Cusco to Aquas Calientes

Today was a busy day full of beautiful scenery and new experiences.

We started out fairly early on the first day of a 2-Day tour with our personal local guide and driver. On our way out of Cusco we stopped briefly to glimpse Sacsayhuaman ("sexy woman"). Not so sexy, but quite formative Inka walls. 
We drove to the Secret Valley (also known as Sun Valley) where we saw the Secret River and learned about the history and farming in the area. 
Our guide took us to a goods market and jewelry factory, where we watched jewellery being made and learned to tell the difference between real Llama sweaters and synthetic ( it's a secret ;-)  ).

Afterwards, we had time to wander through the stalls of vibrantly coloured wares. 

Next our guide introduced us to a local delicacy, "cuy" - freshly roasted guinea pig. Although it looked gruesome, it was quite good.  Our guide insisted our snack be washed down with a sip of Inka tequilla. It would've been rude not to partake. 

To continue our authentic experience, our guide took us to a market for the locals.  This is where they do all their domestic shopping. We saw all sorts of fresh produce,  meat,  cheese, bread, even coca leaves, and picked up some things to try. 

On our way to Ollantaytambo, we stopped to sample another local favourite, Cheecha - a drink of fermented corn mixed with strawberries. 
Before catching the train to Aquas Calientes, we wandered the streets of Ollantaytambo, looking at the ancient architecture and learning more about the culture. 

Once in Aquas Calientes, we met our guide for tomorrow's trip to Machu Pitcchu, who informed us that we should meet at 5am the next day, rather than the scheduled 6:30am, because of long wait times (2 hrs!) for the bus. 

Tired from the day's walking and knowing we had an early start in the morning, we had a small dinner and hit the hay. 

Canada/USA to Lima, Peru then to Cusco, Peru

The 2017 Macarios Family Adventure has begun!

After three flights (4 for Jasmin), we are now all together in Cusco, Peru.

Surprisingly, our flights and connections ran pretty smoothly, with the exception of Jasmin's suitcase.  This caused a bit of an inconvenience when we landed in Lima, Peru last night for our overnight stop over - after waiting in vain for the bag and then filling out the required report, we finally arrived at our hotel around 1am.  We got a few hours sleep before we were back at the airport for our next flight, bright and early this morning, to Cusco. 

The bag is working its way to us.  Last we heard, it arrived this evening, in Lima. Fingers crossed it will be in Cusco by the end of the day tomorrow.  Meanwhile, we combined our walking exploration of Cusco with shopping for some essentials.

Lima, Peru 6AM

Cusco Airport, Peru

That's a BIG door, Cusco, Peru

Everyone is exhausted from the travel days, but it is great to be all together and we are all ready to delve into our South American Adventure!

Home Again Home Again

For our last day in Tokyo, we headed to one of the main train stations to do some final souvenir shopping.  Our tracking skills were still a bit off and we had trouble finding the markets.  After wandering through the Shrine Accessories shopping streets (we did see some miniature orange torii gates…), we finally found the markets.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have much time left, so we found a restaurant and had our last Japanese-style meal before heading back.

With our luggage in tow, we wove our way through the transportation system one last time.  Two subway trains and 2 express trains later we arrived at the airport.

Our return trip included an overnight stopover in Texas.  And it’s true; they really do “Go Big” there…

(The World’s Largest Wind Chime)

Our final flight home was without incident.  There was no inclement weather to impede our return and, in fact, both of our flights got in early.

Now home, we look forward to the rest of our summer spending time with friends and family and sharing stories about our adventure in Japan (after we get some sleep…). 

Thanks for joining us as we shared some of the highlights.

Kyoto back to Tokyo

Today we headed back to Tokyo because we fly out tomorrow.  It’s hard to believe our voyage is coming to an end.

The train ride back was grey and raining and once again we missed glimpsing the elusive Mt. Fuji.

Once relocated in our final apartment, we explored the new area.  Not much was open in this quiet section of Tokyo, so we decided to head further into the city.

After all these weeks of successfully maneuvering through the convoluted Japanese metro and train systems (*only once did we get on a subway going the wrong direction), we finally somehow managed to get stuck in a metro station without a ticket.  We got on using our train pass, but they wouldn’t let us out without a metro ticket.  After much discussion with a few metro officials (including a translator), we finally found one that let us out.

At last set free, we found a restaurant to celebrate our last night in Japan, Japanese-style, of course.

