(this next post in my series is loooong overdue)

Cusco is the tourist capital of [tag]Peru[/tag], a must stop on all visits to the land of the Incas. Some of this is because it is situated in the middle of the country, and forms one end of the [tag]Inca trail[/tag] to the magnificent Machu Picchu. But the former capital of the Inca Kingdom is a lovely tourist destination in its own right; in fact, it is too much of a tourist destination. The place is now completely run for tourism, and has many a tourist trap.

The place to spend your time while in the city is around the [tag]Plaza de Armas[/tag], which is the heart of [tag]Cusco[/tag]. This stately plaza is lined with arcades with those ubiquitous wooden balconies, shops, restaurants, bars and the two foremost churches (including the Cathedral in the photograph). Get a hotel close to here, because most of the restaurants and bars you will spend your evening at will be close to the plaza. It is also the central point from which to radiate out into Cusco’s many narrow lanes to explore the town.

There are number of really good eateries in Cusco. Two that we tried and absolutely loved were the [tag]Inka Grill[/tag] (serving upscale Peruvian fare) right on the Plaza, and [tag]Cicciolina[/tag] (serving Italian food that felt lie it was out of Tuscany) that was just off the Plaza. The food at both these places was absolutely amazing.
While in Cusco, be sure to check out the ruins of [tag]Qoricancha[/tag], the ancient Incan Temple of the Sun, on top of which the Spanish built the baroque [tag]Santo Domingo[/tag] church. None of its original glory (it means “golden courtyard” and is said to have been completely covered in gold) remains, but the perfectly preserved walls and some rooms still illustrate the mastery of [tag]stonemasonry[/tag] and architecture that the Incas developed.

Sacsayhuaman

Of course, the greatest of the ruins within easy distance of Cusco (you can walk/climb to it, but it is better to take a cab) is [tag]Sacsayhuaman[/tag]. One of the finest remaining examples of [tag]Inca architecture[/tag], it looks like the remains of a fortress, with all that is left being a set of 3 outstanding walls built in a zigzag formation on three levels. The walls are amazing, built entirely of massive boulders that are set together without the use of mortar or cement. The tallest stones form the corners of the zigzag, with the tallest (pictured here) over 11 ft tall. The largest rock is said to weigh approx. 300 tons. How these were moved, shaped and fit together so perfectly is just amazing (you can’t even get a thin paper or knife into the perfectly aligned spaces between the rocks). And for them to have survived for years despite earthquakes is just incredible.

The rest of the site is interesting, but these walls are what will take your breath away. Be careful that you have acclimatized to the high altitude when you visit this place, as it is even higher up from Cusco, and the climb can combine with the exertion to get to you. We saw a number of folks getting it hard up there.

For more pictures and information, go to our travel journal and click on Peru.

Last night before going to bed I heard about the massive earthquake to hit Peru. This morning, I learnt just how massive the earthquake was. The powerful earthquake, measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale, has devastated towns along the Pacific coast of [tag]Peru[/tag]. The death toll is at 337 and rising, the injured are in the thousands, and the damage untold.

Most of the damage was near [tag]Ica[/tag], the town we visited when we flew over the [tag]Nazca lines[/tag] earlier this year. I remember what most of the houses in that industrial town looked like, regular brick and mortar houses that wouldn’t really hold up to a quake of this size. It was heartbreaking to read this excerpt from the New York Times story on the quake:

Mayor Juan Mendoza Uribe of Pisco said that 70 percent of the port city of about 60,000 people, located 135 miles south of Lima, was leveled by the quake.

“So much effort and our city is destroyed,” he said, crying audibly, in comments broadcast on radio station RPP in Lima.

My CEO till the acquisition is from Peru, so naturally I reached out to him, and heard that everyone in his extended family seems to be well, with no bad news.

