Miami Express

Imagining a dream South America cruise, we knew we wanted to add Machu Picchu to one end of the trip.  We were surprised to learn a Machu Picchu excursion from a cruise runs over $2000 per person, or about as much as the enture fare for the two week cruise itself. 

One of my vendors, Gate 1, sent me information about the Machu Picchu Express from Miami, which came in at about $1000 per person, including air from Miami, for a four day vacation in Peru including the Sacred Valley, Cuzco and Machu Picchu. 

Too bad we don’t live in Miami, I thought, but then again we had already learned that flying from LAX to Peru frequently routed through Miami.

Upon hearing the Gate 1 deal, Julie immediately proclaimed, "Let's do it." 

Flying into Miami a day early allowed us to lock air to Miami for only 12,500 air miles plus $5 per ticket, giving us a chance to enjoy a day in sunny Miami rather than enduring a long airport layover.

It didn’t occur to either of us that we would be arriving in the hottest destination for college students during Spring Break. After settling into the airport-close Best Western Premier Hotel, which has a free shuttle from MIA, we headed to South Beach and partied until dawn, hip hopping and drinking Cristal Champagne with P. Diddy, Shakira and beautiful fashionistas from all over the world.

Actually, we walked to Burger King for dinner and then settled into our room for a sparkling evening of television accompanied by a fine bottle of Sutter Home Red Moscato, circa 2013, and if I’m not mistaken, the flavor belied a bit of frost on the morning of the grapes’ harvest.

After a good night's sleep, we checked our bags with the front desk clerk and headed out in early morning to take the bus into downtown Miami.  By the time we reached Little Havana, it was standing room only, with Spanish as the primary language among working class people.

There’s not a direct connection to a bus heading to South Beach, so we exited in downtown and walked a few blocks until we caught another bus, on which the demographics became college-aged people in bikinis and board shorts.  Once again, most people were speaking languages other than English, with accents from Western Europe and the Mediterranean.

Dropped on a South Beach street corner, we immediately headed over to see the aquamarine water along the beach, a sharp contrast to the gray to dark blue of California's Pacific Ocean.  The wide, white sand beach along the gorgeous water is quite inviting, and the 70-plus degree water adds to the temptation.  No wonder college kids flock here to escape cold winters.

We were still quite a way from the Art Deco district where most of the revelry would be found, so when we walked past Tequila Chicas, we noticed several open tables under palapas.  While the sand berms along the beach walk (presumably defense against hurricanes) obstruct the ocean views of most beach side restaurants in South Beach, our restaurant certainly had a pleasant setting with sea breezes and great people watching.

My breakfast burrito and Julie’s hamburger were both great, but the service was terrible. Our waitress was only moderately surly, but her ability to always be nowhere doing nothing was what really made it annoying to see the mandatory 18% tip on the bill.

We spent the day lazily walking along the beach and past the art deco buildings, circa 1920s and 1930s, which have been lovingly restored thanks in large part to efforts begun in the disco era by the Miami Design Preservation League.  There's a free art deco museum that features great poster art for the area.

Several historic hotels boomed with hip hop from rooftop decks and pool areas crammed full of college kids partying.

 

Sidewalk cafes were filled with beautiful people, and the beaches packed with sunbathers, doobie-smokers and Frisbee flingers.

 

Some young men played catch with a football in the turquoise water, while others had soccer games between trash cans in the sand, while nubile young ladies in bikinis did their best to distract them all.

If you’re young and heading on a cruise from Miami, you should definitely spend a night or two in South Beach rather than dealing with a daily commute from a cheaper hotel near the airport, but everyone should make a point to at least see it.

At the end of the day, we settled into Finnegan’s Way for Happy Hour.  Beers were half off their normal $5 for domestic and $6 for import, and the Guinness, delivered in a proper pint glass, was the best I’ve had outside Ireland and the U.K.  When our bearded Russian waiter brought the bill, I was amused to see the price was $2.75 per pint, so apparently they consider Guinness somewhere between a domestic and import in this Irish bar.  Julie and I split the early bird dinner of barbecued ribs and fries for $9.95, and it was terrific.  This being South Beach, the people watching from our padded seat at our table on the sidewalk was terrific.  I highly recommend this place.

