10:22 pm and I'm sprawled out on the bed in the el tambo ll hotel in the mirflores section of Lima.  Achey,  tired and happy to finally be still & quiet.  Got CNN, in English yet, on and am half listening, and writing this and wanting to not fall behind on doing the blog 'cause I fear I'd never catch up.  This morning after 6am I got the picture I wanted of one of the freighter-passenger ships that traversed Lake Titicaca's various ports, but primarily the route between Puno, Peru and a port in Boliva far to the south shore of the

lake.  These ships are the reason this lake got the title of worlds highest navagible lake.  Lake's about 12,600 feet above sea level, and one island, Tiquili (spelling?)  after you climb up to the plaza level of the town on top of a huge hill or not so small mountain, you are breathing air just a smiggon below 13,000 feet above sea level; see the pictures of the torcherous struggle up that hill/mountain.  Believe me, it is a struggle, for not only old farts, but I kept up with and passed a bunch of twenty-somethings, all of us in various stages of walking up, hanging on the rock-boulder fencing and panting--every one of us panted; not racing just trying to finally making it up for lunch--and boy was it worth it.  Home made, grains soup with great spices and small chopped vegatables, fresh grilled trout, caught that morning I bet, it was so fresh & delicious, a few each of varous fresh vegies, and one of the best salsas I've ever had, it wasn't just the fresh tomatoes and onions...it was the spices: vinegar & .... tasted great on the freshly baked breads.  The freighters are all retired because both Peru & Boliva have built and connected their roads together, make the same trip one fourth of the time by road.  So I've seen two three other freighters docked in Puno port, and at a ship slip two blocks to the left of 'my' hotel.  Our speed boat is taking about two+ hours from the island back to our port in Puno, Peru.  I walked from the port to the main square, then seeing a fair part of the town, hailed a cab to last night's hotel and spent quite a while writing the blog and eating dinner in the hotels restaurant.  The guide the previous day had suggested the walk from the port to the square, but had cautioned that when hailing a cab get the price fixed before getting in, and they will say the fare is twenty sols, but don't pay more than seven sols.  So when I exhaustedly raised my arm and a cab swerved over to the curb, I asked the price showing him the back of my room key card listing the hotel and it's address, he said, twenty sols, I said no, my tourista said seven showing seven fingers, he grunted & said ok.  It worked!

Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca, 90 minutes after sunrise, the sun was very intense, even that early in the morning.  Glad of a long sleeve shirt, jeans, straw hat and sunglasses, and a jacket in my backpack to ward off the breeze off the lake I was ready to experience all I've read about: the straw boats, floating islands, the isolated peoples and the climb up that mountain on Tequali island to 13,000 feet.  The boat was full, and just out of the harbor we were surrounded by miles of the reed whose roots when cut into two by four foot blocks of root and reed are the flotation source of the floating islands.  From the harbor to the deeper part of the lake the reeds have had a channel cut thru them for boat access.  The reeds grow in water 4 meters deep or less, deeper and they die for lack of light.  The reeds range during their growth from thumb round and smaller, and up to 12 feet tall. These reeds are toothbrushes, cellery, boats, islands, houses, mats...  Their color is dark green, chartruse, yellow, tan & brown.  Our first stop was a floating island supporting five families, about thirty people pre-school to grandparents.  All were barefoot trodding around on thesquishy reeds.  The islands last about thirty years, but at least monthly an additional 8-12 inches of reeds must be added, or they get their feet wet.  The grandpa pushed his hand down about a foot thru the reeds, tugged and pulled up a black mush which he squeezed  much water out of, hence the need for additional monthly layers of reeds.  They demonstrated with a model, how the build the island in the beginning.  There is a semi-circle saw blade-knife on a long pole, which is pushed down to the bottom, at a lesser deep area of growing reeds and sawed further down thru the growing reeds to a depth of two feet of reeds & roots, and then these are brought up to the existing island, and a pole is inserted into the center of the rectangular black mass of root and reeds, then these rectangular blocks of root-reed are lashed together, and floated next to the existing island made decades earlier.  More & more blocks of root-reeds are lashed together, until the new island is formed to their liking, about 30x45 feet.  As we traveled amoung the 56-60 islands they were all about the same shape, to my eye.  During, after the roots-reeds are afloat bundles if reeds 6-8 inches thick are repeatedly cross-hatched on top of the roots blocks.  additional stacks of reeds are placed on top of the 'floor' of reeds a little bigger than the house footprint, maybe another 18" above the floor.  The houses have reed mat roofs, and light weight doors, no windows.  Houses store stuff hung from the walls with some stuff on the house floor.  No need for windows, they live, eat, cook, work and play in the island.  The houses are arranged in a three sidded rectangle so that the center is used for living.  The houses (& sheds-storerooms) are about three four feet from the back of the islands back edge, where more stuff-junk, aluminum boats with outboards are docked.  The reed boats are docked at the front end of the island, to show them off.  They have a 10 foot tall 'watchtower', and some decorative devices indicating welcome to the tourists.  The reed boats are simply banana shaped reedsoverlapping one another, until there is a banana twenty feet long and curved up at both ends (some have monster heads at the foreward tips, the diameter of the banana is aboutfour + feet at the center and 12-18" at either tip.  Well that is half of the boat.  Tie two together, and you have a single boat.  Then to make the"Mercedes-Benz" boat, take two double boats, attach a wooden floor, and a roofed area--which on many M-B boats, folks can climb on the roof and sit. Two oars propel this monster ( I did it for a couple of minutes.).  It can be rowed from a sitting or standing position, or pushed by an aluminum boat with an outboard motor as the rower.  That's the traditional, the modern touches:  empty coke bottles with the caps screwed on tightly, 2,000 bottles are wrapped in tarps or plastic, and the reed vaneer is wrapped round the bottles; this inginuity lightens the load, and reduces the rowing power needed.  Another is solar cells for the one cell phone per island, not only for gossoping, but to get fire, medical...help, also saw several boombox radios, and one light per habited dwelling.   Another bigger, more people island had a kitchen, our island had a 2-3 foot square thin rock on which the women cooked, again the reed, dryed were the fuel...they mentioned fire was a risk.   The capital island--just regular but bigger, and with a medical office (or barge docked along side), a barge modern looking church dock there, and a couple of school building ( I assume barges, but I couldn't see the lower part of the school).  The president is elected by the 2-3,000 citizens, for one year, all vote, the pres can be male or female, but has to be from an island that hasn't had a president (recently). Each island has a chair(wo)man, who others must obey, or leave, I think.   Well that's what I know remember.  Don't understand, but the men seem mostly thin, but every woman is very over weight, and a couple of times the mentioned womens health concerns, even teenage girls were getting heavy, but I don't remember a chubby man....

