Flowers of Peru

Safe As Milk*

* Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band 1967

Barranco

On Saturday we walked through the outskirts of Miraflores – a modern suburb to the south of Lima, to find an organic Farmer’s Market which had some great produce such as black maize, coffee, dried yellow beans, Peruvian Rainforest Organic Fairtrade Chocolate and lúcuma fruit ice cream (lúcuma is a rainforest fruit with a very dry texture and possesses a lovely unique flavor of nuts, maple and sweet potato.)


We then caught a bus out to Barranco – another suburb further south which was already a seaside resort by the end of the 17th century. Nowadays a number of artists have their workshops here and there are also a few galleries. Evidently it comes alive at night in the bars around the main plaza. We had lunch on a deck high above the coast, overlooking the sea – it was a very hot and sunny day, rather unusual for Lima because even though it is only 12 degrees south of the equator, it can be very hot and humid but it frequently has a garúa (Scotch mist) that hangs around for much of the day making it very grey.


After lunch we went with David and Sharon to the Museo de Arte Colonial Pedro de Osma which hosts one of the best collections of colonial art and is itself one of Barranco's best kept examples of late-19th century architectural style with beautiful ceilings and stained glass windows as well a delightful and well-kept garden where we saw humming birds and butterflies.
In the evening we went to Astrid y Gaston, one of the best restaurants in Lima, and had a really wonderful meal.

Fountains of Wayne*

On Friday night we went to see one of Lima’s latest tourist attractions – Circuito Mágico del Agua, a park which has had about a dozen different fountains installed. Some have lights that change colour as the fountains ‘dance’ in time to music, another has a tunnel of water to walk through, yet another has pathways through changing patterns of water and the trick is to stay dry – no one does. We had great fun, it was all very entertaining.

*OK not a song title but the name of an American power pop/alternative rock band that formed in 1996 in New York City who perform songs with quirky, ironic and witty lyrics that often focus on minute events in modern American suburban life.

There's Danger On The Edge Of Town*

We spent Friday wandering around the centre of Lima which has a strange mixture of ancient and very modern architecture (including a curved smoke glass tower from where KPMG operates)with many of the buildings retaining their 17th century wooden balconies on the second floor - it also has some of the worst traffic-jams we have ever seen – even worse than Cairo. At no point did we see any relatives of Paddington Bear but they must have been around as one of the local restaurants was offering “Marmalade Sandwich” – really.


On the hillsides to the north of the city there are still the brightly coloured houses of one of the city’s oldest shanties, we walked near some of the edgier districts which had a distinctly uneasy feel to them - a bit like parts of Croydon. We also visited a couple of churches; one was Santo Domingo with its peaceful cloisters decorated with beautiful Sevillian tiles, and the crypt contains the tombs of San Martin de Porres –one of Peru’s most revered saints as well as the tomb of Santa Rosa de Lima.



The other church was San Francisco (who was probably turning in his grave in Assisi at all the elaborate Baroque gold decoration) which has in its crypt thousands of bones from people buried there in the past – all neatly stacked according to type. Gregg, as irreverent as ever, had this vision of them on the day of bodily resurrection (which as good catholics they all believed would happen) fighting over different thigh bones! I tell you that one is MINE…

* A line from 'The End' written by Jim Morrison and performed by The Doors on their self titled album released in January 1967 - it was also the song the band would perform to close their last ever concert with Jim Morrison.

So Farewell Then...

Farewell to Lynn and Tom, who left the tour to return to New Jersey. They are really great people and we shall miss them. Here they are pictured with Simon (the guy in the middle) who is our Tour Leader.

The Real Macaw

Featuring Long Gregg Silver

Buggy Boogie Woogie*

On Thursday, GAP Adventures put on a special trip for all of us to head south from Cusco for the day on a 25-seater minibus with reclining seats and video screen (this was like first class compared to the cattle class offered by Peregrine Tours in Antigua). We set off at 4 am! After leaving the sprawl of Lima we soon hit the desert but irrigation has brought large areas of the land into cultivation with fruit, maize and cotton the main products. We passed through Chincha, the capital of African-Peruvian culture where Gregg had hoped to hear some of the unique music played there but all he got was more bloody Pan pipes and El Condor Paso. We then went to the Paracas peninsula, near Pisco (where the local hooch comes from to make the famous Pisco Sour). Paracas is one of the great marine bird reserves with the highest concentration of marine birds in the world and was home to one of Peru’s ancient civilizations who carved “El Candelarbo” in the sandy rock.

