Jimi's Great Southern Journey: THE HOLIDAYS WITH MY FAMILY

Cusco Main Square

DECEMBER 21ST THROUGH JANUARY 5TH
Since this portion of the trip is not on motos I have taken the liberty to do a photo essay instead of mostly text. Also this will take me less time to do and I'm tried of sitting at this computer today! Max and I flew to Lima Peru on the 21st to meet Charlotte. Staying only 5 hours we then flew to Cusco.

Main Square in Cusco

Cusco Street

Once a year on the 23rd Cusco has a big market on the main square. We felt fortunate
to be there for that.

Icarus my Cusco buddy. He reminded me of my old friend Otis.
While JB was getting his Knicky fix I'd be stopping by for my
Icarus fix.

View outside our Cusco Hotel

The Jewells' Christmas dinner

Within a few hours I found my "biker bar". This place is
Owned by some guy from Iowa that has a thing for
British Motorcycles.

This is Moray, a place the Incas built to experiment with different plants and seeds.
Each level has a slightly different micro climate.

Looking down at Piscac from the ruins

To get an idea of scale, that's 4 people walking down there

Ruins at Chinchero. What was most impressive here was the 16th
century church where the interior is completly covered in frescos.

Ollataytombo. This site and surrounding area is impressive! This site represents the only place
The Incas were able to hold off the Spanish by throwing flaming spears down on them. There are
a number of other sites right around here including thier grainerys they built way up on the side of
the mountains taking advantage of the cooler glacier air that blows through there.

Some friends we met in Ollataytombo. Lars (the tall one) and his girlfriend
Henriette (the short one) began thier moto trip in Fairbanks, riding thier KLR
and DR650 up to Prudoe Bay and plan to go to the tip of Argentina. The other couple
is from Argentina and are driving to Alaska. Insane!

The grand daddy of them all, Machu Pichu!

The Inca Bridge at Machu Pichu. This trial, built by the Incas, was thier escape route out
of Machu Pichu. Note the width of the trial and the drop off. They built a rock wall with
a section missing, spanning the missing section with wood planks that could be pulled
away once they got across preventing the Spanish from following them.

This rockwork is typical of all the Inca sites. All of thier important structures
were built to withstand earthquakes. It worked the walls are still here!