Ready for Your Next Great Travel Adventure?
To help get you started, and to set the scene, below are descriptions from my books of some of the world’s most amazing destinations. These clips are to help you learn about the location, prep for your travels and drive up your excitement about a specific place.
Machu Picchu
…snow-covered tips of the Andes Mountains as we passed overhead. We descended into the clouds, below the mountains, into a valley break that allowed one to be transported back 600 years into the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru.
Now we were suddenly deep in the past, not literally, ascetically. No people were around us, only the stone bricks that once formed the walls and buildings of a thriving civilization. I struggled to function in the sharp, thin mountain air which forced me to take long deep breaths to pull in as much oxygen as I could hope for while we walked.
Adjusting my eyes…to the moody grey clouds and the verdant green of these Andean hills required a few additional minutes. I had not felt such an abrupt change in our altitude and weather…
“No one knows why the Inca abandoned Machu Picchu,” I pronounced …“The theories include war and disease, and no one knows why it was built so far away from the coast and other resources. But hidden from the colonialists it remained preserved until it could be revealed to the world.”
Walking along the weather-beaten, grassed-over streets and through the narrow passageways, we soaked in the wonder of the area’s scope and durability. Machu Picchu was built up and down many hills. Cut deep into the forest it would have been a good place to hide, it certainly knew how to hide itself. The walls may have crumbled but I felt a sensation each time that we came to a blind corner that an ancient Inca soldier, or perhaps a street sweeper would appear to tell us what they had been doing here and why they had left…
Cuzco
Leaving the ruins, we walked down the mountain towards the city of Cuzco as the tourists around us walked or rode uphill in buses. On Cuzco’s stone streets, the descendants of the lost civilization sold trinkets and bottled water, their scrubbed faces not reflected in the sun. Dressed for endless winter in durable deep forest colored sweaters with scarves and gloves with holes, shoes cut from beaten leather, held on by thick woolen socks, children and adults alike silently competed to entice buyers. The buzz that at one time was just a market town was now reduced to an excited rumble as the locals and visitors dominated the daily activities…
…in the year 1450 Machu Picchu bore little difference to that which swirled around us now. The constant press of human need for trade and commerce was not going to fade under any blanket of enlightenment thinking. In fact, it could rise, thrive and spread as more people become equipped with goods to sell. “At least we have Machu Picchu. At least in the end it could be reclaimed and made available to people to see what life could have been like when other civilizations ruled this part of the world…
– Describing Machu Picchu and Cuzco, Peru in Walking with J by Karsten Quarters
Place: República del Perú, the Republic of Peru on the Pacific Ocean side of South America
Visited: Twice
Most Recent Visit: probably early 2000s
Original sites: Manageable: unless you are a hiker, then you have the Andes Mountains to conquer
Familiarity: Medium
English usage: Rare
Surprise: If you can reach Machu Picchu when tourism is down, the impact of viewing the city in silence is extraordinary
For Rising Entrepreneurs Expanding to Global Markets: More of a struggle than other countries in South America as the expected rising middle class is still looking to rise. But as a popular tourist destination, there are opportunities in understanding the goods and services for the industry.
Country Details: U.N. Country Data Stats for Peru
Reading Recommendations (click the book cover to learn more)
Want more details about visiting Peru: contactcase(at)readyentrepreneur(dot)com
Disclosure: Book links are affiliate links to the Amazon.com bookstore meaning as an Amazon Associate Case Lane or Ready Entrepreneur may earn compensation from qualifying purchases. Advertising may support the maintenance of this website and the information you are receiving.
