Cruising the Inca Trail
Complete
That's what Seabourn called the portion of the cruise after the Panama Canal. It was somewhat accurate as the Incas did live, at a particular time, in some of the areas we visited. There were many other indigenous groups who lived all along the western coast of South America as well.
The map below shows the extent of the Inca empire at its height. As I write this we are in the Sacred Valley near the city of Cuzco shown on the map below.
After the Panama Canal we had a one day stop in Panama City. Strangely enough the excursion we picked was to go back to the Pacific side locks that we had just gone through the day before. I was wondering why we chose this excursion but it turned out to be a good one with all the explanations of how the Panama Canal was originally built and then how it was expanded.
The main page picture is Panama City. We never got to visit the new part - where the skyscrapers are so I can't provide any info about it except the skyline looks very nice. We did get to visit the old part of the city and more on that later.
A shot of the old canal from ground level.
They had a very interesting interpretive centre and I took a few shots there.
A model of one of the machines they used to use for dredging the canal.
A locomotive they used during the construction to spread the material dug out of the canal.
A model of the device the opens and closes the gates,
The old town was interesting.
Another shot of the skyline as the weather was getting darker.
That was pretty much it for Panama City.
After Panama City we had another sea day. That was the 5th in six days.
Then Day 7 and Day 8 were spent in Manta, Ecuador.
Day 9 we were in Puerto Bolivar, Ecuador.
Day 10 was another sea day.
Day 11 we were in Trujillo, Peru.
Day 12 and 13 we were in Callo, Peru
Day 14 we visited the Nazca Lines
Day 15 another freaking sea day,
Day 16 we were in Matarani, Peru.
Day 17 we were in Arica, Chile
Day 18 we were in Iquique, Chile
So as noted in the Iquique page the remainder of the cruise were sea days. Very disappointing but these things can be expected when cruising. We've met people who missed almost their entire Antarctica cruise due to a passenger sickness that resulted in a trip back to Ushuaia after just reaching Antarctica.
On arrival in San Antonio we went by bus to Santiago International Airport for a flight to Lima where we would start the next part of our journey. A week around Cusco visiting Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley and then another week cruising the Aqua Aria in the upper Amazon River.
Done