Day Off
I took one today. First time since I was sick in Mexico City. I didn’t do anything. I have decided to head north from Lima on the 15th to Cajamarca. It is described as a place that is like Cusco before tourism hit. I love Cusco so Cajamarca sounds nice. It is up in the mountains like Cusco and has a number of Inca ruins as well as colonial churches. It is famous for its Carnaval celebrations which I have learned are rare in Peru. I am staying at a hot spring resort where you can enjoy the thermal waters outdoors and the same water is piped into your room. I should be there for a week for R&R. I will bus it from there to Trujillo on the coast which is famous for Chan Chan a pre-Inca wonder. I then plan to go to Nazca to see the famous lines/drawings in the desert. When I was a kid, I read a lot about UFOs including Chariots of the Gods which deduced that the Nazca Lines were an airport for little green men. My research led me to determine that there are a lot of crazy humans with hair-brain ideas and the Nazca Lines are all about humans and not ETs. Researchers believe they are a reflection of the astronomical calendar. If you are not familiar with them, they are carved into the desert floor and the shapes (spider, monkey, etc) must be viewed from the air to see them. I will then go to Arequipa, another colonial city. From there, back to Cusco to go to Manu National Park in the Amazon – finally into the jungle! A train from Cusco will take me to Puno and Lake Titicaca which I will explore before heading into Bolivia. I’m finally taking time to see a country the right way – slowly – and I am really happy to have chosen Peru. Peru seems like the most complex country given that it has coast, desert, Andes and jungle as well as modern and ancient locations and peoples to go along with each. I am going to miss Patagonia due to the end of summer and I will probably only see Santiago area for Chile, but that certainly gives me good reason to come back someday in the future. Will probably get to Argentina in April. I plan to spend a month in the monstrous and complex nation of Brazil in May. At that point things are murky. I was going to go to Jamaica and Puerto Rico, but I am leaning towards postponing them to a future date and instead go back to Colombia and possibly Mexico.
After a break in June/July/August, I will head towards Africa with the only current ideas floating about are meeting my sister and niece in Spain and Morocco in September and doing a kayak trip in Madagascar in November. I only get headaches imagining how I string those together with West and North Africa as well as Ethiopia and other places in Africa so I won’t get ahead of myself at this time and keep enjoying Latin America…
Tags: peru, south america, Travel
vagabondrick
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