Arrived at Lake Ticicaca, Peru highest navigable lake in world, this side is Peru, the opposite shore (which you can't see because we are on a bay of the lake in Puno, Peru) is Bolivia.  About a couple of blocks to the left in the picture there is a large freighter, which I will investigate tomarrow after I return from my excursion of the lake to a regular island, and several floating islands where Peruvians live, fish and host tourists.  Their islands would sink, if they didn't add reeds on top as older reeds decay and sink, that I want to see.  Also I will ride on a native reed boat.  These are the only reed boats still in operation, from when the western Pacific Islanders sailed from there ( Indonesia ???) to make their new homes here.  

Arrived at Lake Titicaca, Peru, near Bolivia--on other side of lake.  Beautiful resort/hotel.

FUN ON THE TRAIN FROM MUCHUPICCHU, Inca King, Overlooking his kingdom, Original stone walls with accurate thatched roof--see stones sticking get out so roof can be attached, Here's proof I finally made it to muchupicchu--but I haven't climbed much yet,

Here's a stairway that will test your metal,

I'ts Easter Sunday, and since I left home on March 20, I t's the first time I haven't been rushing from one place to another.  Been having trouble with the blog, I've written several times, but they're lost somewhere?  Getting off the plane at Cusco something was funny, disorentating long story short, I was attacked by altitude sickness--and attacked is accurate.  Took two full day, am fine now.  Was in several sites in the Sacred Valley, saw several sites, one happened to be the home town of our guide.  He is about 50ish, but scampers about looking after one or another of his team (us).  I'm going to fracture the spelling of his town, but it's Ollytanatempano.  it is in a valley of three mountains, and was an Incan defense location.  The walls of the terraces were about ten +/- feet tall, and were maybe twenty feet wide and were progressively up the mountain maybe thirty of them.  Each were a battle ground to be defended or taken.  At one time the Inca pushed over huge rocks down the terraces from the top, each at about the size of a volkswagon...  to kill Spanish soldiers,  The ministery of culture, which runs the Inca ruins, left them on the lowest flat below the terraces, to demonstrate the power of holding the high ground...   I had to really work climbing up, and took more than my share my share of rest stops.  have some great pictures, and will transfer them from another location were the wifi is faster.   Yesterday, holy saturday, we took the train down, repeat down, to machupicchu. It is about two thousand meters below Cusco, and the top of the Sacred Valley.  My biggest surprise was that machupicchu is not dry, clean fresh mountain air, as we experience in the Rockies.  It's a mountanious jungle, warm, humid, misty, smelling of (rotting) plants, and yes it is on top of a mountain side, the valley below is perhaps a mile or more down.   The mountains here are steeper sided, with very few being gradually sloped.  When I have faster wifi, I'll send you pics, amazing.  The Inca then, and even to a lesser degree now, are smaller people, the last two guides were well under six feet, perhaps, just over five feet tall, especially the middle aged and older Peruvian folks, the younger generation are taller, but I don't remember any being six feet tall.   Their height is surprising when you struggle up the stairs, with an average about 12" risers, but Maria explained most Inca messengers, carring messages in relays of perhaps of ten miles--uphill or down, for hundreds of miles, ran the whole way, so in running took longer steps, and the 12" height was efficient to run up or down the taller steps, while we are struggling to slowly climb up step by step, a 12"stair height is not comfortable.  When you see the pictures you'll see there several types of stone work.  Carefully carved stones with no space between the interlocked blocks of stone, and oftener than not bigger blocks of stone (boulders) were used on temples, walls of the kings (Inca) home, or street retaining walls which had to hold back huge parts of the mountain, whereas smaller stones, the size of our concrete blocks +/-, were used for commoners homes, or perhaps for the the fourth or higher layers of stone on the street retaining walls. Wall types were not one type or another, purpose prestigue were deciding factors.   