December 2, 2017

        This morning was overcast and 66 F with a bit of wind, quite pleasant for our hour walk around Decks 11 and 12. The 210 steps around the pool needs six circuits to equal one km. Our two-level walk is 720 steps per lap.  Steps 9271
     It is the second day in Lima.  We could see that different ships were in the berths beside us, two container ships.  The parking lot on the huge pier across from our ship, which was empty yesterday, was full of Kia vehicles, mainly white cars, vans and pickup trucks thanks to the vehicle container ship that was berthed beside us yesterday.  Several piers away we could see the top of the Oceania Sirena, which is on a 34-night voyage from Buenos Aires to San Diego. It is the former Princess Cruise Lines Ocean Princess and has a capacity for about 800 passengers and 365 crew.
  The port was busy unloading the container ships near our ship and unloading a grain ship with a clam like devices operated on a crane depositing the grain into a huge hoppers that fed the grain trucks. The grain elevator was near our ship. There was a constant stream of trucks for the grain and flat-bed trucks for the containers.  Later, when we left the port, there was four lanes of flat-bed trucks, each lane was close to one kilometer long, waiting to clear port security.
    The kiosks from yesterday were still there and at 9 a.m. there were several dozen passengers browsing. Our tour did not start until 11:45 so we were able to select from yesterday’s 108 photos the ones to post to the blog before meeting the tour bus by the dock.
    Our guide today was Percy. He explained that there was a pre-Incan culture in the Lima area from 200 BC to about 700 AD. Callao is the largest seaport in South America and the International airport is about a 15-minute drive from the port and is also located in Callao. As we exited the port there was a park for the port with a statue. The national dance of Peru is Salsa. The country is the third largest in South America and is a bit larger than the state of Texas, twice the size of Spain, four times larger than Germany and ten times larger than Great Britain.
It takes 22 hours of driving to get from oceanside Lima to Cusco in the Andes Mountains.  Cusco is the access point for Machu Picchu.  The population of Peru is about 32 million and at least ten million live within the Lima capital region. There is no subway in Lima, but in the next few years they hope to build an above ground system like Tokyo (or Vancouver).  Most People in Lima are mixed race – Spanish and native indigenous, but some in the Pisco area are descendants of African slaves.  The ancient Peruvian culture of the Carals is one of the cradles of civilization. The others being ancient China, ancient Egypt, ancient Mesopotamia and ancient India. The ancient Carals were the oldest culture in the Americas and go back more than 5,000 years. They lived in the mountains 320 kilometers north of Lima, in the Supe Valley.  The lost civilization was not known until 1905 when a German archeologist discovered it and it was not known until the 1970s that the hills were actually flat-topped pyramids which revealed the extent of the culture.
   Mining is the number one industry in Peru. After silver and gold, Peru also mines copper, mercury and zinc. About 70% of all the silver and gold in Europe today came from the mines in Bolivia and Peru over the past 500 years. At one time the area covering Peru and Bolivia was one country, but the Spanish split the region in two in order to govern it better.  At the time Bolivia had access to the see, but in the mid 1800s Peru and Bolivia decided to attack Chile and lost and Chile took the Bolivian land along its coast as a war prize.  Fishing is the number two industry.  There are many kinds of cold water fish that Peru exports.
  As we entered Lima proper from Callao, on one the hotels or apartment buildings there has a feature vertical wall of live plants covering a section.  Near Plaza San Miguel there is a golden statue in the center of a small park.  We were on our way to the Miraflores wealthy neighbourhood of Lima.  Miraflores means watch flowers in Spanish. We drove along the beach road with the purple flowered cliffs looming over the road. We then zigzagged up the roadway to the cliff top suburb of Miraflores.  The wealthy area has homes quite different that north America with flat roofs due to the dry conditions of its desert climate.  The houses are built with their walls touching their neighbours and are only two storeys high.  There are many new rental and condominium apartments. The main floors are usually retail shops.
   Our destination was Huaca (holy place) Pucillana (rituals or ceremonies). It looked like a hill until excavation revealed that it was a flat-topped pyramid and city complex started in 200 AD and took 500 years to complete.  The pyramid or Huaca Pucillana was a religious structure and once every 20 or 25 years it was used for the ceremonial sacrifice to the mother god of the sea of a female member of a high-ranking family to appease the gods when an El Niño occurred, less frequently than today.  The construction was made adobe style with the bricks made from sand, clay and water. The bricks were covered with plaster which was painted a pale yellow and then symbols and figures of people and animals were designed on the paint.  There was a faded original section on a protected wall. The base is solid with no underground chambers. In an early engineering concept, the bricks were arranged bookshelf style with no mortar between the brick “books”, only below and above them.  This technique was an early and successful anti-earthquake building method.  It has seven platforms some of which are burial grounds. From the flat top of the pyramid, the priests were able to view the ocean and perform the ritual ceremonies. It was accidentally found that there are whole families buried in tombs in the walls (Tomba Wari). A mummified family was excavated from the tomb discovery and the remains are in a museum and a facsimile is shown in the actual wall opening.  The whole complex also included homes and the administration of the region. The Ychama people, conquered by and integrated with the Inca, were the last people to live here from 1000 to 1470 AD.  The group climbed almost to the top then walked back down to a vignette of a typical family in the clothes of the time which were made of cotton.  They were a short and stocky race and had an average life span of 40 years. They used cacao leaves in their daily cooking and to chew during the day.  The original recipe for Coca-Cola used the cacao plant.  As we walked to the exit of the site we were each given a tiny Peruvian flag, without the coat of arms in the enter, and all posed for a photo, our guide said it was to send back to Celebrity Cruises.  On our tour yesterday, when we were at the San Marcos Cultural Center, the group also had a photo taken holding small Peruvian flags.
   After the exploration of the site, our group of 30 was escorted to the adjoining restaurant, one of the best in Peru, called Huaca Pucillana Restaurant.  We sat at a long white table cloth covered table with one side of the room open to the view of the archeological site. It was formerly set with water and wine glasses. The waiters served egg-bread buns and crusty rolls and the highlight to the group – Pisco Sour cocktails. The recipe is 1 oz Lemon or Lime Juice, 1 1/2 oz Pisco brandy, and 3/4 oz Simple Syrup stirred together and topped with 1 Egg white & two drops of Angostura bitters. It is delicious. A cocktail that we will be enjoying while in Peru and Chile.  We enjoyed it the last time we were in Chile in 2012.
   The entrée was a chicken stew cooked in a light mild yellow chili pepper sauce served with rice.  The dessert was a scrumptious rice pudding served in a martini glass and garnished with cinnamon.  We sat across from a couple from Tennessee and beside a woman from Edmonton.
   The ride back to the ship was about 40 minutes.  The clouds had come back and the temperature was about 73 F.  The kiosks were still by the ship and doing a brisk business. It was after 4 when we returned and had time to sip wine and choose photos for the blog.  Not as many pictures were taken since we just took one camera.
     We sat with our usual group for dinner.  The appetizers chosen were Smoked Ham and Split Pea soup, or French Onion soup, followed by Moroccan Spiced Lamb Kebob served on couscous with raisins and craisins or Sea Bass served with potato wedges. Dessert was Café Pot de Crème, a tasty coffee custard.
   The Celebrity Theatre show was pianist, Antonio Salci.  He shared the stage with house orchestra members who did solos on several of his tunes.  After the show, we went to the information meeting about Pisco and found that it is a 40 minute shuttle ride into the town from the port.

Final steps for the day 12,494 

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