John Long's Page

Saturday I flew into Lima from Atlanta and Greensboro. The flight from Atlanta was 6 hours long. I did not expect such a long flight. I took a taxi to the hotel. The next morning I flew to Cusco, still a bit tired. I took a taxi to our hotel and made train and buss reservations for the coming days. Cusco is at 3326 m 10,920 feet. I had a little altitude sickness. I mostly suffered from a lack of energy. This day I had dinner and toured the city which was all I had energy for.

Monday I took a taxi and toured the Sacred Valley. It was cheaper than the tour buss and I could set my own pace. I saw how they made wool by hand and quite liked the dress of the locals. It was colorful with a lot of red. I stopped at a zoo and got to see a Condor there are not many in the wild. I traveled the whole valley and got to see the ruins of Saqsaywaman and Ollantaytambo.

Tuesday I went to Mochu Picchu by train. The train left early and took 4 hours to Augas Calientes. The train traveled slowly and was a bit ruff. When we got to Augas Calientes we went on a buss up to Mochu Picchu. Yes it is fantastic; it is difficult to believe anyone would be capable of building a city there particularly thousands of years ago. The site is beautiful, high on a mountain flanked by steep valleys. The buss route was quite steep, a difficult clime on foot. There is the Inka trail, but that takes 4 days. We had a tour guide and he asked to have the tour split into two groups one for the tour in English the other in Spanish. I went with the Spanish group. The guide talked clearly and slowly and I understood it all. It was an incredible place just hard to explain in words. We did not have problems with the altitude it is only about 2,500 m 8,200 feet. The trip back was by train ½ the way to Ollantaytambo and the by taxi the rest to save money and time.

Wednesday I was to take the buss from Cusco to Puno. There was a strike by the local people that closed the main road. A trip that should have taken 7 hours will take 12. The whole day was in the buss. The route that we traveled was from Cusco to close to Arequipa. When we left the main road the road turned to a bad dirt road. At one point we had to back up to get passed a dip in the road and at others I could have ridden a bicycle faster. The driver did not know the road and did not have a map. He stopped many times to ask the locals the way. There were no services along the road. All I had for the day were crackers and soft drinks. It was a high mountain plane dry with rolling hills, quite desolate with not very many people. There was lama, alpaca and sheep ranching, not much else. We did see a small lake with Flamingos, which was unexpected. In the distance there were snow caped mountains and this is close to the equator. We crossed a pass between Arequipa and Julaca which was 4,285 m in altitude, 14,069 feet. Just a touch of altitude sickness, I was much better and I did not feel it when we got down to Puno 3,830 m 12,575 feet. We got to Puno about 8pm, quite tired from our travels.

Thursday we started the day with a lot of rest from our long buss ride to Puno. I did a little shopping and I found a nice alpaca wool sweater for $10. Then I took a boat ride on Lake Titicaca. We went to a floating man made island where 5 families live year round. It is made from reeds and would last 30 years. All of there houses and traditional boats are made from reeds. It is an incredible lifestyle and it has been going on for thousands of years. They say the people of the reed islands were the first inhabitants of the earth they inhabited the earth at the time of the first light on earth.

Friday In Lima I did some shopping some shopping. It was quite cheep. Then I had a nice dinner at Mangos, not like the one in Florida, no dancing.

Saturday I went to the airport very early. Not much else to do. I had 8 hours to wait in the airport before my flight. My flight was ½ hour before midnight to Atlanta then Greensboro. A long flight home and a good trip.