As I mentioned earlier, I arrived in Bogotá during a national holiday weekend. It was May Day-the international day to celebrate workers. It is similar to our Labor Day with more of a socialist and communist twist. The owner of the hostel complained that the city would be shut down because of the demonstrations. I [...]
Colombia can be summarized for me as a number of missed opportunities. We were initially planning to head to Venezuela but because of people we had met along the way, we were convinced that Colombia should be our last stop in South America. We didn’t do our research well before we booked our flights to Bogotá. We [...]
I read excerpts from Charles Darwin’s The Voyage of the HMS Beagle prior to coming to the Galapagos Islands. Though I found his writing to be stale and too tedious to digest in large quantities, it was evident that he was impressed with the islands and the uniqueness of the wildlife, marine life and [...]
We had signed up for a four day expedition cruise of some of the Galapagos Islands. In retrospect, I would have preferred taking a longer tour of the islands but based on our schedule and the last minute nature of our purchase the best deal we could get was the four day tour. If you [...]
I had been to Quito, Ecuador back in 2003 and so I was looking forward to getting back there. It was Patrick, Pam and myself and our chief objective was to get to the Galapagos Islands. We hadn’t booked a tour yet and it was something we should have done months earlier. I had kept [...]
Aguas CalienteAfter the hike to Machu Picchu, the tour groups are dropped off in the town of Aguas Caliente. The town, as the name suggests, is known for its hot springs. We were planning on spending the day and night there but began to get conflicting reports on whether it was worth our time. We [...]
The Discovery of Machu Picchu
History books tell the story of Yale Professor Hiram Bingham discovering the "lost city of Incas", Machu Picchu on July 24, 1911. As with all good explorers and archaeologists, he wasn’t looking for it, he was actually looking for the city, Vilcabamba, one of the last strongholds of the Incas. [...]
We woke up and started our hike before dawn. The goal was to get to the Sun Gate right about the time of the sunrise. The view from the Sun Gate of Machu Picchu was supposed to be spectacular. Of course, everyone who was hiking the four day tour had the same idea as us. [...]
The third day of the hike was the longest in length but by far easier than the hike the day before. We hiked the 15 km over six hours with stops at a number of ruins along the way.
At one of the ruins, we were asked to pick up a small rock to [...]
It was the second day of the Inca Trail. It was the most difficult day according to our guides. The hike was about the same distance as the day before- 13 kilometers but the highlight and the challenge was climbing up 1200 meters to the highest pass of the trail (Abra de Huarmihuañusca or [...]
