machhu picchu !!
why peru of all the places ? dont know, incas, a love for mountains, highest lake in the world, a new continent, a third world country wherein u can relate to its denizens, or just destiny !! It had been a while since my last trip to africa and was itching for another trip, & incas and their mysticism did it for me. So it was me and my friend raj who flew out to lima on the 15th of nov 2002.

LIMA:
when i said one of the reasons we chose a 3rd world country was to feel at home and i was not wrong !! The moment we came out of the airport there were throngs of touts rushing on us for transport, accomodation and what have u !! but i guess we instinctively knew how to navigate through them :) I generally like to travel more or less unplanned, keeps ur options open , we didnt have any plans till then so we approached a agency which chartered our itinerary, more or less.
I had been on peru chat sites and had met a few people on it who were willing to share a few tips , one of them was senorita pilar rodriguez. We called her up after we reached our hotel and she was really surprised that we would actually land there. so we met her, she showed us a few hangout places in lima. her occupation, a mushroom grower, she used to refer to them as her babies :)

CUSCO:

We did not spend much time in lima as we were adviced to run away from it asap .. We took a flight out of lima to cusco , the spectacular view of the mountains rising out of the clouds is indelible in our minds. when we entered the hotel, there were some tourists who were sipping tea, the owner offered us some, saying it would releive us of the jet lag !! on inquiry , it was the famous coca tea !! No Wonder !! ( it has 1% cocaine, btw ) It is said that messengers used to run non stop over the treacherous hills after sipping this .. and I am sure they would have beaten Pheidippides by a long run (pun intended)

Cusco is an amazing city, with its own charm , color & personality. We went to the main mall and were looking out for a joint to eat, & were surprised to see that a mojority of then were pizza joints and of course there was the ubiquitous Mc. Donalds. We wanted to taste local food but being veggies and considering that the local food would be primarily non-veg so we passed on it.

MachuPichu

What i feel of this place is ineffable !! We took a train from cuzco to machu-pichu. we were seated next to a german couple, who were talking abt the problems caused by the turkish immigrants. They were of the opinion that they dont integrate with the german society, I had two minds to tell him that assimilation is not the answer, one has to learn and accept other cultures, to learn to be a part of a pluraristic and multicultaral society, it broadens ones perspective towards life and makes it much richer.

The ride was amazing , through the andes mountains and green corn fields. On one of the stops, they were people selling corn, the germans were having a laugh saying that it was horse food back in germany, we didnt have a heart to tell them that we in india eat it just like the peruians :) The corns there were actuall quite colourful, literally, it had blue, yellow & red spots instead of all yellow. Hmmm..Classic case of gm food touching unsuspecting lives, but then thats another topic.

We stayed overnight at a small town which is on the base of the mountain. In the evening we ventured out into the city and suprise of surprises , we find an indian resturaunt !! It was being run by a bay area engineer who decided to give it all up, joined the krishna consiousness center and opened a spiritual massage center and a "krishna resturaunt". Now thats what i call globalization, a caucasion american adoping an Indian philosophy and going all the way to Peru to practice spritualism. The spritual massage was interesting, he would massage us and in the process could identify himself with each part of our body .. and if there was a problem he could feel it lament and would himself start to mourn.. He did not cry much while massaging me so I guess i was ok :)

The next day we reached the sacred lost city of machu pichu, the capital of the incas, perched high on top of a mountain, where even the spanish could not touch them. I was absolutely blown away by the pristine beauty of this place. This was the last hold out of the incas against the spanish and it was only in 1911 that a yale professor discovered it.
There were these old temples which worshipped the pagean gods. We then climbed up to wayna pichu, which is a sister mountain right next to the ruins and the view from there was even more breathtaking especially a half rainbow between two mountains. We met an american who was sitting there in a pensive mood with a notebook in his hand. We struck a conversation with him, turned out to be a poet and had taken a sabbatical to come all the way to write poetry. This place would definately ooze out artistic expressiveness out of anyone, I am sure. Of all the places I have been to, this definately takes the crown.

Puno/Titicaca
On our way to Puno , we started chatting with an australian lecturer. She was from melbourne and she had an amazing story to tell about the galapagos islands. and of course there was cricket !! I have an invitation from her to watch the boxing day test at MCG :) some day maybe ...
Next stop was lake titicaca, amazing lake. There are these man made floating islands on the lake where people actually stay. The thick roots of the marsh reeds support the top. Not sure if its unique to this lake but it's amazing when u consider how one could stay on such a precarious island.

We went for dinner with some of the tourists we met on the boat ride. (a mexican and a dutch) and then went to a club after that. My travel buddy after downing a few taquila shots , lost all inhibhitions on the dance floor. the next day, we met a british couple who remarked "You guys really had a nice time yesterday" & complimented us on our freestyle dance :)
Maybe we should take to dancing and hone our latent abilities. taked to an israili scientist, about the palestinian topic and still need to confirm the fact that the violence actually rises when the israilis withdraw, at least thats the reason he gave for not withdrawing from west bank and gaza. Israel finally did pull out , albeit partially, but things seem to be looking up, except for a few stray incidents here and there.

Nasca
We took a plane ride to get a bird's eye view of the nazca lines. The story goes that they were apparently conceived by some aliens since they could only be been from a height and the people of that era had no way of viewing it. Whatever it is, it sure was a marvelous site with all diff. kinds of facinating geometric designs. The pic below seems to one of an astronaut.

Back Home
We took a local bus back to lima, which would stop at regular intervals to pick up people. The travellers in the bus would give us quizzical looks, I geuss they were unable to figure out where we were from. We wanted to converse with and armed with an limited arsenal of a few spanish words and an english to spanish converter,
we entered the battlefield ! Most of the times they would say "si" and nodd their heads, maybe out of courtesy or maybe they really understood, at least thats what we would like us to believe.

Overall, it was an amazing trip. There is no final resting place, the more places u visit, the less u realize u know and how far one still has to go !!