Santiago, of Haku Walking Tours, was our Lima Tour guide for the day!
In the Plaza Major
On the rooftop balcony of Hotel Espana, with the San Francisco Monestary behind us!
To start our adventure in Peru, Dennis and I had arranged a half day walking tour of Lima. The company, Haku Walking Tours, practices sustainable tourism and all of their profits support local Lima communities. They do many projects to support the Lima shantytowns and so we felt really happy to hire them.
Dennis and I flying First Class to Houston
Here we are flying First Class to Lima, Peru
United was having a credit card deal where you get a pile of points just for using the card, so Dennis signed up. As a result, we were able to purchase first class tickets for the whole trip to Peru. We had never flown first class and we were both looking forward to being able to lie down on the 6 hour flight to Lima.
On the way back to the states, Brenda and I had a long layover in Lima. Rather than staying in the airport, we hired a taxi and walked around Lima. From the airport concierge, we got some beta from a young gal about the Mirabus Tour company which would, for a reasonable fee, take us around Lima. She also told us that it was a free musuem day, how cool! It sounded intriguing. (more…)
In the morning, we said goodbye to the tour folks and donated a few things to the porters. We then set out to meet the Reserv Cusco folks for our half day mountain bike excursion. We were really excited to go biking.
In the video above, you can get a feel for our ride.
It started up on a hill, above Cusco, near the Pukapukara Ruins. We rode along a two lane road for a little while, passing some construction. Brenda had some trouble with her brakes and I had a flat tire…but we fixed those problems and were able to finish the ride. At one point we stopped for a breather (riding at over 12,000 ft is a challenge!). The view was amazing.
We veered off the concrete onto a muddy downhill road. This was where the fun really started. It was steep, full of puddles, and did I mention…Muddy!
William, our guide is a very profficient mountain biker, so he usually rode ahead of us a little. He’d stop on occasion and let us catch up. At one time, I asked him to take video of us riding and he caught some awesome footage of us negotiating the turns of the road. (more…)
San Blas Square
Brenda woke up at 6am and I was up an hour later, so we could enjoy the last group breakfast with everybody. The next morning, a lot of folks were heading out…so we weren’t sure we’d be seeing them again. At breakfast, we all talked about activities for the day. Brenda, Lawrence, Alex, Fiona, and decided to take a rest day while the others were going rafting down the Urubumba.
After breakfast, Brenda and I stopped off at an internet cafe to find a company who would take us mountain biking the following day. We located a place, called Reserv Cusco near the Plaza De Armas and walked over there.
Manager Arturo Medina met us and went over a potential itinerary which was in line with our expectations and ability. We explained we were looking for something moderate with nice views and nothing too strenuous. He claimed to have just the right thing for us and was very excited to give us the details. We gave him a small deposit and agreed to come back at 9am the next morning. (more…)