The buildings had wooden rafters and thatched roofs again of several varieties due to purpose or to honor the inhabitant. Loved machupicchu, both the ancient village as well as the modern tourist village at the bottom of the mountain.   Oh! The river is a tributary of the Amazon, even though it is closer to the Pacific.  Machupicchu was located where it is because of being inside of two different triangle systems--important in culture/teligion, and as a protection of the "road" between

Yesterday I transfered from the hostel I used on my pretour day to the tour hotel.  The day was mine to use as I chose.  Got into my room about 2 pm, and went exploring the area of Multiflores, an upscale town next to Lima.  As old & well used as central Lima was this area is new, upscale & modern.  The Allpa Hotel could be a Crowne Plaza in the states.  Had lunch at the Cafe Cafe, and as posh as it sounds, so were it's prices, about tripple the rates in old town Lima, nicely presented but half the quanity.  Walked the area to the north and found the Inca Market.  Broused, and bought a small blue crystal llama about 3" tall to put with my other travel knick-nacks on my hutch at home,  and a present for a family member.  I have to keep remembering weight limitations on the airliners, so have to get light weight items.  Then I spent three hour plus just walking the streets looking at the archetecture, the shops, and was interested in the manditory courtyards and iron fencing surrounding every house & shop.  Didn't see one that didn't have spikes atop the metal bars of the fencing.  There was on beatuful three story house, that was so run down that the shingles were gone and the ribs of the rafters were exposed to the sky, other features of this house were in similar disrepair, but it seemed to have a thriving antique busines going on inthe front courtyard, I haltingly talked to the elderly senore. Sitting and watching a young fellow clean a wooden carving with paint thinner, as I have often done on delapated pieces we wanted but needed much work to recondition for our own use.  after a bit he invited me in and we walked the old, once beautiful home, but now helter-scellter rooms now workshops & storerooms, maybe twenty or so.  I'd asked hime if the rain came in thru the roofless building, "it doesn't rain here" he said.  In another shop I watched a young fellow woodworking, rebuilding existing furniture and others making new from scratch.
Yesterday I posted a picture of a crowed with flags, huge, loud drums and masses of people, now I realize it was a political demonstration for a congressional candidate.  All over town there are carefully photographed huge billboards, wall 'murals', and cars towing trailers with an "A" frame, four sided screen, front & back are 'A' frame and the sides are about 8 foot high and 20 feet long screens with advertisements for the candidates.  Each has several prominent boxes indicating the congressional district & what party he/she is represents.  The photographs of the candidates are extreemly well photographed & posed, informally dressed, smiling and gestering toward the viewer.   Every political ad is basicly the same.. .there must be laws describing how the ads are presented.  I watced tv last night after 11 pm, for alost an hour channel surfing, only one English language but with Spanish captions.  There wasn't one political ad, but the on street ads are everywhere.  Many billboards are high in the sky on tall buildings, half featured potical ads, the other commerical ads.  I think I prefer the outdoor signage to tv bombardments we endure.  We have a tour this afternoon, and I get my belated orientation just beforehand, apparently the agent was at this hotel and so for the others on the tour, and left just before I arrived.  Last night I attended a dinner show of Preuvian cusine and traditional, custumed dance for three hours.  This i purchased thru the hotel, included pickup and return van service.  Well better get going or I won't see anything to report about tomarrow.

