Travel trivia: Who has the slogan "We do more before 9:00 am then most people do all day"? The US army does, and today felt like one of those for us. We got up at 5:20 am to get ready to stand in line to enter the park at 6:00 am. You need to be in line by 5:45 am, or be in line behind a lot of people, as the first bus arrives around 5:50. So we get in line, anxiously awaiting the opening of the park at 6, so we can hike up to the sun gate. It opens, we go. It'...

Travel Trivia: What do locals call Machu Picchu? Mucha Pictures. What do you say about Machu Picchu? It is soooo hard to capture the significance and beauty of this site in words or in pictures. So I'll be brief. First, the site is huge. Second, the architecture is mindboggling and fascinating. Third, you keep taking the same picture over and over again, because your mind simply can't grasp the beauty, so you think it's more beautiful when you move 6ft. We star...

Travel Trivia: How do you move an 80 ton rock down a mountain, across a river and up a mountain, 4 miles total, 600 years ago? The Incas did not have any beasts of burden to speak off. It's a long story, and the answer is different for going down hill vs. up hill, and if you're really interested, drop me a note and I'll tell you about it when I return. Ollantaitambo. Say that 5 times fast. It was our main destination today. Peter (Frost, see yesterday's post) ...

Travel Trivia: What is the old Inca empire's capital? Cusco, and it's what's next. The Spaniards made Lima the capital, but hey, they weren't here first. Today was another 6am wakeup to get to the airport and fly from Lima to Cusco. Relatively uneventful, and the suitcase showed no further damage (which is a first). We got into Cusco for lunch, and moved out of Cusco after lunch. We're coming back here, our destination is the Sacred Valley of the Incas. Fortun...