Our return trip to the apartment was without incident.

A Temple and A Shrine

This morning we went to the Daigoji Temple. 

Once again we were not permitted to take photos inside.  We explored the many rooms of the temple and admired the delicate artwork on the sliding doors.  At one of the shrines we made prayers for Yuriko and her family during this difficult time.

The extensive grounds were very beautiful with a pathway through a mature forest, a serene garden with waterfalls emptying into ponds, many small idols and statues, and ancient buildings in the traditional architecture. We took our time exploring all the wonderful sights.

From the temple, we went to the Fushimi-Inari Shrine.  This shrine is devoted to the god of rice, but is well known for its many torii (gate or archway).  There are over ten thousand. We didn’t count (we read it), but it sounds about right because we did walk through the majority of them.  They cover a 4km hiking path up to the top of Mt. Inari.  The majority of them are painted bright orange (some are stone).  The view of Kyoto from the top of the mountain was stunning, but it was a long hike on a humid afternoon and by the end we glad to see the last of the orange torii.

It just so happens that Lukas wore his Fushimi-Inari Shrine Torii Camouflage today too (can you spot him?)

In the evening we strolled through the local streets, shopping for souvenirs.

Rainy Beach Day

I’ve been monitoring the weather to ensure that our day trip (2 hour train ride away) to the beach would be a nice sunny day, not primarily because a Beach Day needs to be sunny, but mostly because the beach we were going to is famous for its views.  Needless to say I was quite disheartened when the partly sunny forecast I’d been monitoring suddenly changed to rain yesterday afternoon.  Our days left in Japan are numbered, so there were no alternative days left in our itinerary.  So, this morning, armed with umbrellas, we headed off to the beach. 

The views along the long train ride were quite beautiful. We went over bridges spanning deep, narrow canyons, through hillside tunnels, and past green, rice paddies to arrive at Miyazu Bay on the Sea of Japan in the town of Amanohashidate… in the rain.

First we went up the cable car to see the view.  Fortunately the cloud cover wasn’t too bad; we could still see the sandbar and bay.  Part of the “tradition” in Amanohashidate (which means “Bridge  in Heaven”) is to view the sandbar upside down.  There are special platforms with railings to help you balance while you bend over and look at the view from between your legs – they even sell pastries and other sweets in the shape of a person bending over.

I think today with the rain and the clouds, it wasn’t really necessary to bend over to get the perception of heaven.

After lunch we took a boat ride across the bay to go up the cable car on the other side.  By then, heaven had really set in.

We had hoped to ride bicycles back across the sandbar, but decided walking was a better idea.  The weather did not deter the kids from wanting to go in the water. And, of course, we had to put our toes in the Sea of Japan, but there were jelly fish in the water which was the only thing that prevented them from swimming (certainly Not the rain).  We had a nice meandering walk back along the beach, collecting shells, sea glass, and starfish along the way.

You can follow our route here.

In the end, the rain wasn’t such a bad thing.  It certainly kept the tourists away, giving us this little slice of heaven almost all to ourselves.

A Lot of Buddhas and a Maiko dancer

We spent this morning with 1001 Buddhas, 28 guardian deities, and 2 gods.  Rows upon rows of 5 foot tall, gold-leaf covered, wooden statues of Buddha and one giant Buddha were guarded by statues of mythic deities and flanked at the ends by the gods of Thunder and Wind in the Sanjusangen-do temple.  Regrettably, we were not permitted to take any photos inside.  One hundred and twenty-four of the 42-limbed statues were made in the 12^th century; the remaining 876 were made in the 13^th century when the temple was renovated, because you can never have too many Buddhas.  They were extremely well preserved and very daunting.

Since we seem to be spending a lot of time on trains, we thought it would be appropriate to visit the train museum.  It is a work in progress, but currently houses many full sized steam engines dating from the early 1900’s, including a working one and a turn table.

The museum has plans for expansion to include more modern trains, including the Maglev train by 2016 – I guess we have to come back...

For a treat today we visited the Cacao Market.  This is a store full of all things chocolate. And that’s not the best part – Really – there is a secret door, with a secret code to a quaint basement café where you can order delicious drinks and desserts – chocolate, of course. So awesome!

To get back in the Japanese mood, our last stop of the day was at the Maiko Museum.  Here we saw videos of the Maiko dancers and Geisha, and displays of various kimonos and parts of their costumes.  We even got to pose for a picture with a real Maiko dancer.