- Start of trip and Quito
- Flight to Baltra and underway — our Galapagos adventure begins!
- Española Island, Galapagos Islands
- Floreana Island, Galápagos Islands
- Isabela Island, Galápagos Islands
- South Plaza Island, Galápagos Islands
- Santa Cruz Island, Galápagos Islands
- A quick stop in Lima, Peru
- Ollantaytambo, Peru
- Machu Picchu — we finally got here!
- Back to Cusco, Peru
- Back to Lima and end of trip
After Machu Picchu, we took a different route back to Cusco and ended up in the little town of Chinchero, the weaving center of Peru, at 12,500 feet!We stopped for a weaving demonstration at a textile co-op, where the local ladies showed us how they cleaned, spun, dyed, and weaved wool from baby alpacas. Of course, everything is natural. The star of the show, however, was the little baby who was swaddled and carried around during the ladies’ work.
From there we drove to Cusco, the sacred city of the Incas. Our first stop was to the archeological complex of Sacsayhuaman (pronounced and known as “Sexy Woman”), yet another example of amazing Incan engineering. Remember Incan emperor Pachacuti? Well, this was another of his projects The work took over 50 years to accomplish with over 20,000 workers. As I understand it, it is a shrine to nature, but it was also a military fort. Sadly, when the Spanish conquest occurred, a lot of these boulders were removed to build the churches and government buildings in the center of the city, but you could still see the greatness there. By the way, this site provided the best panoramas of the main part of the city in the valley. We then went into the city to the Temple of the Qorikancha and Basilica Cathedral, both built on top of former Incan temples. In the former case, the Temple was actually incorporated into the Santa Domingo Church and Convent. It was probably the most important and sacred temple of the Incas and was adorned with gold, precious stones, etc., which were stripped and sent back to Spain. From there, we visited what is called the most beautiful church in Peru the Basilica Cathedral. This cathedral is massive and decorated in gold, silver and carved exotic woods. It took over 130 years to complete. What is most interesting, though, is the religious artwork throughout the cathedral. The Spanish were trying to “conquer” the minds of the local people and incorporated elements of their culture into otherwise standard Catholic symbols (e.g., the Black Jesus, a dark Virgin Mary dressed in local garb, and a version of the Last Supper where the main dish is a roasted guinea pig. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed inside the Cathedral.