This will be a relatively dull entry (or is that not a good way to start a piece of writing?), covering our journey from Guatemala to Cusco, the “base camp” for our ascent up to Machu Picchu (can anyone spot the flaw in my logic here?).

No offense to Lima, but I’m not going to say much about it, since it was just a layover for us (on the ground for less than 18 hours, and 6 of those were spent sleeping, and another 2 were at the airport). Actually, the less I say, probably the better, since Lima may not have been showing its best face (or perhaps it was, in which case I should just stop now).

The good: the airport was modern and clean, our hotel (the Miraflores Park) was outstanding, and we saw (or rather sprinted through) a pretty impressive museum of pre-columbian artifacts (Museo Larco Herrera).

The bad: huge, ugly, prominent cell towers every few blocks, lots of abandoned-looking buildings (horrible if actually abandoned, worst if not), and dreary weather.

The ugly: the erotic artifact collection at the Museo Larco.

The unexpected [bonus section]: chifas, chifas, everywhere (explained below), and the earthquake(?).

Here is an interesting artifact from the Larco:

This is from the “visible storage” section of the museum, there were floor to ceiling shelves of such artifacts, row upon row, room after room. Very impressive. Tens of thousands of vases and figures, etc. Here is evidence that Angry Birds was stolen from pre-columbian indigenous people (they were too principled to patent it, and now look what happened to them):

From the rotating formal display, here was my favorite dude (have no idea who he was, and why he looks so pathetic [talk about knobby knees!], since we were sprinting through the exhibits so fast).

Forgot to mention in the intro another “good”: trayfuls of pisco sours everywhere you turn. We had them at the museum, then again at the hotel for dinner (and again today in Cusco). Was only offered a Chinese soup spool with about 2 grams-worth of ceviche at the museum (and none seen since)—and it wasn’t even that good, WTF? Is there a shortage?

That night at dinner (nice meal with typical Peruvian cuisine), up in the 11^th floor glass “Observatory” room, we ended up at an all MIT table (okay, almost all—also had a golf-travel trip designer, you gotta have one of those). The lone remaining Techie spurned us in favor of a courtship opportunity (it seems)—come on, fellow engineer, goo-goo eyes instead of stimulating tech talk about the physics of catenaries and the like??? By the way, there was an earthquake while we were hanging out after dinner (probably around 8:30 or 9:00, that would have been November 3). I poked around for it on the internet for a few minutes and was not able to find references, but perhaps my Spanish googling skills at www.google.com.pe leave something to be desired.

Oops, I’ve gone over my word limit for Lima, I’ll tell about chifas and the erotic wing of the museum in comments later, if there is interest.

Here is the view from our hotel room window (which faced the ocean—this was shooting off to the side) in the morning. They actually say this was a very typical Lima morning (noon and night, as well), poor Lima-ites (Limanians?).

Landed in Cusco, here is a picture of a fountain on a well-known boulevard on the way to the hotel from the airport—this is to show off the time-stopping power of my new camera, but also because I thought the name was unexpected, Calle Francisco Bolognesi (though just because you can morph “Bolognese” to “Bolognesi”, doesn’t mean you’re allowed to turn “jiŭ jiā” into “chifa”—there’s a hint for you on the chifa thing).

Our hotel is a converted monastery, very excellent, the finest hotel in all of Cusco (but then again, the Bridge of San Luis Rey was the finest bridge in all of Peru, and look what happened to it). Here’s the view from our window (that’s the back of the main cathedral):

And here are a couple of shots at night:

I have to defer the remainder of my Cusco posting until later, since it’s getting late, and we’re getting up early (again) for breakfast before heading up [sic] to Machu Picchu. Sorry, folks.