We took a boat out to the Islas Ballestas, which was one of the reasons for the early start as by midday the sea becomes quite rough. The islands are spectacular, eroded into numerous arches and caves which provide homes for thousands of sea birds and sea lions. We were told the names of the sea birds (as in “that’s a cormorant” rather than “that one is called Enrico”) so we saw cormorants and red-legged cormorants, frigate birds, grey-footed boobies, Huboldt penguins, pelicans as well as the bird that is locally known as the “guano bird” in their thousands. It is these birds that make the islands quite valuable because every four years Peru’s Ministry of Agriculture collects the guano (it can get up to 3metres deep) and sells it is organic fertilizer - because it is such a valuable commodity there is a small house on the islands where the “bird-shit police” guard against illegal gathering.



After lunch we went further down the coast to amazingly high sand dunes - Simon insisted they were the highest in the world but the BBCs Planet Earth series had said the highest/biggest/oldest were in Namibia but as we don’t have The Guinness Book Of World Records with us we still don’t know. Anyway there were high enough as we all went on Dune buggies at break neck speeds, holding on for dear life – better than anything at Alton Towers. A few of the less faint hearted even went sandboarding down the dunes.




On the way back we briefly visited the oasis at Huacachina where the greenish sulphur-rich (and stinky) waters are said to have curative properties – we didn’t try.
A long drive back through the desert and a beautiful sunset over the Pacific.
* Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band

Like an Inca 2

As part of our abortive attempt to start the trip to Machu Pichu we visited some Inca settlements. These included Chinchero, Moray and Ollantaytambo. All of them reveal cultivation methods used by the Incas.

At Chinchero there are a number of terraces stretching down the hillside so that crops could be grown without the soil eroding; at the top of the hill where there would almost certainly have been a religious ceremonial centre there is now a church which has its interior walls and roof beams covered with naive floral and religious painting. At Moray there are three huge terraced depressions in the ground which are truly amazing.

The theory is that these were used by the Incas as a sort of open-air nursery or experimental plant laboratory where plants could be grown at different altitudes as each level is said to have its own micro-climate. It is a very atmospheric place and some people describe it as ‘mystical’ – undoubtedly the surrounding scenery is stunning. The third site was at Ollantaytambo (where the nearby modern town of Uubamba is now a scene of devastation following the floods and landslides) where once again there are numerous huge terraces where food was grown - the valley was appreciated by the Incas due to its special geographical and climatic qualities. It was one of the empire's main points for the extraction of natural wealth, and the best place for maize production in Peru. High up on the mountain side on the opposite side of the valley, carved in to the rock are huge storage chambers.

Tweet Tweet*

We have never really seen the purpose of tweeting – until Tuesday.
Derek, one of our fellow travellers, who has an IT business in Canada and is a member of numerous social networking sites, started tweeting about our plight as GAP Adventure travellers stuck in Cusco. Quite quickly he started getting comments from fellow tweeters sympathising with our plight and before long he started getting tweets from Bruce Poon Tip – the CEO of GAP Adventures (and, allegedly one of the top ten businessmen in Canada). In the meantime Gregg had done a Victor Meldrew email to both GAP Adventures and Trailfinders (the company through which we have booked all of our travel), Lynn from New Jersey had contacted her brother, who is an attorney, who in turn had emailed GAP and Barbara had contacted her travel agent in Canada, who also contacted GAP. Meanwhile the tweeting continued and had by now got quite a following. We will not go into all the details but by early evening Derek had received a phone call from GAP Adventures saying that we were the only group who had made any complaints (...and?) but they would be sorting out something for us – we await their communiqué. In the meantime they have said they are going to waive the US$10 charge they were going to levy for each of us for staying a night at the Cuzco hotel (US$10 each – how mean is that?) and that they will pay for our flight from Cusco to Lima and cover the cost of our hotel in Lima. They have also indicated that we should be getting some recompense for the part of the trip missed. Result.
For our last night in Cusco we all went along to a restaurant called The Fallen Angel – amazing decor with bath tubs full of water and fish swimming covered by sheets of glass as dining tables.
We are now safe in Lima, where it is hot, humid and sometimes sunny but have got a little behind (Barry - no rude comments, please!) with the blog because we are doing so much - will try and catch up soon,

