Peru

Snowbird friends, Harold & Julie, who spent last year's Minnesota winter in Cuenca, passed this winter in Peru.  They invited us to come and do some exploring with them while they were there.  So, we  spent 10 days in Peru.

Our first stop was Lima where we had great ceviche, saw Pachacamac - an ancient site that includes ruins from as far back as the Lima period and up through the Incas - visited "Lover's Park" and had an all around great time.

Pachacamac

Pachacamac

The famous hairless dogs of the Incas.  This one has skin cancer.  They have no hair to protect their skin, and they don't wear sunscreen.

A man walking his llamas and alpacas at Pachacamac

This is what all of Lima would look like if not for irrigation.  Although it is right on the ocean, it is a desert.

Having ceviche at La Mar.  La Mar also has a restaurant in San Francisco, the first of Gaston's restaurants outside of Lima, and where we used to enjoy going to ceviche.  Delicious!!

Kicking up his heels in Lima.

Lover's Park, with its serpentine mosaic wall covered with lovey-dovey sayings.

Due to irrigation, all over Lima, a city of 9 million people, there are beautiful parks.

 Then we headed for Cuzco, the Sacred Valley and Macchu Picchu.

Cuzco is a lovely historic town that has a very good tourist infrastructure.  It's much more tourist friendly than it was 11 years ago when I (Deborah) visited there.  Peru has done a lot to encourage tourism, as well it should, since the whole country is an archaeological site with amazing ruins and history throughout. 

The intrepid explorers at Macchu Picchu.

Harold heading into the magnificent city of Macchu Picchu.

Macchu Picchu

Inca terraces at Pisac in the Sacred Valley

The magnificent scale of Macchu Picchu.  This colored dots are people!

Macchu Picchu

The giant interconnecting stone at Sacsayhauman.  How did the do that?  You couldn't even squeeze a dime between some of these stones, and they did not use any mortar.

We had a wonderful time, and we have a lot of things left to see in Peru, so we will have to go back again.

Update

For all of you have asked for an update on our injured construction worker, he is doing fine and is back at work. Needless to say, we are very happy to hear this.

We have also learned Poochito's real name: Capitan.  For you non-Spanish speakers, that is Captain.  Seems appropriate, since he is clearly on the management team.  Of course, he'll always be Poochito to us.

Here he is patrolling the premises.

 

Guarding the gate is really hard work. Well, actually waiting for someone to come by so he can invite them in is hard work.

 

And here he's thinking, "Gosh what a funny looking dog.  Wanna play?"

 

Gil tells me to let you know that if you click on the pictures, they will enlarge.  Have a happy week!  We are quite happy to know "our" worker is okay.

The Construction Site

As you know, there is a building going up right outside our windows. It's truly amazing to watch these guys build this building pretty much by hand. They have the help of cement trucks and a backhoe, but that's about it as far as equipment goes.

Yesterday, they were building some tall towers of rebar inside of some scaffolding. Here's a picture.

 

While I was making lunch, we heard a huge crash and lots of whistling. I looked out the window and saw that one of the towers of scaffolding and rebar and fallen over. It looked like this. 

 

Unfortunately, one of the guys was hurt.  All work stopped and the entire crew, including Mamacita, Papacito and Poochito, stayed around him, keeping him cool in the hot sun, holding his hand and comforting him until the ambulance arrived. Mamacita and Papacito went with him to the hospital. (More on Mamacita and Papacito in a moment.) Hopefully he was not hurt too badly and he will be able to return to the job soon.

Ruth tells us that generally these construction workers have no job security and they earn only about $70 per week. If they can't work, they have a problem because there is no workers' comp here and they are simply out of a salary. So we truly hope this man is not hurt badly and can return to work soon. Although we don't know any of these guys, since we watch them everyday, we kind of think of them as "our guys" and don't want anything bad to happen to them.

Now for Mamacita and Papacito. As you know, there's a German Sheppard that lives 24/7 at the construction site. We have christened him Poochito. He is a lot of entertainment for us. He's a really good dog, and as far as we can see, doesn't have an aggressive cell in his body. He waits patiently every morning for the guys to show up so he can greet them with much enthusiasm. Some he likes more than others because they will play with him and he really gets excited when they show up. We watch him as he goes on expeditions in the surrounding area and tries to befriend other dogs (there are some real snobs in doggyland around here, and poor Poochito sometimes has a hard time convincing them to play.) He's really just a big puppy, probably about a year old.