Our bus drive back from South Beach included free entertainment.  Drunk college kids tried to carry on conversations, and then one lady started yelling into her phone at the top of her voice in Spanish, frequently including the F-word or some other expletive in English for emphasis.  Whoever she was talking to in New York needs to watch out the next time she catches up with him.  Julie and I kept wondering why the other person stayed on the line. 

 

Then again, maybe this woman had Tourette’s Syndrome and used the cell phone as a prop, but she was the poster child for prohibiting free cell phone usage on planes. 

Can you imagine a six hour flight listening to someone like that across the aisle?

Back at the hotel, we picked up our bags, giving the desk clerk a reasonable tip, and changed clothes in the wash room before taking the complimentary shuttle back to the airport for our long flight to Cusco, Peru.

Peru In the Rearview Review

At lunch at the Crab Pot on Long Beach Marina yesterday, Julie's cousin Darlene and her husband Rick, whom we hadn't seen for over a year, asked how our South America trip went.

Julie shared a few of the logistical details of the trip, and I immediately thought of my theory that the Incas may not have come from Isla del Sol in Lake Titicaca but rather from Polynesia by way of Hawaii and then Easter Island, but we were soon on to other topics of conversation.

I sent them a link to a search of my blogs on Peru, informing them that they had made the mistake of asking me about South America, which encouraged me to go back through those articles myself this morning.  I found it very much like going on vacation again, and I decided to make a dedicated page to share the links in a somewhat more than random but certainly not chronological order. Keep in mind that any time you want a better look at photos within an article, you can click on one and then flip through larger versions of all pictures in the article quite easily. 

Also, you'll note a lot of linked words and phrases, which as always have been placed there by me in order to elaborate on the concept highlighted.  If you have the time, watch the videos, most of which were made by me during this sojourn.

Q'enqo

Cusco

Machu Picchu

Getting Ready for a Great Vacation

Arriving in Peru

Urubamba and Oyantaytambo

Tambomachay

Saksaywaman

From Cuzco to Cruise Co.

Miami Express

Tambomachay

Wes and Julie at lookout point above Tambomacay

For our last day in Peru, we had booked Gate 1's optional Half Day Ancient Cuzco Ruins excursion before leaving home.  After a full day to explore the city on our own, we were happy to have our guides Adriel and John Claude lead the way on this bus tour.  They opted against following the itinerary outlined in the trip summary, instead reversing the order in which we visited the ruins so that the final ruin would be the most significant, Saqsaywaman, which you may recall was the head of the puma for the body that was Cusco.

Our first stop was Tambomachay. where we hiked along the ancient start of the original Inca Trail to an area of aqueducts and fountains. The location definitely would have made a strategic lookout post for the city below, but the water features make it seem like a spa of sorts.  Adriel said that the water cascading down was considered to be healing, and possibly this would have been seen as a fountain of youth.  The source of the water is mysterious, or so Adriel said, and it flows constantly.  It's interesting to note the Roman-style aqueducts, which once again brought my mind to consider a possible link to that distant empire.



Aqueduct and Fountains from above

Not long ago, travelers had the opportunity to touch the water and test its healing properties personally, but as happens with tourists at beautiful spots, some abused the privilege, choosing to take baths and splash around like it was their backyard pool instead of an archaeological site to be appreciated in a more subtle fashion.  As a result, the monument is roped off so that visitors cannot climb around it or touch the water.  There's certainly nothing wrong with water parks, but this obviously shouldn't have been interpreted to be like the pool area of a Carnival ship. 

Lookout Point by Fountains at Tambomachay

We've all been ashamed to see how graffiti "artists" piss on the walls of Rome and Venezia to apparently mark their territory like leg-hiking dogs, and I should note that Peru has done a very good job stopping this, or at least cleaning it up.

I personally would guess that Tambomachay was also the first attraction of a long journey to Machu Picchu, possibly a place for purification before beginning a sacred pilgrimage.