Monthly Archives: June 2011
Machu Picchu – Preview
Machu Picchu lived up to expectations in every way. I’ll write more tomorrow!
Cuzco – Ollantaytambo – Aguas Calientes
After finishing last night’s post we went right to bed and got a glorious night’s sleep. Or, at least, we tried to do so. I was exhausted physically, but I was still wound up from the day’s adventures and the excitement of being in a new and fun place. So I lay there. And lay there. […]
Cuzco – Day 1
Boy am I glad we made it to Cuzco today. Not only is it the jumping-off point for Machu Picchu (which we’ll tackle shortly), it’s also destination-worthy in its own right. As you can see from the pictures I took from the air, Cuzco is situated high in the Andes (approximately 11,200 ft), in an open bowl […]
Whew! (Part 2)
After all of that, everything worked like a charm. While I recovered my passport, Amanda successfully changed our flight to a later one (apparently we had inadvertently bought flexible tickets – yay us!). The flight to Cusco went smoothly and breathtakingly through snow-capped Andean peaks (see below), putting us on the ground a mere 1.5 […]
Whew!
Wayward passport back in hand. Now, back to the airport and (fingers crossed) off to Cuzco. Troublemaker But not before stopping to get gas. (Which is full service, and which apparently cannot be done while I’m still in the car… so I’ll walk around and take pictures of the neighborhood.) Taxi getting serviced View to […]
Merde!
Amanda is standing in line at the domestic departures gate of the Lima airport. Our flight leaves in an hour.I’m sitting in a shiny black Toyota taxi, worming my way through the traffic-clogged streets of Lima, choking on clouds of unfiltered exhaust. I’ve got another two hours (at least) of traffic and fumes (for a […]
Another stamp in the passport
The second leg of the flight to Lima went smoothly. This airplane was much more comfortable than the first. We had to fly around some storms over the Yucatan, which interrupted dinner service but didn’t lead to turbulence. Once on the ground, we collected our bags, found our prearranged cab (he was holding a sign […]
Houston!
Stage one of our trip entailed getting up at 4:30am and flying three hours to our first scenic destination: Houston Intercontinental Airport. I generally think that, when traveling, one should put the most important things first, lest unexpected events prevent one from doing or seeing them — so it was a real treat to find […]
Yay, I’m a llama again!
What do you watch the night before going to Cuzco, Peru? http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/t_YjSbp5KHM?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0 That’s right. Call it last-minute historical research. Booyah!
No R.E.S.P.E.C.T. (but lots of other songs)
On Tuesday Amanda and I went out to Wolf Trap, an outdoor performing arts center outside of DC, for an Aretha Franklin concert. We had gotten lawn tickets so that we could have a picnic (which Amanda expertly assembled) on the grass before the show. Unfortunately, as well-suited as lawn seating is for picnicking, it […]
A More Gentlemanlike Manner 