Holidays and absences [2]

Just done the Lares Valley trek and will be at Machu Picchu tomorrow morning! Over half way through my trip now. 5 weeks left.

If you have control of your schedule, I suggest that after Macchu Picchu you spend late afternoon into evening at Agua Calientes, at the foot of the mountain. Looks like a great hang-out town, but when we where there our schedule was too tight for anything except a couple hours for dinner.

nice Lance. That will be amazing.

seeing it on tv just cant give the true scale of it, never been and I am quite envious of anyone who has been there.

Halfy - that is where we are tonight. Very odd place... looks more like a chinese mountain town! Not much time here though... just what is left of tonight.

Figgy - hoping so. Will let you know tomorrow!!

Looking forward to hearing your impressions of Macchu Picchu! You're doing it right by having a nice rest up the night before. We'd had 5 days of hiking, and were absolutely bushed, a real shame.

Not sure how well this will work, but I always loved this picture for it's detail.

Zoom oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooout.

Spoiler:

Holy crap Blue- I had time to go to the pub and back and its still not loaded!

It's only 10000 x 9760 pixels.

that's a very impressive picture, Blue: thanks for digging it up!

I aint gonna live that long to see it loaded up

My version!

Oooer I like that Lance, You are a lucky bunny to get to see first hand so much of the world

Very nice picture, Lance! Especially since I can actually see it.

Got to see an Andean Condor too. Taken at Colca Canyon, Peru (second deepest canyon in the world!!)

Fantastic photo ! could just touch that bird

I am so envious Lance! That is a part of the world I'd love to see. Did you go to the court thing with the weird sound distortions? Cant remember which one it is though! The court where they played the ball game.

The court thingy? I am afraid I don't know what you are talking about there!! Saw the Inca Bridge... not allowed to cross it though which was rubbish!

Its at Chichen Itza apparently. They played some sort of ball game there where the idea was to not let the ball hit the ground- or you got to be the sacrifice!

It supposedly has some weird audio effects in it- as in you can stand in one place and make a noise and you can barely hear it, but someone else standing in another part of the court will hear it perfectly clearly.

Ah.... I believe that is central America. Not going near there so wont be able to experience that this time around. Maybe another time!

An old-worlder getting Mayan and Incan mixed up is worse than Yanks who think Prague is in Poland.

Hey its a long way from the pub.

Eldorion wrote:Especially since I can actually see it.

Nice pictures, Lance. I've also always been fascinated by that part of the world, so definitely interesting to get a glimpse at it through proxy.

Now, for the big question. Have you eaten guinea pig yet? Isn't that a delicacy of the Andes?

Eldorion wrote:Fair point about the required equipment. We have plenty of parks with running/jogging trails and it's fun to imagine them filled with skiers during the winter. Not that we'd have enough snow for it 99% of the time. We rely on snow machines to make downhill skiing possible in this part of the country.

Hah, that is a nice image. And not all that far away from how things are here in winter. When you get a bit out of the city about every path does turn into a cross country skiing track. It's only the slightly larger ones that are preparated though. Though they are, all winter long. And if the tracks are bad or haven't been preparated, people can get properly angry about it.

halfwise wrote:We don't have many places to do cross country skiing, less than downhill even. So doing either one takes travel effort. And it you're gonna put in travel effort, may as well go all the way with lifts and such. Or so goes the thinking of most people here I wager.

It's odd. I don't think we think about it like that really. I'd say most norwegians prefer cross country. I don't know, perhaps it's seen as a bit more proper, while downhill is just more throwaway, just for the fun of it. I guess we just don't see that effort to reward equivalency in the same way.

Bluebottle wrote:

Eldorion wrote:Especially since I can actually see it.

Nice pictures, Lance. I've also always been fascinated by that part of the world, so definitely interesting to get a glimpse at it through proxy.

Now, for the big question. Have you eaten guinea pig yet? Isn't that a delicacy of the Andes?  

I have had half a guinea pig and an alpaca steak. The first reminded me of duck, just a lot more difficult to eat. The second is like beef.

very nice pics Lance.

I wonder if Marks and Sparks does alpaca steak?