Peru: Sickness, mountains, going underground and meeting Alex!

Hello everyone!

It has been a couple weeks since we left Huanchaco and since then we've been on the move.  First we bused to Huaraz, which we were very excited to experience. It is a high altitude town just under the Cordillera Blanca mountain range which boasts Huarascan, the fourth highest peak in all of the Andes at 22,204 ft. Unfortunately, the combination of spending so much time with little kids in Huanchaco and then going quickly up to elevation sent us both into a downward spiral of health.  Sore throats, coughs, congestion, aches and pains bothered us for several days while we walked around the town minimally, drank buckets of tea and rested in the hostel.

Huaraz central square statue with a pigeon hat

Sunset from hostel rooftop

While we didn't get to do the trekking that we wanted to do in the Huaraz area, we did manage to get on a day trip out to Chavin de Huantar, a very impressive pre-Incan ruin site of the Chavin culture. We got to go down inside the tunnels of one of the buildings which was really cool. Despite our wheezy chests climbing into and out of the tunnels we were impressed and glad we finally got out of the town to see some of the surrounding area.

Lake on the way to Chavin

Most intact corner of a building at Chavin

Down and inside we go!

Anne in the tunnels

El Lanzon de Chavin, carved column of stone illuminated in the underground tunnels of Chavin

Cabeza Clava at Chavin

After Huaraz we left for Lima in order to meet up with our sister Alex! She got a few weeks off work and we've been coordinating with her for months trying to figure out our collective travel plans. Finally the time was here, we met Alex just after breakfast and caught a bus across town (a long way from where we stayed in Miraflores) to the Plaza Mayor. There are some really impressive churches and government building around the square, but we decided on the Iglesia de San Francisco just outside the square where we'd read that we could go down into the catacombs.  It was a really wild experience, thousands of people had been interred in these catacombs and the Franciscans as well as archeologists had sorted and organized the bones so that we were able to see piles and piles of femurs and skulls. Anne was in heaven. Later that night we headed down to the beach in Miraflores to watch surfers and catch the sunset.

Presidential palace in Lima

Church door knocker

Cool sculpture in Miraflores Lima

Chillin on the coast for sunset, watching the surfers

The next day we popped down to Barranco, which is a pretty artsy and fun neighborhood of Lima. We walked around, checking out the architecture, ocean views, and finished it off with delicious burritos in the square.  We had heard from so many people that Lima wasn't worth our time, but we actually had a very interesting and nice couple days.

Barranco stationary trolley

View of Lima coast from Barranco

Now a group of 3, we headed from Lima to Cusco (our first flight since September so we could avoid the 20 hr bus ride over the mountains). With sickness still with both Anne and I we were a bit nervous about going back to elevation but excited to see Cusco, the sacred valley, and Machu Picchu.