Nilesh's Posterous

Antigua, Guatemala

After a tiring journey by chicken bus and changing some 6 buses or so, I finally reached Antigua Guatemala. While I was travelling in the chicken buses, I met a couple of travels - the guy from Australia and the girl Brazil. We did the last part of the trip together and when we reached Antigua, we went to look for hostels together. Stayed at the Black Cat hostel and it was 'the' party hostel of Antigua. Very loud, packed with foreigners and hardly any local. I stayed there for only one night before moving to one of the numerous other hostels in Antigua.

Antigua is a very nice town. It was the colonial Spanish capital of Central America. It is a World Heritage site, and among the most visited places in Guatemala. Lots and lots of tourists, language schools, salsa schools, hotels, hostels, foreign food mixed with a good variety of traditional culture, people and way of life. It seems to be a very big destination for north Americans to come and learn Spanish or Salsa. The city is nice and small with lots of colonial architecture, ruins, historic buildings, cobblestone streets etc..

Filed under // antigua central america backpacking guatemala travel travelogue unesco site

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Sucre, Bolivia

After Potosi, I took a 3 hour bus ride and went to Sucre. Sucre is called Cuidad Blanca by the people in Bolivia, due to its abundance in white colonial buildings in the main square. It is yet another Unesco World Heritage Center that I am visiting. I think that during this trip, this is the 8th Unesco World Heritage that I am visiting.

Anyways, Sucre was not too happening. Stayed one night and left the next night to go back to LaPaz. Enjoy some pictures of the nice architecture of the city.

Filed under // bolivia south america backpacking sucre travel travelogue unesco site

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Machu Picchu, Lost City of the Incas, Peru

On the 4th day of the Inca trail, we got up very early - 3:15a.m to hike the last bit of the trail to reach to Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu means "Old Mountain" in Quechua language. It was constructed around year 1450 by the Incas and later anbandoned after the Spanish conquest. It was later found in 1911 by Hiram Bingham in 1911 and coined "The Lost City of the Incas", also the title of his first book. But according to the guide, the first person who actually found it was a Peruvian guy, but because he did not get international exposure, the Peruvian government did not recognize him as having found the site :(

We reached the Sun Gate at dawn and it was just magical to see the entire Machu Picchu site covered in cloud/fog. Machu Picchu is down in the valley and the Sun Gate is higher up in the mountain and all we could see in the valley was a white could covering the entire site. It was just magical to see the city starting to rise up amongst the clouds gradually as the clouds started to dissipate. It was so worth waking up early, wearing our rain ponchos, hiking in the wet trail to watch this great moment !!

After that we hiked down to go to the actual Machu Picchu site and our guide gave a tour of the city of Machu Picchu (or as William the guide put is so well.. a tour of his office). We learnt about the history and the different sites and architectures within Machu Picchu and then we the entire day to hike out on our own and visit the place. Some people in our group climbed up Wayna Picchu, a mountain close by, from which you could have better views of Machu Picchu. I had done enough climbing over these past days. So decided to skip on that :)

When I was a kid, I used to watch and love a cartoon called "Les Mysterieuses Cites D'or" and the theme was actually Machu Pichu and a mysterious golden city. I am glad I actually got to visit the site of the cartoon which I loved so much - ( watch a clip of the cartoon ).

My train was to leave Aguas Caliente (Machu Picchu town) at 9:45p.m. So, we could either go to the city and hang out or just hang out at Machu Picchu - I chose the later and hung out in Machu Picchu till it closed. The city is really amazing - it's so great to see that the Inca civilization was able to build such an archictectural feat in the days without any major motorized equipment. Machu Picchu also used to be a spiritual center for the Incas and thus it has lot of spirituality associated with it and good energy. It was good to roam about and just experience the magic of Machu Picchu.

Took one of the last buses from Machu Picchu to Aguas Caliente and met up with the guides for last good bye and thank you and hung out with some people from the group before taking the train/bus back to Cusco.