One of the amazing facts we learnt during our Peru trip was that the ancient [tag]Incan architecture[/tag] of places like [tag]Sacsayhuaman[/tag] and [tag]Ollantaytambo[/tag] had survived centuries of earthquakes, despite being built from massive rocks with no cement, mortar or metal. I hope that those places survive this one again, and I wish there was a way for our modern architects to revive some of those lost skills that were put to such good use for the safety of the people, at a time when the people meant more than the buildings that housed them.

[tags]Peru earthquake[/tags]

This is the first in a series of posts I will be writing covering our recent trip to Peru. And I will start it off covering the absolute highlight of our trip – the stunning and spectacular Machu Picchu.

Day 1

We spread our trip to the “Lost City of the Incas” over two days. The first day we arrived on the Vistadome train at around 11am. From the train station, we were immediately herded onto the buses that drive up the mountain to the site entrance. There we met our private guide Selvio, who proceeded to take us on a 3 hour tour of the main citadel. We walked through the ruins, learning about the significance of each building, its function and unique characteristics. We learnt the history of the site, some of it inferred, some of it legend. We learnt of how Hiram Bingham is revered for having rediscovered the site (by accident), and also hated for “borrowing” a number of artifacts for dating purposes, and never returning them (they are stored at the Peabody museum at Yale). We tried to absorb some of the energy of the site at the Sacred Rock and at the Hitching Post of the Sun. We learnt about the Incas incredible mastery of engineering which allowed them to create temples from massive rocks, aqueducts bringing fresh water in from the mountains and terraces to farm and prevent landslides.

Most of all, we found the awe we felt when we first saw the site increase throughout the tour, as we experienced the citadel in all its glory. Machu Picchu has been called the world’s greatest example of landscape art, reflecting the Incas reverence of nature and astronomy. Its setting among two Andean peaks is certainly spectacular, unrivalled by anything I have seen so far.

After the tour, Selvio led us to the Sanctuary Lodge for a satisfying buffet lunch. 3pm is when people start leaving to catch their trains back, so it was a good time to head back in for some quality time. 2000 people visit the site everyday, and while it is large enough to absorb that number without making things too crowded, the site is best enjoyed early or late when it can feel like you are the only one there. We spent the rest of the day wandering around Machu Picchu, checking it out from different angles, and making our way to some of the higher elevations on the terraces. We did the hour long hike to the Inca Bridge, which turned out to be a little disappointing. The trail is narrow, with a sheer drop on one side, and wnds too far away from the bridge to make it worth the time. When we got back we found a good spot to settle down and enjoy the view as the sun set. We then took the last bus down to the town of Aguas Calientes. My recommendation for Aguas Calientes is to find a good hotel, because there is nothing in the town worth stepping out of the hotel for. It’s best to relax and get a good nights sleep for the next day.

Day 2

That’s because the next day, we got up at 4:30am to try and catch the first bus up at 5:30. The gates to Machu Picchu opened at 6, giving us an hour to hike up the last part of the Inca Trail to the Sun Gate to catch the sunrise, which was scheduled for 6:55. This is where going to Peru at this time of the year turned out to be a little bit of problem. Being the dry season, there was not much moisture in the air, so the morning mist was fairly light. As a result, we only got a small taste of the sight of the rising sun melting away the mist over Machu Picchu, as Huayna Picchu and the terraces are lit up step by step. It wasn’t quite the spectacular experience we were hoping for. After the long (at this point we had been doing a lot of hiking for 4 days straight) trek back, we relaxed for a little while before I mustered up the courage to do the hike up Huayna Picchu.

The hike up Huayna Picchu ranks up there with snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef as one of the most amazing physical activities I have ever done. The climb can be done in 30 minutes, but it is almost straight up. In some portions, the trail (if you can call it that) is so bad that you literally have to pull yourself up by the cables installed into the side of the mountain. Portions of it are downright scary, enough to make you feel like giving up. But then you see sprightly 70 year olds coming back down, and feel shamed into continuing.

