Cusco - well almost

Today we left our hotel and drove to a lunch restaurant overlooking Sacred Valley.

We had heard of Peru's large and white corn.  The kernels seem like large beans

Peru's coco leaves.  These are the same leaves used to make cocaine, apparently.  You can make tea out of them and supposed to help with altitude sickness.   I did try some one night, couldn't sleep and vomited, but altitude sickness was a likelier explanation.  In any case, they didn't help!.

KM managed to get a picture of roasted guinea pig on a stick.  They farm them for food.

After lunch we went to see Inca ruins, called Sacsaywaman.   This is our guide doing her explanation.  But all eyes were on the bridal couple in the background.

So I went over to get a pic.  They were happy to pose, including the young man who knew exactly what he had to do.

Another pic of  Sacsaywaman.  I had never heard of it before, but it is an old Inca temple just outside Cusco.

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu is famous.  The ruins are stunning in their mountain setting, but just as amazing are the mountains that you have to go through to get there.  It was, apparently, a royal palace.

My pics.

Self-explanatory.  We were in groups of 6 going through the ruins. We chose a slow group

One of the many possible pics of the mountain, taken in either direction from our hotel balcony.

You can't see the top - it is in cloud

And if you didn't look up

It is a strenuous destination.  There is the altitude to manage, and the town of MP is not near the ruins.  They are a 45 minute shuttle bus journeyaway,  made up of a sequence of hair-pin turns (the Americans call them switchbacks).

There are no roads to the town, just a railway or a hiking track, so there are no cars.  The  train journey takes one and half hours.  There are hotels in the town, and we stayed there for the night, but could only bring an overnight bag with us.  I think there is a helipad though.

But it is stunning.

Altitude

We both felt the effects of altitude.  This trip was not my first experience of high altitude, and I was not particularly relishing the prospect. But the strangest thing is that recovery is sudden and (almost) compete, unlike getting over a cold that can drag on for a few days.

We flew into Cuzco (approx 3400m).  We stopped at a market which was about 3.800m  It was here that KM became dizzy and began to lose colour from his vision.  The accompanying doctor reassured him he would be ok when we descended to our hotel in the Sacred Valley (2.800m).

Then it was my turn.  That night I had a headache and vomited.  Eventually slept and saw the doc the next morning.  Out of his pocket he pulled some anti-nausea medicine, so took one.  He advised that the dosage we were taking for altitude sickness prevention was too high so we cut down the dose.  I don't follow the logic, but I am not the doc.  We also wondered what else he had in his pockets!

After that, all was well.  The day at MP, about 2,400m, gave us some relief and we have survived our return to 2,800m.  We still can't walk at our usual pace (let alone ring any bells I am sure) but at least we are not fainting or vomiting!  Tonight we return to Cuzco, so will see how we go with the additional 600m in a short time.

I am glad there are no other famous sites that I want to see at high altitude!

Eclipse

To night we left Chile and flew to Cuzco, and we are in some (very nice) hotel an hours drive outside.  Tomorrow we go to Macu Picchu.

And the hotel has wifi.

Some pics from two days ago.  This is the eclipsed sun taken with my camera. 

 And this is people watching the above.

Pics

Up at 5am and wifi works like a charm.  Trying my luck with a pic.

Observatory

Big telescope (not in the above building though).  People around give you the scale.

The countryside

Hotel Mar del Ensuena, hotel on the sea front south of La Serena

Kay mentioned how disappointed we are with the accommodation despite the potentially beautiful setting of a beach facing the Pacific Ocean. Most irritating of all - shouldn't be - is the limited wifi, so we find it very difficult to post anything on the blog or even WhatsApp.

It did not help that when we arrived two days ago, it was overcast, cold and deserted but today the beach front looked much better, with sun shining and many more people around probably because it is Sunday and maybe a lot of people are arriving for the eclipse event. The eclipse will be around 4.30pm on Tuesday afternoon, so the west facing sea front will present a good view provided there is no cloud cover.

Yesterday we visited Cerro Tololo one of the several US Astronomical observatories in the Vicuna area. Even if the sophisticated equipment were meaningless, which they were to most of the visitors,  their dimensions were awesome.

Just as interesting to those making the trip to the observatories is the terrain. The observatories sit on the top of Andes mountain ridges some 2000 metres above sea level (hence above most clouds) where the air is clear most of the time.  The climatic type is essentially desert with not much vegetation apart from cacti.  And it was cold, about 5 deg in the middle of the day.

Tomorrow we revisit La Serena town as part of our eclipse tour, and on Tuesday the eclipse proper when we will view it near the observatories; the high and dry conditions there further ensure the best chances of viewing the eclipse.

Our tour begins

We have moved into our tour hotel - Mar de Ensueno, along the beach.

The wifi is CRAP and am having trouble doing the blog.

We went on a tour of Cerro Tololo observatory today, and it was fascinating.

Otherwise there nothing so bleak as a seaside resort in the winter!  We can see amazing long surf.

EARTHQUAKE

We  were woken last night, about 4:30am by our bed moving and cupboard doors shaking noisily.   It went on for less than a minute and we realised it was a tremor/earthquake.

When I looked for the local meteorological website, I found that there are several earthquakes every day in Chile!  No wonder the buildings are all low-rise.

Ours was 66km north of La Serena, at a depth of 81km and magnitude 5.

https://earthquaketrack.com/quakes/2019-06-28-08-30-42-utc-5-0-81

OMG!  I did not know all this before bought our tickets!  Safer in the bell-tower.

The juggler

This man was making the most of the afternoon rush hour in La Serena.  Taken from our hotel window.

And as the lights changed, he moved forwards to collect any offerings.

Food

Seen in our walk this morning.

The only Chinese restaurant we have seen.  it was closed so had to grab the pics of the menu through the grill doors.  All translated into Spanish. 

 Seen in a supermarket

And what are these?! Google needed.

BTW, there is NOTHING from Australia. Not surprising I suppose - they produce what we produce.

One last puzzle - how do you ask a vendor in Chile if his food contains chilli?!