ramblings of a Seattle travel, food and photography hound
Seeing is believing. It was deja vu all over again, as a famous American Yogi once said. I gawked at the Valley Temple of Khafre in Giza and the Osireion in Abydos. Though they are in Egypt, they reminded me of monuments I saw in Peru, halfway round the world. Cyclopean blocks of unadorned stone... Continue Reading →
Streets in the old part of Ollantaytambo are narrow, cobble-stoned, inaccessible to cars and trucks. Along one side, water flows in ancient Inca canals, still used today, no more than a foot wide. Quechua is spoken more than Spanish. Life goes on here as it has for centuries. There is no indication that less than... Continue Reading →
At almost sea level, my lungs were finally free of high altitude. They sighed welcome relief in Lima after 18 straight days at 7,700ft or higher. I had an extra spring in my step as I deboarded at Jorge Chavez. In our trip planning, my wife and I saw Lima only as a gateway to Puerto Maldonado when we arrived in early... Continue Reading →
Take a boat tour to the Uros Islands out of Puno, and the package will likely include a visit to Isla Taquile (Taquile Island). Where? you ask. That's what I said when I booked it. OK, I thought, as long as I get to see the reed islands. Turns out, if I had done my research, I should also... Continue Reading →
I walked up to the Transportes del Carpio bus counter in Arequipa to pick up pre-paid roundtrip tickets to Aplao, but it wasn't going to be as simple as that. Not by a long shot. The biggest problem was I didn't speak Spanish. The second was the clerk didn't speak English. The bus line, after... Continue Reading →
It's like walking on a waterbed. Unnerving at first, there is a definite squishy firmness under your feet as you walk on an island made entirely of totora reeds, so thick that there is no danger of falling through into Lake Titicaca. Even so, the feeling that water is underfoot never leaves you. Lake Titicaca is an incredibly large... Continue Reading →
Rooms almost glow from within. Light reflects softly from surfaces as if they're white-washed, made of ivory-tinted, slightly purplish stone, called sillar. Their whiteness the Spanish invaders admired so much that they made building material out of it. And why not? This rhyolitic rock is plentiful in the Western Andes where volcanic pyroclastic flows deposited countless acres of them long ago.... Continue Reading →
I have had my share of passionfruit the last several years. I consider it my absolute favorite exotic fruit whose incredibly heady aroma can fill a room with its unmistakable scent of the tropics. My frenzy started out in New Zealand where the fruit has a dark, purplish rind and crunchy seeds not unlike pomegranate. One time, my... Continue Reading →
Julio Zuñiga Medina is troubled. Toro Muerto's archaeological treasures that are represented by roughly 5,000 ancient petroglyphs, presumed to be of the Wari people, are not being protected by the Peruvian authorities, it seems. It is possible to wander over 5 km in this desert area unsupervised and unwatched, even though vandals have defaced and removed... Continue Reading →
To many, Machu Picchu is the poster child of the Incan civilization. Like an ancient lost city, the ruins lay hidden from the world for centuries, even the Spanish invaders, until they were 'revealed' to archaeologist Hiram Bingham in 1911. Yet, for all its majesty, Machu Picchu isn't the only impressive legacy of the Incas. I... Continue Reading →
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