Category Archives: Peru
Photo Friday: Cusco, Peru
As I was surfing through the archives, reminiscing, I came to December 2008/January 2009 and did a double take. No Cusco pictures? None? Zero? Zip? How could that be? Cusco was beautiful. It was interesting. It was definitely photogenic. I looked again. And then I remembered. Oh yeah, Ispent the first part of our time in Cusco with my head over the toilet, held hostage by a stomach virus. And then there was the fact that my brother Gregory was …
In Review: Our Top Ten
Though narrowing a year’s adventure down to pick out our top ten experiences is a nearly impossible task, we tried to do it anyhow. After all, it seems to be what everyone most wants to know. So here it is, the ten experiences we most loved, ordered not by rank but in the order in which we did them. 1. Hiking Torres del Paine Of all the landscapes we saw on our trip, I think the mountains of Torres del …
I Heart Wong
Nobody likes Lima. At least that’s the way it seems. Save two travelers, everyone we met prior to our entering Peru, told us to spend as little time there as possible. Even National Geographic, in an article on Peru, says to leave Lima behind ASAP. And hey, they have their reasons. Lima is a sprawling, chaotic city. It seems to stretch forever, without any real rhyme or reason to its construction. Getting around is a pain in the butt. Sure, …
Now We’re Traveling
Things have been going just a bit too smoothly for us so far on this trip. Giving credit where credit is due, a large part of that is due to the voracious consumption of information for planning. I think we all know who is the general driving force behind this. I mean, if you exhaust and explore every possible option from every angle, it’s hard to make the wrong choice too many times. But alas, on our border crossing from …
Breaking Down the Inca Trail: Days 3 & 4
Continued. Read the first part here. Day 3 The rain that started the minute we got into our tents last night hasn’t let up by morning despite my numerous pleas to whatever gods will hear me, so we crawl out of our warm sleeping bags into a cold, wet day at 5:00 a.m. We have 15 km to cover, rain or shine. Behind us, Dead Woman’s Pass is covered in snow. Ahead of us another pass waits, the Trail’s second, …
Breaking Down the Inca Trail: Days 1 & 2
The Classic Inca Trail is a four day hike, covering 26 miles. Here’s how it broke down for us. Day 1 Around 5:30 a.m., we board a bus in Cusco and travel 1.5 hours to Ollantaytambo, where we have a chance to eat breakfast and grab any last minute items we forgot. We then continue on to the start of the Inca Trail, where we pass through the official checkpoint, take a group photo, and begin our day’s 12 kilometers …
Machu Picchu: Conquered
We survived. My brother Gregory, Jeff, and I have made our pilgrimage to Machu Picchu, the sacred site of the Quechua people* and returned to Cusco, more or less intact. This past summer, Jeff and I hiked somewhere around 500 miles. More than once, we hiked over 20 miles in one day, and then woke up the next day to do it again. I wouldn’t say it was fun and I wouldn’t say it was easy, but it wasn’t killer. …
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to everybody out there! We passed it in Cuzco, although with no TV to watch the ball drop on, we may have celebrated a few minutes off. The pouring rain kept us inside and the cold kept us under our covers, so it was a calm and quiet one for us here. Resolutions of less overanalyzing have already been made and broken. But you can’t go wrong starting a new year by hiking the Inca Trail, which …
A Visitor!
We’ve been traveling for almost three months now. This means that we’ve spent approximately the last 2000 hours together, with one another being our only consistent support in our grand endeavor. And honestly, while that brings us closer and all that, when you do everything together and see everything together and notice everything together and are removed from the pace of everyday life together, you run out of things to talk about. Everything we take in about the world happens …
Face Off #3: Machu Picchu
High atop our list of must-see sites in South America is Machu Picchu, “the lost city of the Incas.” This architectural and cultural wonder evokes awe from even the most jaded travelers. The remains of this lost city are remarkably well preserved. This isn’t one of those sites where you’re supposed to look at a tiny pile of stones and conjure up an image of grandeur. No, sirree. This is more like wandering into an abandoned (but ancient) town, where …
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