Machu Picchu

Complete

Machu Picchu has been on our unofficial bucket list for awhile now. I say unofficial because we have no formal list - we have  a bunch of places we talk about going some day.  It's a fluid list. Our recent cruise through the Panama Canal was another of these places. The fact that it landed on Terri's birthday made it extra special.

We have travelled quite a bit since we retired and we usually meet a lot of  well travelled and interesting (at least to us) people. Invariably the conversations turn to "where have you been that was exciting" and "where are you going next".

Machu Picchu has come up many times in these conversations.

So after our cruise from Miami to Santiago, Chile we decided to spend two more weeks in Peru. The first week in Southern Peru and the second in Northern Peru.

Shown below, Peru is the third largest country in South America. Brazil and Argentina are both very much larger.

I'd say we liked Peru but didn't care much for the cities we visited...Lima, Cusco and Iquitos.  They were all very busy, dirty, smokey and smoggy.  

The first week was spent in the Cusco area, where Machu Picchu is located, and the second week on the rivers around Iquitos on a small boat cruising the Upper Amazon.

Our entire week, in the Cusco area, was arranged by a company called Belmond. They were recommended to us by two different couples that we have met travelling and kept in touch with over the years.  Belmond owned all the hotels we stayed at, they arranged for our pick up at and return to airports, they arranged for all the guides and drivers we had all week. It was very well done and I'm sure we will do other tours with them as they are a worldwide operation.

Normally the timeline of these posts is as things occurred. In this case I'm doing it differently going from most interesting to the least interesting.

Machu Picchu
The Sacred Valley
Cusco
Lima

This is the way it really took place.

Lima
The Sacred Valley
Machu Picchu
Cusco