South America 2024

  Food and drink Pisco sours. Happy hours! Granadilla. A sweet passionfruit on every breakfast buffet. I don't have photos, but at every breakfast buffet there's a hot meat dish. It's as if you want to get ahead and have the dinner taken care of for the day!! Chicha is a local fermentd drink, usually the colour of blackcurrant.  A typical menu, and restaurant table. Main courses are often served with a variety of potatoes. This dish includes baked bananas!  The best dish of the trip by far: osso buco cooked for 8 hours. La Tierra Restaurant where we had our best meal. Note how they use the empty bones! Aidan had stir fried lomo saltado here, but I have no photo. Pretty cool! Kaori: Pisco quebranta, raspberry liqueur, lemon juice, orange juice, coconut... Set lunch at the Belmond, Urubamba.  I don't always photograph my food! So! Here are a few typical local dishes:  Ceviche - it's everywhere here! Marinated trout. Very palatable! The only fish we've seen here is...

Aguas Calientes  The Case for Town Planning! Just a few photos of the chaotic town that grew up at the foot of Machu Picchu.  https://photos.app.goo.gl/caJmcGyeQKqN9xBu6   See the plastic chairs. The road outside our hotel! https://photos.app.goo.gl/tJqdyfzSxqs5MH5m6

Machu Picchu! What a day!  Up at 5.30a.m. for a 6.20a.m. pick up and transfer to the railway station in Ollantaytambo to catch the 360° train for Machu Picchu. It felt a bit like Harry Potter!  First we passed through the centre of Ollantaytambo where our guide pointed out an original Inca street. There had been a carnival in town for two days, and now the clean up was going on, at 7a.m. And so to the train. All seats for travel to Machu Picchu must be pre-booked and boarding is controlled, by checking passports. A drink and snack is served, and then the staff dress up to play out the drama of the legend of the love story between the army general and the daughter of the king; a forbidden romance. You can guess the result.... it ended in "...ever after!" The train travelled along the Urubamba river valley, and from one ecosystem to another, passing from dry mountains to the rainforest. Finally we arrived in Aguas Calientes,  the point of departure of the buses for Machu Pi...

Apologies if this video doesn't play. I'm doing my best!    

A bit of down-time! Before our big trip to Machu Picchu tomorrow we are enjoying the hotel facilities.   Tambo del Inka, Urubamba .