The construction guys really like him, and even tried to get him into a group picture on New Year's when Mamacita and Papacito threw a party for them at the site. But, alas, Poochito wasn't sure what they were up to since they were holding him by the collar (an event that usually means a bath or some other such indignity) and would have none of the group picture thing.

Poochito's favorite people of all are the couple that we think are probably the owners of this project (Mamacita and Papacito). It appears that he once lived with them before he came to live at the construction site. We call them his Mama and Papa because he looooovvvveees them muchisimo!! When they are on site, he shadows their every move and gets very excited when they arrive. In Cuenca, we add "cita" or "ita" to a feminine word, and "cito" or "ito" to a masculine word to make it a term of endearment (like we added "cito" to "Pooch" for Poochito's name.) So, Mama is Mamacita and Papa is Papacito.

So here is Poochito following close behind his Papacito as they inspect the day's work.

Hold good thoughts for the injured worker and let's hope he will be able to return to the job soon.

FELIZ NAVIDAD!!

Merry Christmas to all of our friends and family!

This is our second Christmas in Cuenca, and we love it more and more everyday.

Christmas in Cuenca means fireworks and the Paseo del Nino Viajero -- the big children's parade on Christmas Eve.  The parade lasts 6-8 hours.  This year, there were over 400 floats expected, plus dancers, horses, donkeys, etc.  Here are a few pictures from this year's event.

Vilcabamba

Last week, we spent a couple of days with our friends Jerry and Rhonda in Vilcabamba. It's about a 4-1/2 hour drive from here and at approximately 5000 feet of altitude. So, it was nice and warm.

We stayed at Le Rendez-vous, which is located about three blocks from the center of town. It's a very nice place with rooms surrounding a beautiful tropical garden. And of course, since one of the main reasons for going to Vilcabamba is to relax, there are hammocks for the afternoon siesta. For those interested in a nice, inexpensive, basic and clean place, we recommend Le Rendez-vous. You can check it out at www.rendezbousecuador.com.

Rhonda in front of her room overlooking the garden.

Ahhh! Relaxation.

There isn't a whole lot to do in Vilcabamba but relax -- unless you want to do some strenuous hiking or horseback riding, which we didn't. But, there is a mini-zoo that we visited. It is located in a nice park that is probably rather busy on weekends. The zoo has mostly birds, a few of which were quite pretty.

This is the prettiest buzzard that any of us have ever seen. His head was just gorgeous.

This ostrich did a mating dance aimed at the young woman standing there. Wedding announcements to follow.

This little fellow comes from the Oriente (Amazon jungle).

One of the things we really enjoyed about Vilcabamba is that you can walk down the middle of the street without worrying about getting hit by a car.

Anybody home?

Doesn't look like there is anybody home.

We went up the the Izhcayluma Lodge for lunch one day. This is the view of Vilcabamba and the surrounding countryside from there.

Vilcabamba

View around Vilcabamba

Anyway, we had a nice couple of days of relaxation. And since it's the valley of longevity, we are a bit younger than we were before we went.

My Bad!

Okay, okay.  We know we've been extremely lax about posting, but that's because we've just been so busy living our lives here in Cuenca.  We just love being here.  We are coming upon our one year anniversary of moving to Cuenca.  This year went by really fast!!!!!

We've continued with our Spanish lessons twice a week with our darling Spanish teacher Sonia.  By the way, Sonia has started giving art tours of local artists in Cuenca.  We've gone on her tours, which are wonderful, and purchased our share of art.  Check out her website at artcuenca.com.

We've also been keeping an eye on the construction project next door.  The work on the 13 story highrise that is going up right outside our windows is a marvel to watch.  These guys are pretty much building this by hand, with the exception of a steam shovel to dig out the big hole for the basement levels.  It is just amazing to see what they are doing.  And OSHA inspectors would have heart attacks.  We come close sometimes watching them.  Then there is the german shepherd that lives at the construction site, whom we have christened "Poochito" (how's that for Spanglish?), who keeps us endlessly entertained with his antics. 

I continue to spend time in the sewing room and Gil continues to spend time in the lazyboy.  In all honesty, he is working on the computer.  He had Pepi make him a computer stand for his laptop so he never has to get out of the lazyboy. 

And of course, we enjoy spending time with our wonderful friends here in Cuenca and just getting out and about in our wonderful city.

We promise to post another entry soon, this time with pictures, and to try and keep up a bit better with regular postings.