*NOT The Birdy Song

Mind The GAP

Thanks for all the messages saying that you’re all glad that we’re safe and sound. Safe and sound yes but totally pee’d off because not only has our Machu Pichu trip been cancelled but so has our journey to Lake Titicaca – the road to Puno is blocked by landslides and the bridges are down. But that’s not why we’re pee’d off – GAP Adventures with which we booked this current tour has basically washed their hands of us. All they will do is quote their terms and conditions which basically say that they can cancel a tour without prior notice and because this has now been officially declared a disaster zone they have cancelled our tour! So here we are stranded in “beautiful” downtown Cusco... today has been spent at the LAN Airline office trying to get flights out of Cusco to Lima – our tour leader Simon has gone the extra mile for us and managed to get flights for all ten of us tomorrow but at a cost of US$150 each and GAP Adventures have refused point blank to pay this – even though they have will now not have spent out any money for us on the Machu Pichu or Lake Titicaca trips! We may also have to pay for our own accommodation in Lima. We (G&C) need to be in Lima for our next journey to the Nazca Lines (at least that journey should be OK because they are in the desert) and for our connecting flights to Chile.
Today in the main Plaza of Cusco, right in front of the cathedral, they were collecting clothes, food and water for the victims of the flooding. In between the announcements they played music; one of the tracks was John Lennon singing Imagine... “Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try, no hell below us, above only sky...” Inside that cathedral and the Merced church around the corner there is enough gold, jewels and solid silver alters to re-clothe and re-house all those displaced people. Ironic.

Remember GAP Adventures of 19 Charlotte Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5V 2H5 and at their UK Office, 4th Floor, King House, 5-11 Westbourne Grove, London, W2 4UA SUCKS!

At least we are safe

Yesterday, Monday 25 January, we were supposed to complete the first leg of our journey to Machu Pichu by minibus. The road we were due to take was blocked by landslides because of the continual heavy rain so a different route was attempted and in fact we managed to get as far as Urubamba , the town where we were due to be staying for the night. It was a scene of complete devastation, the river had burst its banks, houses built of adobe had been completely washed away, families huddled on the hillsides with a few meagre possessions and the hotel where we were due to stay was flooded. The route to Machu Pichu was impassable so we had no choice but to return to Cusco. The whole area has now been declared a disaster zone.
Our disappointment was enormous – this was to have been the highlight of our Peruvian journey and now it was not to happen and of course this was mixed with a feeling of guilt about here we were a privileged group of people cocooned in our minibus and grumbling while people were homeless having lost all their possessions – some of them had lost family members as it is reported there have been deaths. We are now back to Cusco and we are safe, blogging will continue when we have a better idea of what we are going to be doing in the days ahead.

Here Comes The Rain Again*

Summer in Peru is akin to summer in England – it rains a lot. It started on Saturday night at about 8pm and stopped on Sunday at about 1.30pm. We spent the morning trudging through very wet streets, wearing our very fetching Peruvian waterproof ponchos (SO fashionable dahling), we visited a very poor museum about the history of Peru (can’t have much history – there were only three rooms), we tried to visit a couple of churches but this being Sunday they were closed... so we went to a coffee shop that can only be described as a cross between a workman’s caff and a French patisserie but the coffee was very good (can’t have been Peruvian or French!) Went for lunch at a very nice restaurant serving Peruvian/Japanese fusion food – At this point we should say that this is all true and we haven’t been knocking back too much coco leaf tea.
In the afternoon we visited the church of Santo Domingo which contains some of the worst of Spanish Catholic ‘art’ imaginable – one tableau has Jesus covered in blood from head to foot but wearing a jewel encrusted green velvet loincloth watched over by his mother dressed in pink chiffon edged with gold and wearing a slightly different pink (no fashion sense that woman) velvet cloak that is dripping with gold and jewels – loverly! Sadly, photography was not allowed so you are unable to share in this hideous sight. The real reason for going though was to visit the cloisters which, along with the church, were built on the Inca Empire’s richest temple – the Qoricancha or Temple of the Sun. During Inca times this temple was literally covered with gold, but within months of the arrival of the first conquistadors this incredible wealth had all been melted down. Gutting of the baroque cloisters and excavation has revealed five chambers that were part of the temple which shows some of the finest Inca stonework inside the city.





