Tour of Peru in 2019

I spent about one month with Hope in Peru from Oct 12 to Nov 13.  We toured Cusco, Machu Pichu, Lake Titikaka, Lima, Huangcayo, and Huaraz.  We entered and exited Peru via Lima, and hence stayed twice in Lima for a total of 7 nights.  The self guided itinerary plus some locally guided tours gave us in depth experience of this interesting country.  We loved to talk to the locals, be that the taxi driver, tour guides, restaurant servers, hotel clerks, shop owners, massage parlor ladies, air B&B owners, train conductor......Using our combined Spanish language skills, and of course often in English, we seemed to be able to connect with many of the friendly Peruvians. It was indeed a rewarding adventure to be savored in my old age.

Lima

The peacock who lived under our rooftop room in Lima.  That hotel which was so cheap, so close to the square (where we took the train to Huangcayo), and gave us so much unexpected pleasant surprise of creatures who lived on the rooftop terrace where we partook our breakfast.

The turtles live on the Terrence:

 The window of our rooftop hotel room in Lima, which overlook the cathedral next door:

The hotel has some interesting old furniture:

The square near our hotel:

When in Lima, we met the taxi driver Mateo, who drove us to the beach front, and toured Chorrillos, Barranco, and a nice beach front restaurant for ceviche.

Mateo, now a Facebook friend of mine:

The statue "kiss" in Chorrillos:

The beach front, and the ceviche restaurant:

Barranco which is a trendy suburb of Lima:

Huaraz

We took a bus from Lima to Huaraz.  We passed a dessert along the pacific ocean toward north

 Also we passed the striking columns:

When in Haraz, we did horse back riding, hiking by a mountain lake, massage, shopping, and visited this cafe we really enjoyed on the second floor overlooking a square.

The cafe we loved:

 The cafe overlooked a nice square, where we saw a number of parades.

 We had lots of mango smoothies

 The street down below our hotel room.  These are the locals apparently are the huge consumers of many cheap products imported from China.

 This woman cooked the guinea pig for our lunch by the road side near the mountain lake.

 We had a lovely hike on a trail along the lake:

The horse back ride was a tough 4 hours in a cloudy day.

Lake Titikaka

The train ride from Cusco to Puno (Lake Titikaka) was most delightful:

 

The scenery we saw along the train ride:

 

We stayed on a floating island on Lake Titikaka:

 Floating on the lake in a reed boat:

The pretty duck outside our room:

We also did some sailing on the lake. Of course we were just passengers. Our hotel owner's father-in-law did the sailing mainly. 

 Cusco and Machu Pichu

The original plan was that both Hope and I will hike the 4 days Machu Pichu trail together.  But I was not breathing well after the first day's hike.  So I bailed out and went down to Ollantaytambo for two nights and took the train to MachuPichu to meet up with her and the rest of the group.  While in Ollantaytombo, I did some hike to see the ruin of an ancient wall.
On the first day of hike, I did get to see "the little Machu Pichu" down in the valley:

The ancient "Wall" on top of the hill:

overlooking the valley below:

 

 Eventually we met up at Machu Pichu.  Quite a credit due to Hope for her persistent and completion of the whole hike!

 The Urabamba river below Machu Pichu.  The train track was built along the river.

Earlier on, while in Cusco getting acclimated with the high altitude, we visited a number of places with local guides, including horse back riding, Maray, Maras and salt mine, Humantay Mountain hike, and Rainbow mountain hike.  The Tipon water irrigation system was a bonus recommended by some travelers we met in the hotel.

 

We also enjoyed in Cusco the Inka massage a lot, especially after a horse back ride, or a hike, or a trip to a farm of alpacas.  The hotel we stayed was a nice colonial style one with a beautiful court yard:

It was unfortunately that the day we were scheduled to hike on the Rainbow Mountain turned out to be of very bad weather.  It was so heard to climb (16,000 ft).  Both Hope and I ended up with riding the horse up.  We only saw snow covered mountain, and with that a very faint tint of green!

 The Humantay Mountain Hike, where one can see the impressive ancient agricultural experimentation station.

Huancayo

The train ride to Huancayo was not most pleasant as it was an old and slow train.  The scenery along the way was not too exciting either.  But I got to see that the mineral mining is indeed the first and most important industry in Peru.  There are a lot of heavy machine mining on the hills, and some hills are colored although not like rainbows. A more unique visit was the "towers" near the city:

We did get to visit a local artist who carves and paints gourdes.