with this dog at the restaurant.

after 5 minutes these older guys showed up and wanted to watch we try. The girls laughed so hard! I finally got them to start counting how many jumps i did, in Spanish. I didnt get very far.

Then i untied the knot in the rope and taught them the US way to play!

Back at the market, I played the Peru style of jump rope with these girls.

This is the train back down to town. We took the backpacker train up, and the visidome train down.

When MP was discovered back in the early part of the 20th century, there was a family that was using this side as a farm. When Hiram Bingham arrived, one of the farmers showed him some"old rocks" that were on the other side, which is now called MP.

These stones are REALLY heavy!

I really dont like heights at all!!! Coasters above 200 feet scare me bad!

There are several llamas and alpacas that live up here!

It really is in the middle of nowhere!

Finally we made it!!!!!!! The pictures cant even come close to how awesome this place really is!

getting close!

To get to MP you have to take a train for an hour and a half up the mountain, then a bus for another 30 minutes, then walk a gazillon steps. This is the bus part.

Today we say goodbye to our awesome friend Percy!

AMAZING! Thanks for sharing all these pics!

OK, this should be the last update, and include the pics of the coaster.

and at last, us at the bar with the national drink, the Pisco Sour.

thanks everyone for reading thru this, and hope you enjoyed the pics!

Jeffrey and April

the people in the buses are CRAMMED inside. when the bus rolls up , the drives holds on his fingers how many more people can get on.

this was inside one of the malls

Ticket prices....3 soles = 1 US $

i dont ride these at home, no way was I going to ride one in PERU!

more trash cans

here are some other rides around the park

I am pretty sure there are some twisty ties holding this thing together, and some of them were glowing red hot!

lift hill! Not sure if you can see it, but a few feet from the top, the track has a bump out to the left where it was bent....quality!

this is the before shot.

more pushing

You are seeing that right....the ride op has to PUSH the cars back to the loading platform...he lets all 3 cars go thru..then comes back and pushes them to the begining again...he didnt put the brakes on so good when we came to the end and we slammed into the car in front of us hard!

this place is right next door to a huge mall. we went in and looked around, and just like at the park, we were the ONLY non Peruvian people there and got a lot of stares.

our fancy carriage, with very secure seatbelt.

and there it is, the Lima death machine!

fancy trash cans abound!

Park sign.

Ok hre we are! Finally! It may look like some traveling carnival, but this is a PERMANENT park!

OK, Hooters in Peru is way different the in the US. Most of the women that work here close to where we live I would classify as "butterface" as in " she has a nice body, butterface is scary! Most of the women here were not so big in the hooter department, but were VERY pretty!

We had not seen this game before....its at some arcade along the beach in Miaflores.

we finally made it to the ocean!!!!! it was way cold and we didnt go in.

we didnt go in here.....it just has a weird name.

ummm... we have no idea what this is about.

this is Marisol...she was working at this store all by herself...she is 8 years old...my wife bought soooo much stuff from her we had to help her add it all up!

Percy and his wonderful family.

This is more like it. On the last day in Cusco we had a family dinner with Percy. In here is some cows head and heart....we ate it with a smile on our face to make Percy feel good.

It was not that good...but we have had way worse in Africa and parts of Thailand!

Finally we ate what Peru is famous for! Anyone want to guess what it is?

Peruvian hairless dog...our friends at home have one and they feel like a little elephant!

Big white Jesus Christ welcomes you to Cusco! We didnt know what it was called, so we got in the taxi and said "blanco Jesus Christo grande" and we went right here!

Every Sunday they havea big parade on the plaza.....this is our trying to be artsy shot.

Cathedral on the plaza in Cusco.

Baby Alpaca!

This is why, even in the really nice restrooms, it smelled like butthole.

This was amazing! I've always wanted to see Machu Pichu in a bad way, but your TR has me itching to just head to the airport right now. Thanks a ton for sharing!!!

You are very welcome! Flight to Lima from the US are not that expensive, but it cost over $300 for a RT to Cusco from LIM. You can get there by car, but its a looong drive!

Hey Jeffrey and April, my great friends!!!!

It is sooooo hard to believe that it was almost exactly a year ago that we were hanging out together!!! It seems so much longer!

A year and 3 days ago at Worlds of Fun and a year and two days ago I was waking up at your house!

Funny thing, Rick, Gwen and I were looking up the 7 wonders of the world yesterday and saw Michu Pichu listed! I am not that swift and had no idea where it was, AND NOW I DO!

I loved all the photos from start to finish!

I already knew that you two were super kind and generous, so a suitcase full of shoes did not surprise me one bit! That really is awesome! I can't really even explain how awesome I think it is!

I did not see Parker on the trip, so it looks like Parker and I will have to go next time together with you I am not eating whatever that undescribed meal was though lol.

Just a quick note as I sit here on my computer, I can see Parkers drawing on my fridge from here!

You guys look fantastic and I hope you have many more exciting trips to report on in the future, because I love reading them and seeing things I will probably never see through you!

Peace my super friends, Big Mike

Awesome trip report!

You might want to get in touch with the guy who runs RCDB.com about that Jet Star. All he has listed at that park is a Wacky Worm.

Very cool TR guys! As for the unknown meal, I couldn't help but think it looked exactly like the hairless dog you had in the previous picture! I'm sure it wasn't, but I had a little chuckle.

Such a cool trip guys! Ride an obscure coaster, see some of the most beautiful things in the world, and on top of that be able to help people while you're there. Thats the way to travel! I love it

Very interesting TR! I've always wanted to go to MP. I loved the culture aspect of this; it's one thing to read about these places, but it's another thing entirely to see pictures of a way of life so different from our own.

As for that unnamed meal, I'm guessing it was a guinea pig. I remember reading about it in an ancient South American cultures anthropology class as being a widely consumed dish in the area and it made me cringe!

Looks like you had a wonderful time and it's so generous that you included giving out shoes as part of your trip. Happy anniversary!

~Megan

Great Trip Report.

Glad to see you got to meet a Fabled Hairy Australian Woman quite rare they are.

And is not the national dish of Peru, Guinea Pig?

I've always thought that MP would be really cool to go to, but I've always wondered: are there any bathrooms there?

Great TR! I have had many friends go to Peru and MP and they have all loved it! I actually have some friends living there now and they say the people are the best in South America!

Very cool TR guys! As for the unknown meal, I couldn't help but think it looked exactly like the hairless dog you had in the previous picture! I'm sure it wasn't, but I had a little chuckle.

I was thinking that or the baby alpaca.