We did a bit more mooching but by 5pm torrential rain, this time accompanied by thunder and lightning, had returned so spent the afternoon uploading photographs, blogging and generally getting ready for our departure tomorrow to the Sacred Valley of the Incas and on to Machu Pichu........

*Here Comes the Rain Again – title of song by pop duo Eurythmics, written by Annie Lennox and David A. Stewart and produced by Stewart. The song was released as the third single in the UK from the album ‘Touch’

Pre-Colombian Ceramics

Like an Inca*

Saturday morning, not a bad night’s sleep so feeling much better and the sun is shining. A climb to the outskirts of Cusco to visit some archaeological sites. First stop was Sacsayhuamen (pronounced something like ‘sexy woman’ – there you are Barry a perfect item for you to comment on). Sacsayhuamen was a ceremonial centre and even though it is now a ruin it has some magnificent and very impressive Inca walls. Some of the massive rocks weigh 130 tons and fit together with absolute perfection. This precision, combined with the rounded corners of the limestone blocks, the variety of their interlocking shapes, and the way the walls lean inward, is thought to have helped the ruins survive devastating earthquakes in Cuzco. The theory is that the stones would have been quarried and then precisely carved in advance to create the tight joints made to fit into prepared pockets in the wall. Then the stones would transported some 3km from the quarry (the Inca did not have the wheel or use beasts) then towed up a ramp and above the wall, where they would be placed on top of a stack of logs. The logs would be removed one at a time to lower the stones into place so that they fitted so exactly that a piece of paper cannot fit between them. The whole site is laid out with geometric precision to resemble the head of a puma and the Sun rises exactly opposite the great altar on June 21, the mid-winter solstice (remember we are now in the southern hemisphere).


We also visited Puka Pukara, probably a guard house for another site we visited called Tambo Machay which is even higher at 3765m and was a shrine to water – the site is in excellent condition with the water still gushing forth and the niches for the statues of the gods intact – the gold and silver that would have lined these niches having long since been removed, melted down and transported to Spain or made into some hideous Baroque altar inside a Latin American cathedral.


The last site we visited was Qenqo with some fine examples of Inca stone carving remaining in situ inside a large hollowed-out rock that houses an altar upon which the sun falls at midday on the mid-winter solstice when a sacrifice of a black llama would have been carried out.
In the afternoon, some more wandering around and a visit to the beautiful Museo de Arte Precolombio which contains superb examples of pottery, metalwork (largely gold and silver), wood carving and shellwork from the Moche, Chimu, Paracas, Nazca and Inca cultures. Inevitably it was the pottery that fascinated and amazed us – some of it was animistic sculptures with the influences on Pablo Picasso, Henry Moore and John Maltby quite obvious but other more simple pots amazed us with the construction techniques and decoration – if some potters could produce as good as this today the CPA could have a shop as big as Selfridges (and we’d probably spend all our money there!)

* Song by Neil Young from ‘Trans’ album

Eight miles high*

Well not quite, just 3,310 metres above sea level to be precise and when we got off the plane didn’t we know it? We felt the first effects of breathlessness quite quickly and the other effects of altitude appeared within the next hour or so: light-headedness, nausea, tingling hands and headache. We tried the local ‘remedy’ of coca leaf tea (quite legal in Peru) which helped a bit, we also had some oxygen but the best was the Acetazolamide, prescribed by our GP. (Thank you Seamus)
The rain we experienced in Tambopata has moved south and arrived in Cusco on our first afternoon which, added to the effects of the altitude, made us feel pretty miserable. We had a not very strenuous stroll around the city as even a few steps makes us out of breath at this altitude. Chris and most of the people in the group find it an attractive city but Gregg thinks it is a bit dour and harsh – maybe he’ll like it more if the sun comes out.

Cusco is the ancient Inca capital and was founded about 1100CE but is now a bustling commercial and tourist centre with a population of about 325,000, most of whom are Quecha. The city is stuffed full of Spanish colonial churches, convents, monasteries, palaces and genuine** ethnic artefact knick-knack stalls but in the centre there are extensive pre-Columbian ruins. Perhaps ‘ruins’ is the wrong word as they are the remains of Inca walls with the perfect stonework intact which now serves as the foundations for more modern dwellings. Even Gregg admits that the Inca stonework is phenomenal with each stone being perfectly dressed to fit against its neighbours without need for any bonding material such as cement. Even the hotel we are staying in has Inca stonework up to a height of about 4metres. All of the stonework is tapered upwards so that every wall has a perfect line of inclination towards the centre, from the bottom to the top. On part of our stroll we came upon the famous twelve-angled stone.

