On the Road Again

Apologies for not posting anything in the last little while. We’ve been exploring bits of Bolivia and Chile for the last week and a half, and it turns out that it’s difficult to both travel and write about travelling simultaneously. Given the choice between writing about an adventure and having one, I must admit I’ll generally opt for the latter. Still, I hope to keep up with the blog in some capacity as we continue around the continent; hopefully I’ll soon have the time and the technology to upload some pictures and provide a quick run-down of all that we’ve been seeing and doing.

In the meantime, I’ve posted a slide show of pictures we took a couple of weeks ago, during our trip to Peru.

Cusco: Incan Capital, Gringo Playground

Last week, we went to Peru. The first stop on the itinerary was Cusco, former heart of Incan civilization. As such, it was the political and economic centre of an empire that at its height may have encompassed some two million km² and twenty million inhabitants.

Today it is the heart of Peru’s tourist empire, a major stopover on the Gringo Trail. Though crowded and somewhat commercialized by the exposure (these kinds of pictures aren’t free, for instance) it is nonetheless a fascinating place to visit, a unique product of Incan, Spanish, and modern Peruvian influences.

The Big M: Machu Picchu

What the Incans built, they built to last. Some six hundred years ago, using nothing but geometry, they built a city of stone called Machu Picchu. It has survived earthquakes, abandonment, and rediscovery; it has outlasted the Incan Empire itself by more than 400 years.