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Yesterday I visited the Sacred Valley of the Incas and one of the more spectacular ruins at Ollentambayo. Those crazy Incas (the term actually translates to Emperor), they built these huge crazy terraces with a temple up the side of the crazy-steep Andean mountains at the junction of 3 valleys, using all massive stones they carved and dragged from several miles away. This was one of the few sites of Inca victory against the Conquistadors (after which the Inca were defeated in round 2). The 15th Century stone work is unparralleled in any civilization as they shaped and sanded all stones to fit tonge and groove style with perfectly formed notches and most structures that were not destroyed by the Spanish have withstood countless earthquakes over the last 500 years. In Cusco city, many of the Spanish colonial buildings were built upon the Incan foundations and while many of the colonial building have fallen, the original foundations remain. The precision of this ! is mind boggling. The Inca civilization also built many ultra precise annual calendars where a shadow is cast perfectly exactly at noon on the days of the summer and winter solstices. How they figures out all this is way beyond me and even more amazing when one considers they may have had to wait up to a year or more to verify their calculations were correct…

On Saturday (12/20/03), I went to the town of Aguas Calientes (hot springs), the final depature point for Macchhu Piccu. After finding the famed hot springs closef for renovations and the skies finally starting to pour rain (after 3 days of sun), the 2 crazy Dutch guys I was travelling with decided to have an early dinner, watch a pirated movie and to call it an early night.

On Sunday (12/21/03), we caught the first bus at around 6:30, which arrived at the top of the very windy, steep and dramatic road around 7AM, at which time we got our passports stamped (yes I am a tourist) and then we made our way into the ruins. We quickly walked up to the top by the “hut of the funerary caretaker” - a place where it was believed the deceased Incan rulers were mummified for burials - ready for the most spectacular views, only to find the mist and fog and rain obscuring much of it. Still I got some okay photos under the umbrella and every few minutes with minor parts in the clouds and mists. The ancient city has been somewhat restored from “cloud-forrest” jungle overgrowth (the restorations are a minor controversary among archelogoists as the minute accurracy is a subject for debate) and the walls, terraces and temples were mostly intact thanks in large part to the stone craftsmanship of the Inca people.

“Hola Amigo: Where you from?” “What your name?” - The 2 guaranteed questions of EVERY Peruvian in the backpacker section of Cusco, Peru. These fu#*ers as some slick and slimy salesmen (they remind me of some scums I know)…

So, I arrived in the Peruvian capitol of Lima on Tuesday for a crazy night of carousing with some Irish guy I met. We went to some tourist strip that was lined with bars, clubs, pizza restaurants, drug salesmen, hookers, transvestites, robbers, riot-gear-clad soldiers with M16s & vests, tourists and general shady characters. That seemed like the perfect place to cause some trouble. Several litres of beer, a few cocktails and a few close calls with said shadyness and we made it unscathed to the hostel.

Yesterday was a long day of flights after only 2 hours of sleep. Had a shitty bbq meal in Houston airport. Got into Quito around 11PM and it was cold and raining. Found a taxi service that helped me make reservations at Marsellas Hostal, which was a bit between Old and New Town of Quito (it turns out new was preferrable). I found an OK room with bathroom, but a bit run down for $5 a night. When I got in I had a beer in the hostel, then got a massive altitude headache (like a vice squeezing your head) so I went to bed around 12 or 1. The room was cold and loud, so I did not sleep so well and still was not fully adjusted to the altitude or East Coast time zone.

So I made it to South America with a first stop in Quito (for those geographically challenged Ecuador is North of?Peru and West of Columbia)?only to enter a rain strorm and a cold first night. Today it is fairly warm (70 or so) with partial sun. The air at 9000 feet is crazy thin. I walked up about 5 flights of stairs to get a view of the city and was literally winded for 45 minutes (despite having had to have made several trips up 28 flights when my building elevators were out 2 weeks ago - due to a second fucking flooding).

Things are closed here on Sunday but hopefully I will be able to find a way to Cuzco, Peru?(Macchu Piccu) on Tuesday or Wednesday, then will work my way back up for the next month. Maybe I can find some nice chicas to spend some time with before then…

hasta lluego,

~Vagabum Mike

I recall back on one of my earlier travels to a museum in Singapore, having come across a somewhat archaic occupation used to describe an explorer ? typically a 19th or early 20th century individual ? who apparently travels nearly full time for fun. At the time I found it both interesting and amusing that when there was some seemingly historically important person mentioned as an Adventurer this seemed to typically be their main or only occupation, so they were somehow blessed with mysterious funds by which to support their habit. This brought on connotations of a playboy, rogue lifestyle which I found both appealing and worthy of something to aspire to in my own existence.