And when you reach the top, it feels totally worth it. Looking around, you see yourself surrounded by a ring of Andean peaks. Looking down, you see how the Incas planned the site to take the shape of an inverted condor, their sacred bird. You feel on top of the world, and not just because there is a definite feeling of accomplishment at having done the climb. Until you realize you have to make your way back down that same path.

After the climb back down, I had to spend 30 minutes just recovering from the trip. We then (very gingerly for me) made our way back down to catch our afternoon train back to Cusco. The train ride takes us back through the Sacred Valley, past the snow-capped peaks and along the Urubamba River. It was a nice way to end what was probably the most unique and memorable places anywhere we will ever experience.

If you haven’t heard, there is an election going on, but one that is of a slightly different ilk. The New7Wonders Foundation is running an election to select the 7 new [tag]wonders of the world[/tag]. It is an interesting campaign, aimed at raising awareness of our global heritage, and building our interest in preserving it. The election has 21 candidates worthy of being the 7 wonders of the world, and the winning 7 will be announced in a ceremony on (you guessed it) July 7th, 2007, or 07/07/07, in Lisbon, Portugal.

When I was in [tag]Peru[/tag] last month, we couldn’t escape the massive publicity campaign the Peruvian government was running to promote [tag]Machu Picchu[/tag] as one of the 7 wonders. There were banners and tv ads everywhere urging people to go online and vote for Machu Picchu. Having been to 10 of the 21 candidates, I can definitely say that Machu Picchu is deserving of being one of the 7 wonders, and is apparently way in the lead.

But what is disappointing is that the [tag]Taj Mahal[/tag], one of the most magnificent human creations, is apparently running last (or close to last) in the voting. This despite the huge number of people in India with the ability to vote for it. We need to get the word out, and get those votes up. If you watch the travel channel or read travel magazines, you will know that India is emerging as one of the top exotic tourist destinations in the world. Yet our one and only representative for a world wonder is not getting any votes. So go to http://www.new7wonders.com and vote for it.

Here are what I voted for:

• Taj Mahal, Agra, India
• Machu Picchu, Peru
• Acropolis, Athens, Greece
• Angkor, Cambodia
• Pyramids of Giza, Egypt
• Great Wall, China
• Colosseum, Rome, Italy

We are back home after a tiring, but very satisfying sojourn through the land of the [tag]Inca[/tag]s. And what a great trip it was. The feeling I had when I saw Machu Picchu for the first time is one I will never forget. And the rest of the trip was pretty cool as well.

But there is no doubt that Machu Picchu was the absolute highlight of the trip. Tanu and I basically spent two days there, exploring every inch of this most sacred of Inca sites. The beauty of Machu Picchu is unsurpassed by anything I have seen, perfectly preserved and sitting as it is high up in the Andes, surrounded on all sides by lush green mountains. And after the crowds left at 3 to catch their trains back, it was almost as if we had the place to ourselves. Sitting there virtually alone, just letting the feeling of finally being there sink in, and experiencing its majesty as the ancients must have – just thinking about it gives me goose bumps. Whether I was doing the incredible hike up to the peak of Huayna Picchu, watching the sun rise over the site from the Sun Gate, or walking through the ancient ruins, I have never experienced anything quite like it.

And it isn’t like there wasn’t anything else to our [tag]Peru[/tag] trip. Visiting the Uros Floating Islands on Lake Titicaca was a really unique and interesting experience. There is nothing quite like walking around a spongy island made of reeds. And everywhere we went, we were constantly asking ourselves “How” and “Why”. Why did they draw all those figures in the Nasca desert, and at a scale where the only way to see it is by flying over it (in a tiny plane that tips at 45 degree angles)? How did they manage to move and lift those huge rocks (some weighing over 300 tons and as much as 13 ft high) to build the fortresses at Sacsayhuaman and Ollantaytambo? And how did they develop the technology to fit those massive boulders together so perfectly, and without mortar at that, to last centuries, surviving earthquakes and war?

