Exploring the Incan Wonderland - Part Two (Machu Picchu, Peru)

Exploring the Incan Wonderland - Part Two (Machu Picchu, Peru) - The sacred district has the foremost important and ma sites of the complicated. Walking from the Temple of the Sun towards Huayna Picchu, you arrive at the Principal Temple (PT on the map). This 3 sided temple boasts some stunning stonework (though some has subsided with earth movement) and a chic stone altar. during this same space is that the equally distinctive 3 Windowed Temple (3W) with characteristic trapezoidal-shaped windows and excellent stonework. Note the rock on the close to aspect as a part of the closest window has 10 sides, nevertheless fits neatly just like the most perfectly fashioned jigsaw.

A little any uphill and up a regally carved stone staircase is that the most exceptional part of Machu Picchu is Intihuatana (IN on the map). Nearly forever surrounded by giant teams, it's a method of ancient sundial. to point out the Incan’s deep understanding of astronomy, calendars and agricultural cycles and their precision stonework, this diamond formed rock casts no shadow solely at 2 time points throughout the year - midday on the 2 equinoxes (March twenty one and September 21) – the sun shining directly onto the rock. Even the guides who tell a similar story daily appear to be moved in describing this beautiful piece of middle age engineering. it's additionally claimed that the four points of the diamond misinform the four main compass points and are directly aligned with four of their most sacred mountains as well as Veronica to the east (photographed in an Inca path post) and Huayna Picchu to the north.

Walking to the tip of the positioning is that the entrance to the climb of Huayna Picchu (Young Mountain). it's a steep, vigorous climb up numerous rough Incan stairs and uneven dirt methods and takes between one and 2 hours (depending on your fitness). it's a well-worthwhile walk (after all, how usually can you be during this majestic location). For the trekkers, encourage those tired legs to bear an added climb. It should be undertaken within the morning (closes within the early afternoon and has daily limits on the quantity of trekkers) and is best suggested for the beginning of Day 2 for those that are visiting for 2 days (strongly suggested approach). The read from the highest offers an excellent understanding of the layout of Machu Picchu, offers an awe-inspiring overall panorama of the Andes and highlights the spectacular terracing of the agricultural sector. elements of this steep-sided mountain are terraced too.

If you aren’t yet tired of walking, a side path takes you to the impressive Temple of the Moon.

Finally, once you are down, I’d suggest you spend time wandering the general urban area (H on the map) where the standard population lived. Many of the houses are still in fine condition, though there are no roofs left as they were made of branches and grasses.

There are numerous other temples, rooms and areas to wander and get lost in this fantasy world of extraordinary stone buildings of the middle ages. Spend time relaxing in the main grassy plaza area and contemplate what a time it must have been, the hub-bub of activity in daily Incan life.

Whether you are mesmerised by the temples, the water-channelling system, the unusual stone sundials, the dry stonework of the walls, the large-scale agriculture or the phenomenal natural mountain setting, the Incan creators have left a remarkable legacy of an awe-inspiring, haunting, mysterious and magical travel wonder in this lost city.

Photo of the Week - Notre-Dame du Haut (Ronchamp, France)

Photo of the Week - Notre-Dame du Haut (Ronchamp, France) - Perched on a hill and inbuilt the mid-1950s in japanese France, this uneven chapel is one among the world's fashionable architectural travel wonders. Designed by a man named Le Corbusier, it options a wall with several irregular, completely different sized windows that provides a unprecedented lighting result particularly with the stained glass within the interior. The roof seems galvanized by a crab shell and appears to float on top of the building itself. Apparently when it rains, the water pours off this roof making a powerful natural fountain.

"Space and lightweight and order. Those are the items that men want simply the maximum amount as they have bread" - Le Corbusier

In 1633, a traveller walked into the travel wonder of Oberammergau unwittingly carrying the plague and causing the death of many of the local population in a short time. Seeking a higher power to secure itself from the Black Death, the citizens swore to God that they would re-enact the story of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection every ten years for safety from this savage disease that had obliterated other towns and communities. Oberammergau escaped the clutches of this savage disease and the well-known Passion Play began its long run.


