Peru

I have not blogged for more than an year now. Life has been pretty hectic and it just gets worse everyday. No wonder my new year resolution is to get rid of 'extra information in head' and get back to basics. Throw wii player into trash and go back to running in the wild! More on this later but for now let me write little bit about our trip to Peru.

Anu 'always' encourages me to plan trips ahead in time but for a person filing taxes on 15th April every single year, that's too much of a planning. Luckily this time Anu's friend Tania and her husband Mohit decided to join us and took the lead on planning. We took the package tour for four of us through a travel agency (Carlson Wagonlit). Peru has rich history and it was a great idea to have dedicated guide for all the places. We flew to Lima, Peru's capital. One of the most striking thing about Lima is its taxi drivers solicitation! Not much different than at Delhi except the language. I was amazed at physical similarity between us and local people. Well I felt bit taller!

While we were preparing for the trip, we consulted a doctor for travel advise. We had to take vaccines for various diseases, main one for yellow fever, prevalent in Amazon jungle. Well, 'prevalent' is a strong word. Later on I found the chance of getting yellow fever are more like 1 in million visitors still doctor was able to scare us to take the vaccine. She also advised us to drink bottled water (nice idea actually) and avoid salads and fruits (bummer, as Peru has some of the most amazing fruits). I also realized what it feels like for Americans to travel to India. Doctors kill the fun!

We did not spend much time in Lima and flew straight to Cuzco. Cuzco is on high elevation - 3310 meter and there is always a concern about altitude sickness. As soon as we reached hotel, we took a nap (a long one) and drank lot of Coca tea. Coca tea was super-helpful in alleviating altitude sickness. I know some of you are smiling as Coca leaves are used for making cocaine (oops now this blog is going to appear on cocaine googles). Cuzco is a beautiful city and used to be capital of old Peru. To give you folks a historic background, before Spaniards took over Peru in 16th century, Peru was ruled by Inca (ruler) and corresponding era is called Inca era. Inca civilization was quite advanced both economically and spiritually but lot of the history (specially the ones involving gold and money) is destroyed now. However Inca people managed to mix up with Spaniards and most of the current population has mix blood. In Cuzco we visited many monuments from Inca era. In fact Peru tourism is primarily focused on exposing the Inca civilization.

We took a tourist train from Cuzco to Machu Picchu. Train took about four hours for 70 mile distance! It was a good experience to take the train. We were told that there would be a meal and I was thrilled to see the menu. Management had spent significant money on menu and 'waitress'. Both were amazing. However rest was pretty useless for veggie people. As part of the cultural program, waitress did 'fashion show' as well, later on I realized that was a good effort to sell really expensive items to 'recently fall-in-love' couples. Anu did not bother to shop!

Its hard to describe beauty of Machu Picchu. You have to visit the place to fully appreciate it. Its surroundings make it very special. Incas built the city as they believed they will be closer to God (Machu Picchu is built on high mountain). The highest point in the city is a temple. One of the amazing part of the temple was trapezoidal structures. It is specifically designed to resonate the sounds. I found many of the religious symbols/concepts similar to Hindu religion.

Other interesting part of our trip was Amazon jungle. It was raining a lot during our stay, however we managed to checkout various birds (Macaws were amazing), animals, crocodiles, various insects, plants and trees. Our stay and food was quite amazing, given we were in jungle! I become an expert on avoiding mosquitoes. Our lodge was deep into jungle. We had to take boat for an hour, walk 3 miles on muddy path and canoe to cross a lake.

Finally here are the photos (~100 photos were selected out of 1300 photos to save your valuable time):

Europe Trip 2007 [part-4]

Switzerland was the peak of the our whole trip. It has beautiful lakes, landscaped mountains and endless natural beauty. On top of that we found local people to be very helpful and tourist friendly. Swiss rail system is very reliable and makes getting around Switzerland a snap. Everything went as per our plans. We took cruises in the Bernese overland region and scenic trains through various parts of Switzerland (Glacier Express and Golden Train). It is a heaven for photographers. Even amateurs like me can get some excellent shots. No matter how much time you had, it always seems less in Switzerland. I am definitely going to revisit this place. Here are the some of the pictures:

Bernese Oberland

Glacier Express

Bern & Zurich

Stay tuned for more updates.