The similarities with India grabbed us at every turn. In a country where so many live in poverty, it was amazing to see how everybody had a smile on their face and greeted us at every turn, even when they were carrying heavy sacks full of vegetation on their back. People were friendly and helpful. And fun loving. It was great to see everyone out on the weekend living it up. Despite the chaos we saw in Lima, nobody seemed to be getting put out. And they were obviously proud of their heritage.

Food was great everywhere we went. We had great buffet lunches that covered both native Peruvian dishes and international cuisine. Restaurants in Cusco were especially good. We had plenty of the Peruvian favorites – pisco sour, alpaca meat, cebiche, and even tried one of the local delicacies, guinea pig (it was actually quite good). And while getting up early every morning to make the tours and trains was kind of annoying, I would recommend the trip to everyone in a heartbeat. I can’t say it enough times – it was an amazing experience.

At the end of two days in Peru, I have to say that the trip so far has been pretty good. We are currently in Cuzco. T is already passed out after the long day we had, and I am just taking time to write this post before passing out.

The city of Lima reminds us in many ways of Delhi - the sheer urban sprawl, the noise, chaos and madhouse traffic. The Miraflores district, where we stayed, is one of the nicer districts in Lima, so it afforded us an opportunity to walk around and see what life is like in Lima. We saw how (again like Delhi) the cheap availability of labor has given rise to the small services you don´t encounter in the States, like shoeshine guys everywhere, money exchangers at street corners, and hawkers all over the place. More on that in the travel journal when I get back.

We also took a guided tour of the city that drove us through some parts of Lima to get us to the historic district in downtown Lima. Lima is really spread out, making it impossible to visit the sites by walking. We barely got a glimpse of some lovely buildings from the bus as it tried to navigate traffic. The main plaza in Lima where one finds the Cathedral and the Presidential Palace is nice, but nothing spectacular. Dinner was at a “Chifa”, which is a Chinese restaurant that uses Peruvian ingredients. Very interesting.

This morning we got up early to catch a morning flight to Cuzco. Upon arriving here, we could feel the altitude (12,000 ft+) hit us. After checking in, we spent the morning sitting in the Plaza de Armas, which is the main plaza in Cuzco, and it is just gorgeous little plaz. With a beautiful park in the middle that has a lovely fountain, the plaza is bordered by the cathedral, another church, shops, bars and restaurants. It is lively at all times, and was picture perfect while we sat there.

After spending the morning resting to get acclimatized to the altitude, and drinking coca-tea to help (though it tasted pretty bad to non tea drinkers like us), we went on a private guided tour in the afternoon that took us to some of the main archaeological and historic sites in Cuzco. The first stop was also the most spectacular. Sacsayhuaman is a magnificent ruin of an ancient Inca temple and fortress, and really shows off the mastery of the Inca masons. It was amazing to see stone blocks three times taller than me that were used to build the fortress. And the whole thing is prefectly stable without the use of mortar. The remaining sites were nice, but didn’t come close.

I have to talk about this. For dinner we went to a great little restaurant called Inka Grill, that Siddi-B had recommended to us. It was superb. The food, the ambience, the service, even the live music, all added up to a great end to the day.

Looks like the trip is picking up. Hope it keeps getting better. Next stop – the Sacred Valley of the Incas.

It’s travel day, and in a little under half an hour we will be heading to the airport on our way to Peru. Talking to Sid about his trip that he returned from on Sunday really increased our excitement level. He had a great time, and his photographs were amazing. Of course, we won’t be experiencing Peru in the same way as he did. He and his compadres did the 4-day hike to Machu Picchu through the Andes. We are forgoing the hike in favor of covering more places, like Lake Titicaca (Sid cracks up every time I say that) and the Nazca Lines. Here’s hoping it is as magical as we expect it to be.

I am not taking my laptop, so don’t know if I will be able to blog about the trip while there. But I will definitely try to post whenever I have the opportunity.

