Perusing Peru II: After the Caral Tour It Was Lunch at the Beach

A fishing boat plying the waters outside of Barranca. The "catch o' the day" is sure to be fresh.

Caral is 23 km (14 miles, more or less) inland. The drive takes about as long as it would to walk because the road into Caral hasn't been re-paved since the height of the Caral culture about 5,000 year ago. Bumpy is an understatement. You are amazed when you see glimpses of pavement in between the potholes. But I wasn't driving. So I'm not complaining. I'm just ... observing.

Next stop: Barranca.

It is a Saturday. The beach is beautiful. But no one is in the water because of the frigid cold ocean currents coming up from Antarctica.

Those Antarctic current mean rich fishing, but no one in the water.

While the beach itself is empty, the beachfront street is packed. As a beach town should be on a summer Saturday.

Yes, summer. We are in the Southern Hemisphere. Lunch is at the Tacu:

Beach town. Beach front restaurant. Hmmm. What to order?

I know! Seafood.

I ordered the chaufa con mariscos. Seafood fried rice. And for a beverage? Since we passed by field after field of vines of passionfruit (maracuyá in Spanish), I ordered a maracuyá drink. Soft.

There was enough rice to feed a family of six in that bowl, so I picked out all the camarones and ate as much rice as I could.

The last stop on the day's tour was the statue overlooking Barranca.

Barranca's own Christ the Redeemer:

Just like the one in Rio de Janeiro, only smaller. And happier looking. This one was designed by a local artist and the face of Christ is much warmer than the one on Corcovado high about Rio.

And what are those birds on his arms and head? Vultures. Seriously. No symbolism about Christ having first died before being resurrected. It's just that the neighborhood is filled with vultures. Not condors. Those guys live in the South of Peru. Up here, it's vulture country.

Nice views from the top of the hill.

One last look:

And that ends the day of packaged-tour tourism on this part of the Lima, Peru, today. It's a long drive back to Lima but, thankfully, it's Saturday and traffic (generally reputed to be among the worst in the Western Hemisphere) (Mexico City would like a word with you, Lima) (Rio would, too, although Rio traffic may be thicker, the quality of the driving is better) should not be as terrible as it normally would be late afternoon any other day of the week.

The Seven-Hour Tour of Rio: Corcovado Oh How Lovely

Cristo Redentor, a.k.a., Christ The Redeemer, in the clouds above Rio de Janeiro

I had a busy day in Rio de Janeiro being a busy Rio de Janeiro tourist. It was so busy that I'm going to break up the guided touring of the day into three posts. This is part one.

But not only was this a busy day, it was a fun day. It was a fun day because the day started with a ride in the FUNicular up to the summit of Corcovado to see the famous Cristo Redentor, Christ the Redeemer. I hire a guide to show me all the sights a tourist in Rio de Janeiro can see in seven hours, which if you're moving at a relaxed vacation pace, is not an enormous number of sights. But it was a lot.

And one limiting factor was my insistence of taking the funicular up to the summit. Why walk? Why drive in a car? Why choose any other way to ascend the summit 2000-plus feet above Rio de Janeiro when a funicular is available.

We got an early start to get to the funicular before it got too crowded. Total cost was 93 reaies, which is about $19 U.S. That works out to about 50 cents a minute, as the ascent and descent are about 20 minutes each.

This is the place where the funicular tracks split, right near the former of the Brazilian royal family. Yes. Brazil once had a king. Dom Pedro II was the last, being deposed in a military coup in November 1889, about a year after Brazil abolished slavery. Was there a connection? I shrug to say "we'll never know." I can say that his house there looked modest. (Rio was the capital of Brazil back then.)

And here we are at the summit.

There is a big crowd at the summit, packed into a small space. This is no quiet night of quiet stars up here. For one thing, it's morning. For another, we're not looking out a window on Corcovado (oh how lovely), we're on top of it.

Let's look at the hands of the statue. 

Two interesting things. You can see indentations in the middle of the palm, signifying the nail holes. You also might be able to see metal rods sticking up. I thought it was to keep birds from roosting on the hands and defecating on the Christ. No. (One very positive thing about Rio de Janeiro is that there are no pigeons. They're the worst at perching and defecating.) They're lightning rods. The statue was hit by lightning about 10 years ago damaging a finger. The lightning rods are to avoid repetition of that sort of incident. I think. I think that's the story my guide told me. If not, well, come to Rio and hire your own guide. I'm sticking with my story.

And speaking of me, here's me.

Doing the obligatory arms-outstretched pose required of all tourists who ascend to the summit of Corcovado. It's the law. I believe. Or I could have just made that up. Unlike the prior story about the lightning rods, which I tried to faithfully repeat. Again: You travel here. You hired your own guide. You come up with a better story. Still, as you can see, I'm not the only one up here doing the obligatory arms-outstretched pose. So if it's not the law, it should be.

And the views from up here are impressive. Oh how lovely. I think this is looking out toward tall and tan and young and lovely Ipanema. But with clouds, I can't tell.

Speaking of clouds, after several minutes of photo taking, the clouds started rolling in,

Clouds are very common here. Cristo Redentor can disappear into clouds for hours, even a whole day, at a time. This is something they do not explain to you in the tour books or the Rio tour videos on the youtubes. But it's OK. I got some uncloudy pictures.

You get your pictures. You snap your selfies. Then it is time to move on. To Mirante Dona Martin,

"Mirante" means viewpoint. This is a high point not far from Corcovado where you've got great views of the tourist Rio de Janeiro.

Sugarloaf! Which you know by its Portuguese name: Pão de Açucar! 

Cristo Redentor! 

Lagoa!

Lagoa is an upscale neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro that has a lake. Lagoa = lake. Hence: Lagoa.

This would have been a great picture of Lagoa, but some fat American tourist walked into the picture.

Not only can you see the lake, Lagoa, but behind the lake is Ipanema (on the left) and Leblon (on the right). Leblon is an even more upscale beach than Ipanema. And Ipanema is more upscale than Copacabana. 

Here's another view of Sugarloaf.

Here's Sugarloaf with a couple posing at the viewpoint. This is a common viewpoint for taking pictures of the whole of the tourist city.

And more photos of love.

This couple has Christ looking over their shoulders. A metaphor? You decide.

Next stop: we return to sea level and we "see" Lapa.