Even as religious observance has eased in many places in modern times and medical knowledge dramatically improved, Oberammergau avoids tempting fate and continues to fulfil its pledge of almost four hundred years, completing this stunning production on the years that end in zero. Indeed, apart from a war in 1870 and World War II (where religious plays were banned), the play has been completed every decade with the next due in 2010.

As per tradition, the play is solely conducted by the people of Oberammergau with the population studiously growing their hair and beards from the previous year to have the appearance of biblical times. The stagehands, musicians, technicians and costume makers are also drawn from the local populace. Indeed, it is clear who is in the play by simply wandering around town as the hair styles look like a flashback to the sixties and seventies.

The staging is an epic affair with the play running for five hours with a generous interval for dinner over a season of five months. It is conducted in the superb open-air Passion Theatre (audience is under cover) with a dramatic backdrop of the Bavarian Alps. One notable element of the play are the tableaux vivants that see significant biblical scenes frozen like a photograph with the actors remaining motionless on stage while a description of the setting takes place.



To support the popularity of the play with people travelling from all over the world to view it, nearly every house is converted into some form of accommodation and hotels for miles around are packed for months. I stayed with a family whose father and son were both performers, the father assisted in painting the backdrops while the mother helped sew the outfits. The friendly family only provided accommodation during the play though there was no sense of what must have been relief in getting the privacy of their own house back on the completion of the play’s season. Town life also continues with businesses and schools operating as normal adopting schedules to fit around the play’s afternoon start.

Located in southern Germany only a short distance from Germany’s highest peak, the town is a picture postcard of half-timbered houses with flower boxes bursting in colourful bloom and glittering churches, ornately decorated in gold. Many of the houses are adorned in detailed frescoes called lüftlmalerei, covering both religious and non-religious themes. While the most celebrated example is the Pilatushaus, two stunning secular examples are found in Ettalerstrasse. The familiar Hansel and Gretel and Red Riding Hood stories are told in wonderful detail across the front of two houses as if reading giant comic books.

Several shops highlight the thriving woodcarving industry. Exquisite, detailed hand-carved figurines, bowls, plates and toys sit alongside machine-made commercial offerings meeting every conceivable price point. Woodchips lie on the floor as the owners patiently chip away at their latest creation. If you have a favourite saint or biblical character, it is inconceivable that your desires could not be satisfied among the huge religious collections.

In many ways, Oberammergau is a typical modest and picturesque German village. With its alpine setting and verdant surrounds, it oozes a timeless charm. More importantly, a town made a solemn vow and continues to hold its promise very dearly in eternal gratitude for the saving of their ancestors.

Other Germany Posts
Bacon Beer and Bishops (Bamberg)
The World's Largest Advent Calendar (Gengenbach)

Note
Passion Play photos courtesy of Passion Play, Oberammergau. Tickets for 2010 are available now.

To establish European thinking and religious beliefs with the indigenous Indian population three hundred years ago, the Spanish built a modest mud-brick and wooden church on the site of an old Incan temple in a small village about forty kilometres south of Cusco. Arriving late in the afternoon in dull light, the church certainly didn’t inspire any wonder, and I wished I’d stayed on the bus to Cusco. However the temptation was too great with descriptions likening this colonial church to the Sistine Chapel.

To open the doors is to unveil a dazzling array of wall paintings and frescoes contrasted by a richly glowing gilded altarpiece carved from wood. The artwork, rich in red and gold paint, tell powerful religious stories. One graphic painting highlights the punishments for going to hell and the rewards for getting to heaven. The ceiling is decorated in floral patterns and glitters with gold leaf.

Near the entrance is a baptismal prayer written in five languages including three local Indian languages revealing the Spaniards attempts to convert the population to Catholicism.

While lofty monikers like “the Sistine Chapel of the Americas” are a gross exaggeration, the modest travel wonder of Andahuaylillas is on the road between Lake Titicaca and Cusco and worth a brief stop.