Hi everyone, I last blogged on Wednesday, & Thursday about 6:30 am the Monagrams host in Lima, brought me to the airport, he's a nice older fella, but younger than me, and very helpful navagating me thru the airport, ticket counter, and found a way to bypass the block long line, so all I had to do was wait two hours to board the plane to Cusco.  Had two surprizes, a $78 surplus over weight charge on my two checked bags, and the second surprise occured as I walked up the ramp into the Cusco air terminal, over the next two to four hours, as I participated in the Cusco area tour I had a beaut of a headache, felt queezy, lost all energy, and just wanted to crawl into bed, and not move, with the lights out.  A bunch of folks laughed at/with me explaining that the same thing happened to them, and they wanted to crawl up into a ball and not move, and these four or five guys and one gal said that it would swiftly get better after a nights sleep, and if I could get some oxygen that would help too.   Those experienced folk diagnosed me with altitude sickness.  They were all in their twenties, so I didn't feel as vulenerable if those youngsters had what I was going thru, and it wasn't do to my age.  I landed a little after noon, and by the time I got to the hotel about 7 pm, I was 'dying'.  The hotel desk folks, just looking at me voluntered & asked if I had arrived in Cusco earlier that day, got me checked in quickly and asked if I would like some oxygen, that they recommended it, and I would feel better sooner if I did.  So after climbing into bed, one of the fellows set it up, even cleaned the O2 mask with alcohol before using it on me.  He ran it about 20 minutes, returned, and I fell asleep immediately, walking up an hour and a half later, not feeling great, but a heck of a lot better.  Haven't eaten much since, probably best on a queezy stomach.  So about 10p pm, I started realigning all the stuff in my suitcases and backpack, this time being ruthless, reducing 9.6 kilos from all the stuff I was lugging around, so that brand new small suitcase I had just purchased in Lima was going to be the container to haul about 20+ pounds back to Iowa.  The hotel desk folks will get me the price to ship it all back, by Monday morning.  How the weight grew to 'over weight surcharges' I don't know, I had even taken my suitcase to the accurate scales in the VA clinic, and it weighed 48.7 pounds, and the DSM airport scale read 49 lbs.  I only purchased two very light weight items as presents, so other than the six pounder new suitcase, I don't know how I got thirteen kilos of additional  of excess weight the airlines found to charge me for.  Ouch!!!  I sure didn't want to payoover weight charges on the remaining 45 flights.  So Marcia hopefully a suitcase will arrive on your doorstep, not too shortly, as I wanted the cheapest method of shipment.  So today I went on my tour of the Sacred Valley, saw four differentsites, and climbed half a mountain, the guide was great, he's about 40-ish, he stampers about runs up & down the mountain stairs finding out early or another of his 'team'.  He contradicts the guide books and history accounts, giving his reasons why, and makes comments more fully explaining the what, whys, whens....  one of the best guides on any tour I've ever taken.  He is an Incan, and even traces his heritage to one of three pre-incan peoples, and he was always correcting the Spanish pronunciation, his version as lots of clicks, and hard conconant sounds, again explaining where and why the old Spaniards screwed it up.  He said they always did the most romantic version of a story, the one that favored the Spanish point and the Catholic version, explaining why and where crosses and Catholic saints appeared on so many of the mountain & hilltops.  The missionary and soldiers wanted to prove that the Christian god was more powerful than the Incan religious story, so every where there was an Incan temple, a Catholic church went up in it's place (and of course completely destroying the Incan site.  Both criminals, or Incans with different philosophies or politics, as well as those being given as a sacrifice to the sun god... were killed.  The Incan didn't believe in prisons, the final solution--death was a solution with no appeals, and no expense for food, maintaining prisons, and paying guards... and they felt that the example of death was a great prevention example.   Also venditas, politics, and grudges could occure without any of the victims side of the story being told.  It took tremendous courage, so the common folk wouldn't oppose the that particular leaders action.  I climbed several mountain stairways, mostly with 12"  or taller risers.  As the say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here are today's photos:

Me on the far end of a mall street, cops are everywhere, some with weapons, plain clothes police talking on their headphones, street blockcade letting citizens thru single file, folks afoot and vehicles both playing chicken at intersections, 'mall street scenes' crowded with folks.  Must be pretty routine, folks just do what they're told, or just ignore the multiuniformed cops.

