Splendors Of South America
HISTORY , CULTURE , ROMANCE AND MYSTERY DISCOVERED AT EVERY TURN
STORY AND PHOTOS BY PATRICK O ’ DONNELL
For many months now , most of my stories have been about nice little day trips that you could take and be pretty much COVID safe . But things are getting much better and “ they ” are telling us now you can really travel again .
So , I would like to tell you about a trip that my wife and I made a few years before the Great Pandemic . This is on our list of the best three or four trips we have ever made , and that would be South America . The countries we visited on this land tour trip were Peru , Chile , Argentina and Brazil . We began the three-week vacation in Peru ’ s capital cities of yesterday and today — Cuzco , former capital of the Inca Empire and later a Spanish colonial stronghold , and Lima , Peru ’ s modern capital .
Way up in the Andes , Cuzco is a charming place to visit , and we stayed in the 5-star Libertador Hotel on property once belonging to Francisco Pizarro ’ s brother , Gonzalo . The hotel is in the middle of this wonderful 15th century cobblestoned city that was built on top of the former ancient Inca capital . The Spanish Conquistadors did the same thing in Mexico City . The hotel is now called the Palacio del Inca and is run by Marriot , and I ’ ll bet the Pizarro boys are not mentioned much . In the lobby they gave us coca tea made from coca leaves . We were told it was good in preventing altitude sickness and they had more leaves available for chewing .
From this World Heritage city , we took a 3.5 – hour train trip along the Urubamba River in the Sacred Valley with dramatic canyon walls on either side until we reached Agua Calientes at the base of one of the really great things to see in this world . At the top of this mountain is one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World , the Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu , and it lived up to its billing .
We had a marvelous guide for the day , describing himself as an Incan , he led us through a pretty heavy jungle path until we came around a bend and then , there it
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