March 23 – Tombo Colorado

Today we landed in Peru at Puerto St. Martin.  There are several interesting excursions that we could have taken and we took one that was to a site of the ruins an Incan city called Tombo Colorado.

The port of St. Martin is really in the middle of nowhere. When you leave the port, you travel for thirty minutes before you encounter any sizable village.  Until then you are travelling in a desert with high sand dunes and no vegetation.

As you head east you start to see vineyards that grow the grape called Pisco.  They make a drink here called Pisco Sour which is one of those drinks that you either like or you can alone.  Marg likes it but I fall into the second group.  Depending on who is making it, a Pisco Sour can either be too sour or too sweet.

The main towns on our way to Tombo were Paracus and Pisco. Both these place are incredibly poor.  The majority of the houses that were visible from the road were square boxes made of sheet metal and roofs of ether tin or thatched vegetation. They don’t seem to have any developed commercial or entertainment area.  Despite the claim from our tour guide that only seven percent live in poverty, we are sure that number is a lot higher.

After about an hour on the bus we arrived in Tombo Colorado.  At the height of the Inca Empire this town had fifteen thousand citizens.  It was there to protect traders from the highlands on their way to the sea.

The first site you see is the town square and the sacrificial alter, where people were sacrificed, including children, to the Gods.  Our guide told us that it was consider a great honour to sacrifice your child.  There were also many holes or windows in the walls of the square where people would bring other offerings that would be used to honour their God.

The mayor’s house was a huge monstrosity of interconnecting rooms made from adobe clay.  It was quite easy to get lost in this maze of rooms.  There was one room where an aqueduct feed a shower.  It was not quite as elaborate as the Roman baths of Europe, but it is impressive none the less.

In the five hundred years since the decline of the Inca Empire these ruins have withstood earth quakes and robbers in fairly good shape.  Of course none of these buildings have roofs anymore and some of the walls are only partially standing, but you do have a good feel of how they lived.

Back at the boat there was a small flea market, with local vendors selling an assortment of souvenirs. There were obviously a lot of massed produced products, probably produced In China.  But some of the booths had unique articles.

This evening’s entertainment was a Russian violinist named Inna Tolstova. She put on a very energetic show but I must admit that the music selection sounded all the same.

For diner I had a ginger spiced chicken breast and Marg had braised veal.  Both were delicious but Marg had filled up on the appetizers and couldn’t finish the main course.

We switched time zones again and I can not properly sync my android calendar and the my windows calendar, even though they are both using the Google calendar..  I've given up and I'll just use my phone for calendar entries from now until we get into the Eastern Daylight Saving time zone.