Travelling by train up the valleys and across the high plain between Cusco and Puno is a slow business. It takes every minute out of ten and a half hours. It is, however, designed to be a slow business. And to be enjoyed as such. At the beginning of the journey, people were highly strung […]
I had just installed myself in my seat on board the Perurail Titicaca Train in Cusco. My carriage was elegant with wooden panels, white table cloths and plush seating. It exuded an air of elegance long gone from modern travel. My fellow passengers offered a compelling reminder that this was, after all, modern travel. While […]
I spent my childhood in the mountains. Well, not quite. To be painfully exact, I spent it at 29 m.a.s.l. a stone’s throw from the fjord. But, what I meant to say is that I grew up BETWEEN the mountains. And, as I remember it, I used to climb them quite frequently. Which amounts to […]
While booking my ticket for Machu Picchu, I faced the unexpected question of whether I wished to climb Huayna Picchu, Machu Picchu Mountain, both or neither – and at what times. For 44 years, I had lived in the blissful ignorance that such places existed, and I found myself at a loss.
The view from the top of Machu Picchu mountain justifies the 700-meter climb, that is when there is a view to be had. The clouds were not just sitting there idle, though. The view constantly shifted from complete whiteout via blurry mists to sudden openings in the cloud-cover that permitted photos like this one.
There it was. Machu Picchu, a photographic cliché, if ever there was one. And still, cliché or no cliché, it was one of those views imprinted in my mind since childhood from countless travel magazines and innumerable travel documentaries.
I had booked myself into a small hotel in a village called Ollantaytambo (Ollanta), of which I had no knowledge and few expectations.⠀Low expectations constitute a favourable starting point for any village hoping to exceed them but are entirely wasted on Ollantaytambo. This village, and its surroundings, are brimming with Inca fortifications and constructions that […]
It must have started something like this: Salty water came out of a small spring on the hillside. The flow rose and fell with the seasons. Some surfaces that were submerged when the flow was high dried out when the flow lessened. Left behind, was a white substance.
Historians and scientists agree unanimously – and with absolute certainty – that the concentric circular terraces of Moray were made for an important purpose.
Within an hour of landing in Cusco, I found myself standing at a bridge near Ollantaytambo, taking in this most pleasing scenery.⠀“This isn’t how Peru is supposed to look”, I thought to myself. “This is how Alaska is supposed to look. Where are the colourful, pipe-smoking ladies with bowler hats, where are the pan flute […]