Even we cut out the alcohol***because of the altitude it adds to the dehydration and possible cerebral oedema.
* a song written by Gene Clark, Jim McGuinn and David Crosby and first released as a single by the Byrds in March 1966
** genuine, my arse
*** OK not completely

Down In The Jungle

On Tuesday evening we met our new tour leader, Simon, and our new travelling companions comprising five Canadians, two Americans and one South African. After a meal together we went to our separate beds because of an early start on Wednesday morning.
We packed everything we thought we might need for the next two weeks into our rucksacks and said farewell to our suitcase which we hope to see again in a fortnight. Wednesday dawned very sunny and warm as we set off for the airport – compared to the vehicles used our last tour this one was positively luxurious with plenty of space and big windows. We took a flight to Puerto Maldonado, deep in the lowlands of the Amazon jungle; but first we flew over the Andes and saw some spectacular scenery and a stopover at Cusco. Just after we landed Cusco airport was closed because of bad weather. The rains had closed in around the mountains and there was not enough visibility for the plane to take off . We eventually took off about 90 minutes late and landed on the airstrip at Puerto Maldonado just as a huge thunderstorm started. As we travelled over red mud track roads through the jungle – sometimes crossing small rivers on what looked like bridges made from pallets – or the really scary one which was just two planks places across the gap at the distance which was just right for our (not-so-luxurious) bus wheels to cross. The rain stopped but the sky remained an ominous grey.

We boarded our motorized canoe where we had a delicious lunch of rice, vegetables, egg and cheese wrapped in a banana leaf and set off along the Tambopata River with the dense jungle on either side. After about 45 minutes we arrived at the landing stage and set off on foot through the rainforest to walk to our eco-lodge in the Tambopata Rainforest Area, which holds the world record for the most bird sightings in one area – today we heard many but saw few and those we did see we can’t remember their names (think one of them called herself ‘Queenie’ but we’re sure this wasn’t her real name0
About half of Peru is located within the Amazon Basin, however, due to its isolation, not a lot of it is available to the casual traveller. Puerto Maldonado is situated at the confluence of the Madre de Dios and Tambopata Rivers, and is a bustling, booming tropical frontier town. Its principal activities are gold mining, Brazil nut collecting, timber extraction, agriculture and ecotourism. The Tambopata area includes habitats ranging from the Andean highlands around the rivers' headwaters through some of the last remaining intact cloud forests to the lowland rainforests of the Amazon basin. The area is renowned for its diverse plant and animal populations.
We arrived at the lodge and were delighted by its simplicity which combines native architectural style and materials with low-impact eco-friendly technology.

Our room was simple but comfortable, with mosquito netting for our individual beds, a hammock, a flush toilet (such luxury) that did something eco-friendly with the waste, a shower (cold water only!), oil lamps along the walkways and candles in our room. The rooms have bamboo walls (careful about the noise you make) and a huge open space (no glass, no curtains) looking out onto the forest just a few feet away – and we love it.

Electricity in the bar is only for a couple of hours each day for residents to recharge camera batteries – and we thought there would be no wifi or mobile phone signal so decided to wait to upload this to the blog – as it happens there WAS wifi but only discovered this when we were due to leave. Local community members make up the majority the lodge staff, including multilingual Naturalist Guides. One of them took us on a walk through the forest, where we saw an amazing variety of trees and plants in the dense jungle including enormous Brazil nut trees – from where many of the local community gather the nuts to sell. We climbed a 120ft high tower to look out over the forest and see the sunset which meant we had to walk back through the forest in the dark surrounded by the sound of birds, animals and insects. No rain but the humidity level was about 90% and it was very warm so our clothes were damp and clinging – never thought a cold shower would be so welcome! And the mosquito bands Jenny gave us helped to keep the little buggers away.
After a simple but filling supper accompanied by a surprisingly tasty blue maize drink we went to bed early beneath our mosquito nets listening to the noises of the jungle (which sound exactly like a Brian Eno sound installation we visited many years ago in the Barbican conservatory) in readiness for our 4 a.m. call in order to set off at 5 a.m. to go further into the jungle...
...perhaps next year we’ll have a fortnight in a B&B at Eastbourne.
Thursday
No 4 a.m. start because there has been torrential rain all night which was still pouring down when we got up at 6 a.m. and had a cold shower and put on clothes that felt damp as we dressed but we really don’t want to be in Eastbourne. The rain was torrential all morning and it was soon easy to see why the lodge was built on stilts as the ground became flooded – far too dangerous for us to venture out...
By about 2pm the rain stopped and we went on a trip, another walk in the forest, another trip in a motorised canoe, another walk in a different forest (with a different eco-system), some bird watching – including a sighting of an Amazonian Pigeon which produced one of the best quotes of the holiday so far from Barbara, A Canadian: “Did I come all this way to see a pigeon?...” Then to visit an oxbow lake (Gregg knew all about oxbow lakes from a geography lesson he had when he was 11 – wish he could remember useful things) where we were promised a ride on a catamaran – imagine our disappointment when we saw two dugout canoes fastened together with a few planks of wood.

