Tom's Andes and South America Princess Cruise

Friday afternoon, I picked up Tom and the Ryans at the airport. They flew home from Los Angeles after they finished a Princess Cruise. The cruise departed from Santiago and included: La Serena, Chile; Pisco, Peru; Lima, Peru (overnight); Manta, Ecuador (skipped due to political unrest); Puntarenas, Costa Rica; Puerto Vallarta; Cabo San Lucas, and; Los Angeles.

As part of the trip, they did an extensive pre-cruise tour in Peru that included UNESCO World Heritage Site, Machu Picchu.

In Pisco, Peru, Tom did an excursion to see the Nazca Lines. The Nazca Lines are a group of giant geoglyphs etched into the earth in the Nazca Desert of southern Peru. These amazing creations consist of hundreds of prehistoric lines, geometric shapes, and large zoomorphic (animal) and anthropomorphic (human) figures. The Nazca Lines stretch for over 190 square miles . They were created by the Nazca culture, who flourished between 200 BC and 500 AD, by removing the reddish pebbles from the desert surface to expose the lighter colored earth underneath. The lines vary in width from a few centimeters to several meters and some stretch for kilometers. The massive scale of the Nazca Lines means they can only be fully appreciated from the air.


I didn't realize until after Tom left that the cruise included Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas. At Cabo, Tom did an excursion to Todos Santos! The Wallens built a house there. Sharon and I visited in Todos Santos in 2022.