Other Peru Posts
Pathways to the Gods (Nazca Lines)
Raiders of the Lost Tombs (Chauchilla Tombs)
Exploring the Incan Wonderland (Machu Picchu)
Trekking to the Lost City (Inca Trail)
Potatoes with your Guinea Pig, Sir?
Flight of the Condor (Colca Canyon)
Living in Reeds (Lake Titicaca)
Top Ten Travel Wonders of South America

Photo Credit: Fresco image kindly supplied by Ken at randomtruth

Nazca would remain off the map of all but the most intrepid travellers except for the mystifying Nazca Lines. Once in Nazca, there are two more far less known but still remarkable travel wonders to explore, namely the Nazcan aqueducts and the Chauchilla Cemetery.

Scattered across the arid lunar landscape are thousands of graves, most of which have been recently discovered and looted of pottery, weavings and other treasures leaving the skeletal remains exposed to the harsh elements. Buried in a cotton wrap and coated in a special resin, the dry conditions and sandy soil have acted as natural mummification.

Over a thousand years old, skeletons bleached by the harsh sunlight, many with matted brown dreadlocks, crouch in their tattered robes and blankets creepily grinning back from mud-brick vaults with their icy, silent glare. Shards of pottery and ceramics litter the displayed tombs.

The landscape remains pockmarked by pillagers and scattered with bones and debris, the depressions symbolic of the cultural and archaelogical vandalism (triggered by rich western collectors) that wreaked havoc on this necropolis as recently as fifteen years ago. It is an eerie feeling wandering the marked paths of this stark underworld peeking down at ghostly white skeletons, their braided hair adding a little too much life for comfort.

Though the heat and dryness of the area is unrelenting, reflect on the exceptional culture of the people who carved their lives out of the desert and left remarkable legacies and travel wonders including the wonderous Nazca Lines, a sophisticated water management system and a surreal cemetery.

Other Peru Posts
Top Ten Travel Wonders of South America
Exploring the Incan Wonderland (Machu Picchu)
Trekking to the Lost City (Inca Trail)
Potatoes with your Guinea Pig, Sir?
Flight of the Condor (Colca Canyon)
Living in Reeds (Lake Titicaca)

Ever since reading Erich von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods? as a child, I’ve been enchanted by the mysterious travel wonders of the Nazca Lines. Though, even as a child, I have never entertained the notion that this was used as an airport for alien spacecraft, the idea that a past culture etched super-sized motifs of animals, birds and sea-life into this harsh desert landscape struck me as truly bizarre.

Evidence that this ramshackle unattractive town once attracted an advanced culture is not only evident in the world-famous lines but also in a mesmerising aqueduct system that supplied water for farming the parched soils of this unforgiving desolate area.

The geography of this area ensures that the lines created a couple of thousand years ago still exist. Each line and image is created as a single continuous line, clearing the thin layer of darker metallic soil and unveiling the pale coloured sandy ground below. Completely devoid of vegetation and with virtually no recorded rainfall and unchanging windless conditions, these small furrows etched into the soil have survived the ravages of time. Hundreds of lines and trapezoidal shapes, kilometres long, crisscross this huge arid expanse, combined with roughly seventy stylized animal figures or geoglyphs, many over 100 metres across.

The only way to properly appreciate the sight is from the air. Not for those with weak stomachs, light aircraft take visitors on thirty to forty minute morning flights traversing the desert area and tipping the plane from side to side like a carnival ride to offer everyone good views of the most significant figures.

The spider has a special story. One theory is that it is a diagram of the sacred Orion constellation. Another details that it is a particular rare giant spider only found deep in the Amazon valley, many thousand of miles away. The male of this spider has its reproductive organ at the tail end of one of its legs (visible only under microscope) and this appendage is clear in photos of the Nazca image (it is the bottom left leg in the photo).

A monkey with a spiral tail, a hummingbird, a killer whale, a condor, a strange astronaut figure, a huge lizard (cut in two by the highway, built before the figures were apparent), a dog, a spider, a flamingo (which is over 300 metres long) and other animal figures litter the landscape like a whimsical zoo, no geoglyph being repeated.