But it was fun and we saw some interesting bird life and Chris went fishing for Piranhas – she didn’t catch one but someone else did – amazing number of sharp little teeth they have but nowhere near as frightening as those that appear in James Bond movies.

Quite a nice sunset, another walk through a forest, another ride in a motorised canoe and a walk back to the lodge by torchlight. On the way back there was a strange noise like water dropping from the leaves, which turned into a cracking and crashing noise as a huge tree fell out of the darkness on the path only a few feet from Christine. It was SO frightening; fortunately she jumped in the right direction straight into Gregg’s arms (“My Hero”) and was unharmed but had to have a few drinks in the bar to recover from the shock.
Friday
We left the lodge by walking through the forest having another ride in a motorised canoe - this time on a greatly enlarged river following all the rain, it must have been about 2 to 2.5 metres higher than when we arrived. We then drove back through deep mud (the allotment on a wet Sunday has nothing on this) and boarded a plane to take us from Puerto Maldonado (200m above sea level) to Cusco (3,400m above sea level). We shall tell you about Cusco tomorrow.

The Peruvian Cow Parade

Lima was hot, humid and overcast and we were still a little woozy after not much sleep so instead of ‘doing’ museums, galleries, churches and palaces (of which there are many) we decided to have a fairly relaxing day and walked in the park and along the cliff tops at Miraflores above the Pacific Ocean and to our great joy and amusement we saw the Cow Parade*


*The Cow Parade is an international public art exhibit that has been featured in major world cities – London had the Parade in 2002, we think. Fibreglass sculptures of cows are decorated by local artists, and distributed over the city centre, in public places. They often feature artwork and designs specific to local culture, as well as city life and other relevant themes. After the exhibition in the city, which lasts many months, the cows are auctioned off and the proceeds donated to charity.

Small Earthquake - No One Hurt

If you’ve read the last blog from Guatemala you will know that we experienced an earthquake just as we were uploading the blog and getting ready to go the airport. We got there OK and the guy at the check-in desk asked us if we’d felt the earth move. He told us it had measured about 5.5 on the Richter Scale which he said was “about normal” for this time of year.
Good flight from Guatemala City to Miami, which is an awful airport – we shall never moan about London Airports again. Our flight was due to leave at 23.55 so we thought we’d have a leisurely dinner and a glass or two of wine before going to our gate. Wrong! Everywhere was a fast food outlet that closed at 21.00. We asked at information if there was anywhere we could get a meal, he said “sure is – Subway and Dunkin’ Donuts are open 24 hours” I just couldn’t be bothered to reply; in the end we got a not-bad Californian Pizza and a bottle of Australian wine.
The security checks at the airport took absolutely ages but it helped to pass the time. We left on time and hoped to get some sleep but first we were given Peruvian immigration and customs declaration forms to fill in, then just as we were settling down they decided to give us a meal. We declined, got some sleep and landed at Lima airport at 05.20. We got taken to our hotel but the room wasn’t yet ready so went for a walk through Lima. First impressions are of a very well cared for colonial city with lots of beautifully groomed pedigree dogs being walked in the parks – quite a change from the street dogs in Central America.
We have just received an email from Phil who was on the Mexico/Guatemala trip of the group at our last meal together. Her we all are (from left to right) Phil, Joy, Gregg, Chris, Holly, Stuart, Jenny, Zoe, Elizabeth, Natalia, Crystal and Ann.

David and Roey had stayed on at Atitlan so here is a separate photo of them.

Flowers of Guatemala

Colours of Guatemala