Titanium toes attempts to trek the Inca Trail plus some travels either side

[bPeteb]

The tour finished in the Witches Market that wasn’t at all what I was expecting.

It was actually a row of shops that sell ‘remedies’ for all sorts of aches and pains and other things.



There were baby llamas hanging from the ceilings of most of the stores.





We were shown a llama foetus in another



Goat horns



snake bits, and other concoctions. It was a bit like being in China.

 

[bPeteb]

Some more colour from the stores of the Witches Market and the area nearby











With the tour over we went in search of an alpaca jumper for Al and hopefully a blanket or a throw for us. Yes for Al, no for us. The only throws I liked were hell expensive. We saw a couple of cushion covers in a store that was a bit 'alternative' and paid way too much for them.

We ended up in a Mexican for dinner and had a fab night. The restaurant was turning people away not long after we sat down. Many coughtails later the night was over and with it our Sacred Land of the Incas journey had come to and end.

 

[bPeteb]

A sleep in would have been nice as our flight wasn't until late afternoon. That wasn't to be as we were woken by the sounds of a gazillion marching bands that sounded like they were in our room. They might as well have been. We pulled the curtains back and the road was jam packed with kids – mainly high school age but some much smaller – from what I’d guess was every school in La Paz, maybe just a specific region of the city even.



Hotel Osira and San Pedro Square was the marshalling point for the revolution day celebration march.

We went down and had breakfast then I stood out on the balcony and watched the passing bands.

 

[bPeteb]

Some of the proud and beautifully dressed parents





Gee they were loud and eventually our heads were throbbing in tune with the drums.

We had to leave the hotel to get away from the noise.



We visited an interesting art museum down on the main avenue



and just wandered around to waste time until it was time for our transfer. Our biggest concern was how would the driver get near to the hotel if the parade was still on when we were due to be picked up?

We needn’t have been worried. The parade finished and the street opened well before we were due to be picked up. The driver was early and considering we’d been told it could take two hours to get to the airport we decided to leave straight away.

 

[bPeteb]

It took 30 minutes to get to the airport. He didn’t go near a main road, instead zigzagging up the side of the valley to El Alto



and then through small streets to get us to the airport. We were hours early.

We were flying to Lima with one of our tour group where she was connecting to her BA flight home to London. Since the amazingly terrible decision by One World airlines to no longer check bags through unless on the same ticket, our companion would have to collect her bags in Lima, pass through immigration and check back in for her flight. We all checked in together and the check in agent kindly put a priority tag on Julia’s bag. Surely that would mean it would come out first?

La Paz airport is a tale of two halves. The check in side is modern and airy with amazing views back towards the spectacular mountains that rise behind La Paz



The checked in side is old and cough. I tried to get us into the Priority Pass lounge but there was no wifi at the departure gates and I only have an electronic card so no luck. The departure time slipped and our friend got more and more anxious as her connection was getting tight.

The flight finally arrived and even though we boarded in record time, we sat there for ages before we were finally pushed away from the gate. The view across El Alto, Lake Titicaca and the Andes was amazing as we flew back to Lima.

 

[bPeteb]

Of course we didn’t manage to score an aerobridge when we arrived in Lima and had to bus it back to the terminal. This delayed Julia’s bag more and her anxiety bagen to turn into anger. 'More' turned into close to 45 minutes between when we landed and when Julia’s ’priority’ bag finally turned up on the carousel. She ran for security and out into the 'crazy town' that's Lima's departures hall.

We were surprised and relieved to eventually find out that Julia had not only made her flight, but she even scored a business class upgrade!

Our priority tagged bags took a bit longer to turn up. Just as we were about to step out of the secure area I realised that we didn’t have our third bag. We’d travelled with two up until today and we'd forgotten all about it. Luckily they let me back past the bag scanners to collect it off the carousel.

Our remis driver knew every rat run through Callao on the way back in to Lima. We asked him straight away if he could take us back to the airport the following night.

We’d decided on a night of luxury for our last night in Peru, and in South America, and had booked the Radisson at Miraflores. For the same price as a nice but small three star, we booked a very nice four/five star. It got even better when we scored an upgrade to a junior suite on check-in.

The room was huge, if a little sparse.



The bed was wonderfully comfortable

king, king bed, beer



after three weeks that varied from good to a deflated camping mattress.

The bathroom was similarly huge. I really liked the bathroom products. Avena maybe?



The shower was like heaven



I could have stood under it for hours.