Europe Trip 2007 [part-3]

Paris is an interesting place. Lot of preserved history with some excellent museums for art lovers. I don't think of myself a museum-lover but this time I was curious and open minded to try few things. We visited Louvre Museum, which is the biggest museum in Paris. If you like painting you must have heard of 'Mona Lisa' painting, it is the classic and by far the most famous painting in the world. Painting is held behind bullet proof glass and there is so much security around it. We spent few hours in the museum and by the end of it I was desperate to find more about Mona Lisa painting. We went to a book store and spent some time researching about Mona Lisa. Painting is popular for variety of reasons and the main one I could understand is : from whatever angle you see the painting Mona Lisa always looks directly into your eyes with an enigmatic and mysterious expression. After this we went back to Museum to see the painting again and it was much more enjoyable this time.

Other than this Museum there were few other historical places we visited. You can checkout the photos.

Other interesting incidents in Paris:
After I spent few hours using metro in the city surprisingly I got questions regarding train directions by many folks and that too in French. I was surprised to see how somebody could mistake an Indian tourist for a French local. Anyhow I thoroughly enjoyed helping these people. Not sure where they end up -:)

Once we were at a train station looking at the map and one local guy comes to us and started helping with directions. He told us he is also going to the same place and will join us. First I was pretty happy but then I got suspicious. First of all he was limping and then he would try to walk just after me. Few moments later I realized his intentions and moved my wallet from back to front pocket. This guy saw his revenue going away and disappeared within seconds. Next time you visit Paris be careful with super-helpful folks.

Here are the pics:

Paris

Europe Trip 2007 [part-2]

We had very exciting time in Madrid. Before the trip our initial impression of Madrid was that it is not a safe place for tourists. We were told this by folks on Internet and even people in other parts of the Europe. We were bit scared but excited for the adventure.

Our flight to Madrid airport got delayed and we reached there by 01:00am. Our hotel was close to airport and there was a shuttle service between the hotel and airport. But we did not have phone to contact the hotel. One of the Spanish person who was also waiting there asked me something in Spanish and as I did not understand anything I just told him the Hotel name. This person called somebody to find the hotel number and then called the reception for shuttle. He really helped us even though we couldn't understand a single word from each other. What a nice start.

Madrid is a very dynamic city and specifically old city is very lively. Food was very tasty and spicy. I specifically liked the concept of coffee bar which is tapas style snacks with coffee. Coffee was just like Indian coffee with lot of milk. We also visited Toledo which is about 50 miles from Madrid and has lot of history. Toledo used to be Spain capital before Madrid. The main attraction of Toledo was Cathedral. It was grand in every sense.

Madrid

Toledo

There is so much to talk about Madrid but I am very sleepy right now. Will publish more details soon.

Europe Trip 2007 [part-1]

How can our trip start without surprises? Our flight was scheduled for 7:00am departure which we made it well ahead in time. Thanks Mohit for dropping us so early [specifically by his standard]. We had a connection at Philadelphia which we later realized was only for 45 minutes. Our flight to Philadelphia was late by 30 minutes so we had only 5 before airline closes the gate. We had to sprint for about half a mile. My marathon training can have a real life use. We barely made it but our luggage couldn’t. We realized that at Frankfurt airport when everybody left and we were still waiting for our luggage. What an interesting start of the trip.

We left for our first destination to Heidelberg which is only city left with history in Germany. Heidelberg is about an hour by train from Frankfurt and is popular for its Castle and old town. I am publishing the photos of the city which would speak for its own beauty.

Heidelburg

Stay tuned for more updates of the trip.