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| Square in Cusco, Peru |
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| Parade in Cusco |
I want to
add some other thoughts about Guatemala. These people survived a civil war
where hundred of thousands were murdered and buried in mass graves. That war
ended in 1996 and the people are very grateful for peace and the opportunity
restore their country. The people we met were very appreciative of our visit to
their country and the help our dollars meant to them. the government is working
very hard to improve the conditions in the country. Illiteracy has fallen from
48% in 1996 to 23% today. The people work very hard physically in the
agricultural areas. Things that to us are taken for granted are not that
obvious down here. The sides of the roads are well groomed, but not by
motorized weed wackers but by men bent over swinging long machetes for hours on
end.
Another
interesting topic was the end of the world on December 21, 2012. They laugh and
said if those people knew anything about the Mayan people they would know that
it is nothing more than the end of the 13th period of the Mayan calendar. The Mayan
calendar is 13 periods of 400 years, and the ending has to do with an important
celestial event in the alignment of the Milky Way. The Mayan calendar was
derived by observations of the stars. The calendar just starts over again at
period one.
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| Church door Cusco |
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| Hand woven from the Andes |
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| Train to Machu Picchu |
On our flight to Peru our first lecture was on Peruvian Primates by Matt Anderson, Director of Behavioral Biology at the San Diego Zoo. Some areas in Peru are the most pristine primary rainforest areas in the world and protected from logging and inhabitation.
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| Machu Picchu |
Peru is a
wonderful South American destination. An interesting fact is, according to our
tour guide, Peru has had enjoyed 7-8% domestic growth over the last 9 years and
inflation was averaging about 2% and only this year has risen to 3%. I talked
with several of the guides on the train to Machu Picchu about their health care
system. They commented that most of the general public is happy with their system,
which is a combination of private, and government sponsored insurance. We
landed in Lima the capital of Peru, which is the only South American country to
have it’s capital along the coast.
From Lima we flew a chartered commercial 737 to Cusco. The main attraction in
this area is of course the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu. To get to Machu Picchu
we took a 30-minute van ride to the train station where we boarded the Orient
Express train to Machu Picchu. At the arrival at the station it then required
another 20-minute ride to the top. Obviously the site is incredible, but to
witness it firsthand is beyond belief. The site was constructed around 1400AD;
it only took 100 years to construct and then was abandoned after the Spanish
conquest. Besides the stonework what is incredible to me is that the drainage
of all the terraces is through layers of graded rock. The top layer before the
dirt was sand brought from the Pacific coast. Now remember I just told you it
took us a little over 4 hours to arrive from the coast by modern
transportation. At the time this was built all that sand came by lama over the
mountains. Another finding was that the fertilizer used to grow crops was guano
from birds along the Pacific coast, again brought over the mountains by Lama.
This was a very long day for most of us. We departed the Hotel around 8:00am
and didn’t return until 10:30 that
night and we had to have our luggage out by 6:30 to begin our flights to Easter
Island.
Peru is a
wonderful South American destination. An interesting fact is, according to our
tour guide, Peru has had enjoyed 7-8% domestic growth over the last 9 years and
inflation was averaging about 2% and only this year has risen to 3%. I talked
with several of the guides on the train to Machu Picchu about their health care
system. They commented that most of the general public is happy with their system,
which is a combination of private, and government sponsored insurance. We
landed in Lima the capital of Peru, which is the only South American country to
have it’s capital along the coast.
From Lima we flew a chartered commercial 737 to Cusco. The main attraction in
this area is of course the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu. To get to Machu Picchu
we took a 30-minute van ride to the train station where we boarded the Orient
Express train to Machu Picchu. At the arrival at the station it then required
another 20-minute ride to the top. Obviously the site is incredible, but to
witness it firsthand is beyond belief. The site was constructed around 1400AD;
it only took 100 years to construct and then was abandoned after the Spanish
conquest. Besides the stonework what is incredible to me is that the drainage
of all the terraces is through layers of graded rock. The top layer before the
dirt was sand brought from the Pacific coast. Now remember I just told you it
took us a little over 4 hours to arrive from the coast by modern
transportation. At the time this was built all that sand came by lama over the
mountains. Another finding was that the fertilizer used to grow crops was guano
from birds along the Pacific coast, again brought over the mountains by Lama.
This was a very long day for most of us. We departed the Hotel around 8:00am
and didn’t return until 10:30 that
night and we had to have our luggage out by 6:30 to begin our flights to Easter
Island. 
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