Last full day in Peru, last morning of thin air - as beautiful and wonderful as it has been since arriving in Cuzco, I was seriously looking forward to being able to walk at a normal walking speed without having to take breaks every few minutes.
It was an early morning, of course - we were at breakfast by 5:30. And though I had slept better than previous nights, I was still very tired. And of course my walking stick was packed away in the suitcase, which meant that I had to navigate the steps up to the restaurant without it.
Nonetheless, it was a beautiful day to watch the sunrise over the lake:
Target #1 - get myself on the bus.
Walking out of the hotel front door, I spotted a ramp down to where the bus was waiting. Awesome - now that I was leaving I finally had found the alternative to walking up the steps to the main lobby!
It was a 90 minute drive back to the airport in Juliaca. Pretty sure I was asleep for most of it, even though Charo was chatting away.
Target #2: get myself on the plane.
Fortunately, the Juliaca airport has only 2 gates, so it wasn't hard to figure out. And of course because it's so tiny, we got to climb the metal staircase into the plane. Of course. That staircase had 19 steps - I know this, because I counted each one as I hauled myself up.
There was a bus load of school kids on the plane with us - eventually it was discerned they were going on a field trip to Lima. The kids were about 10 or 11 maybe? At any rate, one young man made himself at home in Andy's window seat. The boy was a bit disappointed that we wouldn't let him stay there.
Once the cabin doors were closed and the interior air pressurized, I could feel the difference immediately. I could take a deep breath!
The flight was a 2 hour non-stop to Lima and was blessedly uneventful. But one more time I had to deal with the metal staircase down to the tarmack and onto a waiting shuttle bus. BUT - I was able to walk all the way down without losing my breath! I could walk to the terminal at a normal speed! Woohoo!
Once the luggage arrived, it was time to start saying good bye - the group was spitting into the two parts, one going on to the Nasca lines, the other going back to the Hiton in Miraflores for a farewell dinner later on in the evening. Danny went with the group heading to the Nasca lines. We were met by Isabel, who had been our local guide in Lima last week.
Once back at the Hilton, the rooms for people leaving directly from dinner were ready, but not for those of us leaving in the morning. We stashed our baggage and headed out to lunch.
Five of us walked the half mile to the Larco Mall by the beach - how amazing it was to not struggle to the whole way!
During lunch, we talked about the highlights and the lowlights of the trip. The highlights of course weigh out numbered the lowlights. My main comment - considering the demographics of the people who must usually make up the majority of the groups, there were two excellent examples of accommodating mobility issues (separate groups at Ollantaytambo and Machu Picchu), but many more examples where it was ignored - all the hotels with all those steps, sitting in a bus with nothing to do for 2 hours at Sillustani, etc.
We all noted that at least half the group was impacted by the altitude (some more than others). Yet the pace of the activities didn't allow much for acclimation. OTOH, in order to squish everything in, there really wasn't much choice.
And the itinerary really was amazing. We experienced every aspect of Peru - from the jungle to the big city, from the ancient marvels to the living inheritance of native populations.
All in all, a highly successful adventure! I just won't ever go above 9,000 feet ever again.
And yeah, we talked about that too - about half the group was impacted in some fashion (some more than others) regardless of whether or not they had obtained medicines ahead of time or not. It really seemed to be hit or miss. Even Danny, who lives in Cuzco, had been affected by climbing up to the top of Sillustani.
After lunch we opted to go back to the hotel. Andy went for a run. My intention was to sleep for 30 minutes, then take a shower. That didn't happen - I woke up when Andy came back. So much for that idea.
Before dinner, we had a tour of the Larco archeological museum. The Larco family is very, very wealthy - one third of the artifacts came from either their own collection. The museum was a collection of pottery and textile artifacts starting in pre-Inca times. It was a beautiful museum, though I think it would have been more appreciated if we hadn't all been so worn out from the previous 10 days.
Dinner was in the museum's restaurant. It was excellent as has been most of meals we've had in Peru.
At 9:00 it was time to split again - most of the remaining group had flights leaving around midnight. They were transferred to a van and off they went to the airport. The rest of us went back to the Hilton for our final packing up and final night.
Tomorrow - on our way home!
No comments:
Post a Comment