With the spiral shape being an ancient symbol for water, a commodity more valuable than gold in this dusty parched environment, claims that the area represents a water ceremony for the gods may make more sense than some of the far-fetched theories espoused by supposed scientists. Whether this large Peruvian pampas was an extraterrestrial landing strip, an advanced astronomical and agricultural calendar, exotic ancient art or something completely different, we are unlikely to ever truly know. Being halfway between the capital, Lima, and the stunning colonial city of Arequipa, it is well worth a stop to view and wonder about these unforgettable desert markings, along with the ingenious aqueduct system and ancient burial grounds in the same area.

Other Peru Posts
Potatoes with your Guinea Pig, Sir?
Exploring the Incan Wonderland (Machu Picchu)
Trekking to the Lost City (Inca Trail)
Flight of the Condor (Colca Canyon)
Living in Reeds (Lake Titicaca)
Top Ten Travel Wonders of South America

If you have travelled around Europe for more than a couple of weeks, you become very accustomed to the expression "ABC" or another bloody cathedral/church. Every major city, town or small village is adorned with a church perched on prime real estate which is hundreds of years old rich in history, art and religious symbolism. They are remarkable architectural achievements (such as in the photo below of St Stephens in Vienna) that stand in testimony to the significance religion has played throughout the ages.

The first couple you see are uplifting experiences, wandering around for hours in silent reverence, soaking in each small chapel, fresco, icon and grave. Photos are joyously snapped of each element of the cathedral.

In the next couple, the pace quickens and only the more remarkable elements of the cathedrals are cause for a considered pause and a photo. After a couple more, though no less spectacular or significant, you start to steer well clear and develop a nauseous uncomfortable fear that you'll be sucked inside and start screaming "let me out, it's another ABC". After a few days, the churches all blur into a fog with only the most remarkable elements even surviving your short term memory.

Helsinki's cathedral is entirely different. This travel wonder doesn't even look like a cathedral. Indeed, at first sight, it looks more like a nuclear fallout shelter than a haven for spiritual enlightenment or private reflection. The entrance is little more than a dark concrete tunnel. What you see when you get inside is certainly a surprise.

Built only forty years ago, the stunning Temppeliaukio Cathedral (in the unusually named Töölö) is gouged out of the suburban bedrock with the walls being simply the unfinished rough rock walls. The cathedral is bathed in natural light which streams through a string of windows that sit between the rock walls and the polished copper ceiling. A large copper pipe organ matches the gleaming ceiling with the rocky exterior making for a blissful acoustic setting.

Its unusual design and stunning architectural use of natural light and rock means that Temppeliaukio Cathedral is remembered well after many other cathedrals have faded from memory. If touring the travel wonders of Finland, this striking cathedral must be on your agenda. It is anything but another bloody cathedral.

Helsinki Vacations

As Christianity spread throughout the Scandinavian countries from the tenth century, numerous churches were built - many from wood (called stave churches) as it was the most readily available building material. Only around 30 of these superb stave churches survive including the one pictured above built around 1150 in the small village of Borgund surrounded by verdant pastures at the end of Norway's largest fjord, Sognefjord. Remarkably, the exterior of this church remains virtually unchanged for the last 850 years - a monument to the architectural and construction skills of these medieval people.

Fifty-nine huge sandstone boulders in the shape of a large ship stand proudly in a grassy green headland that pokes into the chilly waters of the Baltic Sea in the southern-most part of Sweden. Scientists are undecided as to the real purpose or timing of these rocks but the most popular theories suggest a construction date of around 500 – 600 A.D. just before the start of the Viking period. Some claim it is a burial monument (though no evidence of bodies have been found) while others claim it is an astronomical clock. As for a number of monuments around the world from such early times, this one highlights the remarkable affiliation and comprehension that older civilisations had with the cosmos as the stones aligns with the summer and winter solstices. Mid-summer dawn is highlighted by the sun streaming directly over the largest stone in the ship.