Even a coffee machine that we had no time to use

 

[bPeteb]

It was pretty late by the time we sat down in Miso, one of the hotel restaurants for dinner. We had a great red (another malbec) with a good, if unusual, dinner.

This was a starter! Three mushroom pie. As you can see it was gigantic but sadly the pastry was soft. The mushrooms were deliciously overloaded with garlic to make up for the disappointing pastry



Al's delicious scallops



Crackling pig that was also delicious but unfortunately looked like it was sitting on something you wouldn't normally see on a plate...:shock:



Al's slightly dry lamb shank



Presentation though odd top notch. Service was excellent.

 

[bPeteb]

We went up to the rooftop pool and bar and had a few coughtails sat in the weird Lima mist.





The bar was crowded with Lima’s young and beautiful.

We were just a tad out of place :mrgreen:

 

[bPeteb]

What a night’s sleep! Sadly no time to sleep in though as we we’d booked another day with Alternative Peru.

Breakfast was served in Miso where we had dinner the night before. It was one of the better hotel breakfasts either of us has had. Great buffet and whatever you wanted off the menu of cooked selections.

Our Alternative Peru guide Claudia met us in the lobby not long after we’d checked out. Expecting there to be a few people we were very surprised to find out it was just us, Claudia and our driver Placido. We’d booked the Artisan and Pachacamac tour Artisan and Pachacamac Tour - Alternative Peru
I won’t go into a lot of the historical detail of Pachacamac as here’s something that the interweb prepared earlier… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachacamac and Pachacamac - Lonely Planet.

We started in the museum and ignoring the amazing stuff that was inside, it is a cracker of a building. Pachacamac was constructed on the shifting sands of the Peruvian coastal desert and apart from the rock foundations, the buildings are adobe. It’s only due to the fact that the complex was built in a desert that the structures have survived as well as they do as adobe has a habit of eventually being washed away.

The museum is the complete opposite of this. It is a complex of beautiful poured concrete – walls, ceilings, floors, pathways, even outdoor furniture.











The severity of the concrete is offset of lush green lawns (not sure how I missed that offset picture) and stained timber.

Yes, I am a bit in love with this building.

 

[bPeteb]

The contents were just as amazing.











The Incas were the last people to use the site before the Spaniards did what they did best in South America and attempted to wipe its existence from the world.

 

[bPeteb]

I’m not sure if the guide that came with us around the site was compulsory but the charming Gino was a little gem and we’re glad he came with us.

Al and Gino with the Sun Temple ahead of them



He was patient with our myriad of questions, well, Al’s myriad. He talked about the site, the recent history of Peru, his family, the world in general.

He explained that the Peruivian government had been trying to get the site World Heritage listed as with the listing comes financial support. The listing apparently won't be considered until they remove the ability to drive around the site. I'm not sure if that's true or not but it's a huge site and they would need to provide some way of transporting people around it.

We asked about the constant cloudy weather and were horrified when we found out that Peru has eight months or more of it. With the cloud comes a strange light drizzle that doesn’t qualify as rain (remember, Lima and most of coastal Peru is desert) but you can feel it hitting you. Bizarre. Who wants to live somewhere with only three or four months of sun? Gino isn’t a huge fan either. He was driving two hours east to the mountains the following day to go see some sun.

The House of the Chosen Women (Acllahuasi or Mamacona). After the last major earthquake, access to this amazing structure was stopped. Sadly, they have no money to make the necessary repairs to make it safe to again.



More Pachacamac





The view back to the amazing museum complex across Mamacona

 

[bPeteb]

We then drove to the artist community.

The community is in the land invasions/human settlements. Although it is terrible that the people who live in these places have come here to flee persecution or terror or poverty or a combination, there is another side to this and that is of the 'real' owners of the land. The land was occupied, titles sometimes issued, and the original owners lost it with no compensation. It is an issue over which there is a great divide in Peru.

Back to the artist community.

We first visited a potter and ceramicist's workshop where we had lunch. His work was quite beautiful in a naïve kind of way.

Then we went to a weaver’s collective – Artisania Quispe and Arte Apu Hurin https://www.facebook.com/wilberquispeh/?hc_ref=SEARCH and https://www.facebook.com/ARTE-APU-HURIN-702801023083813/

This was quite amazing. We were given an explanation of how the yarns – wool from sheep and alpaca – were spun, then died with 100% natural dyes and then finally created on the looms of different sizes.