Landed Lima, Peru just after 5 am, immigration, customs and with a strong warning to use the 'official' cabs, not the street variety, because folks are often robbed during the ride, and my observations, the rest of the morning seemed to generally prove that out, this appears to be a very poor-very rich country.  I thought I was getting a bed in an open dorm in the hostel, but surprisingly I was assigned a private room with a bath, the hostel is located smack in the middle of old town Lima.   I 'paid with a pre-paid voucher, so didn't cost me extra, yet.  Many buildings are two or three hundred years old, and some even older next to many that appear to have been built in maybe the 1950's, with a few more modern ones thrown in here and there.  The hostel is very clean, and one of the 'historic' ones; but a rehab job was done on it, maybe in the 50's judging from the style of the updates.  My room is next to an under roof, but without  a back wall, all steel stairway, and no air conditioning.  Most older buildings: stores, restaurants also are air conditioning-less;  these latter ones are everywhere, many 15-20 feet wide but maybe 100 feet--give or take a few feet--deep. Most with three walls, two sides and the back wall, but the front is completely open to the narrow two lane street and narrower brick or stone paved pathway and have a metal pull down solid gate for their front wall and door.  Many are one way); with a smattering of two way streets--there are more pedesterian 'mall' type streets every three blocks or so, same narrow width, but packed with people: poor, rich and business types milling around on both sides and the middle going in every which direction.   These frequent 'mall' streets run at least a mile long, north & south as well as east & west.  I really don't know who to feel sorry for the van, truck, car, bus and other drivers or the folks on foot at the intersections of these 'mall' 'streets' and the vehicle streets.  Everyone, drivers or walkers, darts out when ever there is the slightest gap in that sides flow of traffic-- a rushing river of traffic wheeled or shoed weaving and swerving  around one another.  Historic buildings are everywhere, a huge number of them being churches, religious, goverment or cultural buildings.  The upper scale stores are mainly on these mall streets.  I went out this morning looking for a walmart type store, and picked up a smaller wheeled suitcase, that I can carry on board the aircraft.  One trip from Des
Moines to Lima proved the foolishness of trying to carry both a back pack and a hand held sachel, and pull tjhe full sized suitcase, too much for this old geezer.  When I got to the hostel I found that my large suitcase as well as the backpack were more than moderately damp, so every thing was spread out to dry off.  The damp suitcase is the airlines fault, must have been sitting out in the rain or some other water source, but the backpack is my fault, I was in a rush to cram it into the overhead compartment, and forgot to put the water bottle upright.  I was in a panic, because the supervisor at the loading gate was a rule reader / enforcer.  I bleed easily on my hands and arms, and had bumped my left hand on something and it was bleeding, oosing, and she wouldn't let me board the plane plane  in fact I was the last person to be let aboard, just as the gate was closing.  Guess I was going to contaminate everyone aboard.   Uck!  It's almost five now, and I want to see some more.  This is my preday, the tour begins tomarrow, I'll have the morning free, then I have to transfer to the tour hotel.  My travel agent usually tried to book me into the same facility, but couldn't this time.

From departure lounge D17 see the DFW airport shuttle on the skyway, behind a plane at the next gate over.

Well! My bucket list trip has started, & I was looking forward to the easy tsa check in, with my shoes on-a perk for over 75'ers, but not if the shoe lace loops are made of metal, the alarm sounded, so off came the shoes.  I'm in the boarding lounge, waiting for my initial flight to Dallas.  Had a good bye breakfast with my family-was really nice. I'm sitting here looking cool as a cucumber, but inside I'm jumpy &Jittery.  It's off to a start, s l o w l y.

128 days
6 continents
60 locations
2 train trips
3 cruise ship or ferry trips
48 flights (long or short)
20+/- bus or van trips
6 major tours, 10+ days
38 minor tours, one day or less
 6 equator crossings
2 days, both of which are July 8th

 Today it's 6 days before I get on my first flight.  I've had my vaccinations, convinced the insurance company to issue five months of drugs I take, all at one time in advance, so I can package them up in daily am & pm dosage packets then I won't have to mess with all the bottles twice a day; my suitcase is packed--I have to lose seven pounds from my suitcase for USA flights, but 15 pounds in South Africa & a few other countries which have a 20 kilo maximum suitcase weight (44 #).  I still have this site to master so family, friends, co-workers, my very patient & helpful travel agent, the folks at Hyvee pharmacy & those at the VA in Des Moines who have helped me so much--can follow me round the world.  So I'm on the countdown!

Trip map;not to scale, directions roughly accurate