Onwards…

In a weird coincidence, my cousin Sid departed yesterday for a trip to Peru. Much like us, his decision to head there was made rather quickly. His trigger just happened to be the pursuit of girls (enough said). But this reminded me that I had to put together a post about our upcoming trip.

South America is unknown territory for us. Checking out a few web sites, we became a little concerned about our ability to plan the trip like we usually do – booking hotels on the web, renting a car, relying on public transportation, planning our own itinerary. There are a lot of good websites out there, but they mostly deal with package deals. The thing that concerned us the most was the transportation aspect. We quickly realized that the distances between the places we want to see is fairly large. And trying to drive around the country is not really recommended for non-Spanish speakers. Even within Lima it seems that taking taxis can be a hairy proposition. So we decided to follow the advice of Tanu’s cousins that visited Peru last year and go with a travel agency. They absolutely raved about their trip. The travel agency they used was Perutourism, and they told us to ask for a lady named Maria Nunez.

Maria has been a dream to work with. All told she put together 7 proposals for me to look at, constantly tweaking the itinerary based on my input and trying out different hotel combinations and travel options to keep us within budget. She knew details about the hotels that I we would not have found out on my own. She’s been really responsive on email, replying within a few hours. Thanks to her, we feel we have a pretty good trip ahead of us. And she is really sweet.

This is what our trip is looking like:
Day 1 - Fly into Lima
Day 2 – Lima
Day 3 – Cuzco
Day 4 – Sacred Valley of the Incas
Day 5 – [tag]Machu Picchu[/tag]
Day 6 – Machu Picchu
Day 7 – Train journey from Cuzco to Puno through the Andean mountains and plains
Day 8 – [tag]Lake Titicaca[/tag]
Day 9 – Lake Titicaca, Juliaca
Day 10 – Flight over the [tag]Nazca Lines[/tag] from Lima
Day 11 – Lima

While everyone says that there isn’t much to stick around in Lima for, it seems that it is important to have that first day to get acclimatized to the high altitude.

Visiting Machu Picchu has always been a dream of mine. T and I can’t wait for our trip to begin. These two weeks can’t go by fast enough.

About 5 weeks ago, Tanu and I decided that we would go on our next vacation within the next few months. Looking at our work calendars, the most appropriate time seemed to be mid-May. So we started to do our research to figure out what would be a good spot to go for 2 weeks at that time of the year. After about a week of [tag]vacation planning[/tag], we decided to do a drive from Barcelona to Milan via the southern coast of France. It sounded fun, and covered portions of three countries that we had skipped on our previous visits there.

As we continued our research, we discovered that our planned trip would coincide with two events that might have a major impact on our visit – the Cannes film festival and the Monaco Grand Prix. While the notion of visting Monte Carlo during the Grand Prix was extremely interesting to me, I found Tanu less than enthusiastic about the idea. And we knew that there was no way we were getting into Cannes for the film festival. A quick check of hotels revealed none available within a 5 mile radius of Cannes.

So, at this point, we had doubts about the viability of our trip. Nonetheless, we proceeded to continue our investigation into the logistics of doing this trip. A decision to cut down our trip to 10 days also put a dent in our plans. That is when inspiration struck. It just happened one morning while we were getting ready to go to work, and the Today show was on in the background (as it usually is most mornings). It was one of [tag]Peter Greenberg[/tag]’s travel segments. In it, one of the places he talked about was [tag]Peru[/tag]. One look at the vistas of [tag]Macchu Picchu[/tag] and I was intrigued. Our ex-CEO is from Peru, and always talks about how lovely the country is. Just last year Tanu’s cousin and her husband went there on a short vacation, and simply raved about it. So my interest was piqued. Tanu was initially skeptical, but as we did some reading, we both got really into the idea of our first trip to [tag]South America[/tag].

A call to her cousin sealed the deal, and gave us the name of the travel agent in Peru to call. And we were on our way…

[tags]Travel, Travel planning[/tags]