I’m still not actually sure if the work that we saw was all the work of Wilber (who was explaining it all to us), or of the collective. A number of pieces had recently been on display in an exhibition in the city. They were incredibly complex, and incredibly beautiful and if we’d had money to burn we could have spent thousands. There were a few wall hangings/rugs that were over USD2000. We bought a long table runner with a geometric pattern/weave that was expensive enough!

My quest for churros and chocolate was still unfulfilled but Sam, my co-hort from the Cusco search, had messaged me to tell me that she'd found the motherload in Lima – Churreria Manolo Manolo! So instead of getting dropped off at the hotel, we asked to be dropped off at Manolo.

The churros were FANTASTIC



I could have gorged for hours but I had just the standard six that I very caringly :evil: shared with Al.

Another fantastic day spent with Alternative Peru. We can’t recommend them highly enough.

We had hours to spare before our transfer to the airport so we wandered some more around Miraflores. We stumbled across the corner of Park Kennedy where dozens of cats just hang around, weird



Right near them was a tiny 'amphitheatre' sunken into the park where a whole bunch of seriously cool older people were getting their groove on



And finished our amazing trip to Peru and Bolivia with a final, slightly disappointing, two-for-one, happy hour, pisco sour

 

[bPeteb]

It wasn’t more than a 10 minute walk to the hotel but after about 20 we realised that I had somehow taken us in completely the wrong direction. Al eventually worked it out and we got back to the hotel about 15 minutes before our driver was due to pick us up.

Getting lost in Lima...



Despite the bizarre weather, Lima is really cool and we’re both looking forward to returning.

If Lima's airport was a chaotic place to arrive in to, it was even more chaotic to leave from.

Even though we were flying business/Condor class, and I had our e-tickets in my hand, the priority queue dragon tried to direct us to the endless economy line. We thought about it for a moment and Al would have done it but I turned around and started down the line.

When she questioned me again I showed her our e-tickets, again, and she relented. The checkin agent was lovely and asked if they'd tried to stop us. Apparently some of them have a policy of ignoring travel class and just applying a status rule to who can use the priority line.

Immigration was surprisingly quick considering the choas downstairs. We then went in search of the Sumaq Lounge. Sorry, no pictures, Al told me to put my phone down as soon as I looked like I was about to take one.

It was super busy and we were directed out onto the terrace, an open air courtyard that had quite a smell of avgas. Best thing about the lounge was the bar – they had a coughtail barman making pretty much whatever you want. Despite the temptation to get stuck back into the pisco sours, again, we stuck with beers.

Unlike all of our LATAM flights, our fourth Aerolineas Argentinas flight left early, like they all had, just before midnight. A 737-700. We were in 1A and C of two rows of business/premium economy seats and had miles of leg room



The little amenity kit we were given had more stuff in it than any we’ve ever been given - socks, shades, ear plugs, a blow-up pillow thing, toothbrush and paste, a comb/brush combo and a couple of lotions, L’Occitane even!

We should have tried to sleep straight away but there wasn’t even an opportunity to get the eye shades out before they started a very late (very early?) dinner service. I have no idea what we were offered, I'm pretty sure there was a choice, and I forgot all about photos. I do know that the red helped me nod off quicker than usual for the very short four and a bit hour flight back to Buenos Aires.

 

[bPeteb]

I’d booked two nights at Boho Rooms Boho Rooms so that we’d have a bed to arrive to, somewhere to leave our bags, and somewhere to shower before we left.

I can’t even remember how I found Boho but it was quite the find. Described as a hostel it was just USD40 for both nights, with private bathroom including breakfast. It didn’t matter that it was two single beds. It was in Palermo! It had its own bathroom! It had Wifi! It even had a very efficient aircon unit! Big plus for the latter as it was freezing when we arrived (we saw frost on car windows as we left the airport). They even offered an airport pickup and Norberto was there waiting for us when we emerged into the arrivals hall.

Norberto let himself in to the building and the night manager showed us up to the room once I’d done the paperwork. The room was clean, functional and perfect. We were exhausted and it was only 6.30 in the morning. We set an alarm for 8.30 and dived in to bed.

Just two short hours later that woke us both from the sleep of the dead because we had of course something organised for the last day of our holiday – we’d booked another day with Marcelo.

After a very simple breakfast we went outside to wait for Marcelo. It was way colder than it had been the previous few days in BA but it was sunny and calm and that was all that mattered. We caught the subway down to near the Presidential Palace. The stations reminded us both of those in Saint Petersburg with walls covered in mosaics. Even some of the platforms were decorated.