Ales Stenar (Ale’s Stones) is in the tiny fishing village of Kåseberga (population around 100), a scenic and comfortable bike ride over flat farmland of around 18 kilometres through flat farmland from the historic town of Ystad (bike hire is easy from Ystad). The medieval Ystad is probably best known as the home town of Henning Mankell’s fictional police detective, Kurt Wallander and boasts a lively town square and beautifully preserved houses, churches and buildings.

Almost 70 metres (220 feet) in length, the height of a person and 20 metres (65 feet) across, in true Scandinavian spirit this unusual travel wonder is open for all to see – no fences, no entry charges, no souvenir stands and no tacky trinkets. Reassuringly, there was no graffiti on any of the stones. Probably horrifying to local archaeologists, children climb on the rocks for that ultimate family photo while cattle graze contentedly on the rich pastures.

Near to Ales Stenar in the small harbour area overlooking a pebbly shoreline is the irresistible offerings of the local smokehouse and fish-shop. It is difficult to imagine anything more relaxing than feeding on super-fresh fish or sampling the traditional flavours of smoked mackerel, salmon or pickled herring while watching the impossibly long summer days meander into the evening. They even sold knäckebröd, a kind of crisp rye bread which was supposedly eaten by the Vikings, as it stayed edible for the length of their voyages. A chilled beer would have been perfect but there was sadly none to be found (though probably a good thing from the viewpoint of the 18 kilometre return ride!).

Whether fascinated by the capabilities of ancient civilisations to construct complex calendars or host ornate burials or you’d simply enjoy a pleasant afternoon eating and drinking to the sounds and smells of the Swedish foreshore, Ales Stenar is a worthwhile diversion in travelling southern Sweden.

Ystad Vacations

Once the central shrine to the hippie and flower-power children of the sixties, Durbar Square in the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu remains an evocative travel wonder. With an astonishing collection of over fifty immaculately carved, quasi-Oriental wooden buildings strung across three loosely connected squares, Durbar Square throngs with worshippers, workers and tourists.

Durbar Square is a place for soaking up time, watching people, chilling out and absorbing the sights, sounds and smells of this area which once fronted the royal palace.

Women sell vegetables, fabrics and supplies neatly presented on old sheets spread on the ground in front of five hundred year old temples. Old men with leathery creased faces focus on a card game in the shade of another ancient temple. Rattly rickshaws rumble across the neighbouring streets while hawkers accost tourists with their varied collection of curios and handicrafts. The sweet aroma of spices and incense waft through the narrow alleys. Travellers, probably in preparation of a trek into the towering Himalaya, snap photos and wander aimlessly among the historic structures. A sprinkling of sadhus with their painted faces and brightly coloured robes present a strange mixture of religious spirituality and fund-raising enterprise encouraging photography for a heavily bartered fee.

The triple-roofed Maju Deval temple is a popular meeting point and sits across from the Kumari Bahal, which houses the Royal Kumari. This young girl is a living goddess and stays in her house except when she is paraded a couple of times per year on religious or ceremonial occasions to bless the people. She remains in this role until the onset of puberty with her first period which marks her return as a normal human and a new candidate is ritualistically selected.

The carvings on the various temples are extraordinarily ornate. Firstly they appear to be in a neat pattern but closer inspection shows each tiny face is carved with their own unique expression and character.

More striking is seeing the carvings on the pillars for the multi-layered roofs. Explicit carvings of sexual activities decorate the roofline. More startling is the intermix of men, women and animals in just about all imaginable (and several unimagined) combinations and sexual positions that adorn these historic buildings in all their technicolour glory. While clearly espousing tantric principles, a number of these depictions challenge any balanced thinking and are probably illegal. It seems bizarre that such extreme erotic imagery decorates these religious buildings in a region of such conservative sexual values.

Meander the streets and alleyways around the main square, enjoy the intricate carved wooden temples and palaces and take your time to let life unveil in all its Nepalese glory in this timeless history-rich travel wonder.

Kathmandu Vacations