On the way to the station - outside a beauty salon



No sign of Barbie



Marcelo suggested beacuse it was quite early that we could start the day at another of BA’s beautiful cafes. I have no idea what it was called and paid cash so no credit card receipt to work it out. Suffice it to say that it was as beautiful as Tortoni but its hot chocolate wasn’t even close.

Sunday is San Telmo antiques day and despite me hating markets it was a beautiful stroll up Defensa.





It’s about a dozen blocks of stalls of various kinds. The antiques are in stores off to either side. I managed to buy a reproduction of a Qantas poster from before the war, featuring Short flying boats, plus a similar period Pan Am poster.

A stretch 2CV

 

[bPeteb]

A few more San Telmo shots







Marcelo took us into the Gustave Eiffel designed market hall. All riveted iron, it couldn’t have been designed by anyone else.

 

[SuePa]

Thanks for the memories, Pete. I did a similar trip in 2000 and loved it!
Initially I had planned to catch the train to Agua Calientes and meet my group at Machu Pichu, but was shamed into joining the hike by a one-legged man who was 12 years older than me. As you said, it was the hardest thing I have ever done physically, but what a sense of achievement at completion. Sadly, the view from the Sun Gate was completely obscured by fog when I was there, but it cleared up later, so I still have some amazing photos.
I've really enjoyed revisiting Peru and Bolivia through reading your TR.

 

[bPeteb]

Some more shots from inside the market hall

 

[bPeteb]

We took a taxi back into town where we visited the most surprising, and most beautiful (reputedly), bookshop in the world El Ateneo Grand Splendid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ateneo_Grand_Splendid

OMG!!

It was certainly splendid. It was just amazing. Pictures could never do the splendidness justice.





We told Marcelo that we wanted to take him to lunch, at a good Argentinian non-tourist restaurant. He knew just the place and rang to make sure they were open.

Jauna M Restoran was just perfect Juana M. Restaurant. Centro. Perfect steak, perfect wine, even a super cute rugby playing waiter.

Another perfect steak



GO HERE!



YOU'LL LOVE IT!



Ridiculously cheap for what we ate and drank.

How could anyone not love Buenos Aires?

 

[bPeteb]

During the rest of the afternoon we checked out the amazing silver flower Floralis Generica that was donated to the city by an architect who had made it big in the US





the ‘mini’ mansions of Palermo (I think that’s where they were)



Apparently a mud covered 4WD ute says to everyone that "I have a ranch". I'd go more with "I have an eeny teeny weeny peeny".



We had every intention of going to MALBA | Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires Malba to see the Yoko Ono exhibition but disappointingly the queue was way too long and our legs, and the rest of our body, were getting very, very tired.

We’d spent a fantastic three days with Marcelo seeing things in BA that we would never have seen. Despite my initial misgivings about the cost, it was worth every dollar.

 

[bPeteb]

Before we’d left Boho in the morning we booked the return transfer to the airport. The new person in the office had great trouble understanding why we wanted to book for tonight, and not tomorrow. Surely we’d only just arrived? Norberto was booked for 8pm so we packed our bags, set the alarm and dived back in to bed for another couple of hours sleep.

There wasn’t a soul in front of us at check in. We were early, and flying business, and wanting to get as much out of the experience as we could, but where was everyone sitting down the back of the bus?

Immigration and security were just as ‘un-busy’ so we were in the Star Alliance lounge for the second time on this holiday less than 20 minutes after Norberto dropped us off.

The lounge is nice but people being super rude spoil it, as they do any lounge. If there are three seats in a group don’t sit in the middle one. Sit at one of the other two so that someone else can sit down. Over the course of the three hours we were there we saw lots of couples have trouble finding a seat without sitting with someone else between them.

The time finally came to board our first ever paid J flight!



We flew back from New York last year QF J after winning in the points upgrade lottery. We’ve also flown BA J (the newish one) from London to Tokyo. That time it was with QF points. So we had a couple of airlines to compare with. For both of us Air New Zealand wins hands down.

From the moment we walked in the door of the plane it was like we were the only people onboard. The cabin was more than half full so there were enough of us to keep the crew busy.

We were a bit worried about the looking across the isle thing, and the not being able to see out the window, but neither was a problem.

We sat in in 4 and 5K



NZ bubbles first with the promise that champagne would be on offer once we got in the air. We both got a lesson on how the seat worked with instruction on where to find further info in the entertainment system. Using perfect kiwi lingo the seat was sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet.

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Time to put my feet up (sleep socks were on seconds later!)