The Cathedral, the Church of La Compañía, El Trifuno Church, and many restaurants and shops face the plaza – and now a McDonalds and Starbucks. Though the Spanish architectural grandeur of the plaza is evident – and commercialization is increasingly pervasive – delve a bit deeper and you’ll find plenty of well-preserved hints at the former glory of the Inca Empire. Perhaps nowhere else is a theme of conquest spelled out in architecture; a Cusco city tour is a history lesson written in masterful stonework rather than books. While Spanish influence prevails in Cusco, the city’s Inca heritage is what keeps visitors enthralled.

The Cusco Cathedral is a good place to start your Cusco city tour. Built in 1539, the cathedral was expanded over the next century using stone from the nearby Inca fortress of Sacsayhuamán. It’s architectural style is Gothic-Renaissance, with Baroque embellishments, wooden altars, and gilded interiors. Look closely on the Cathedral door to see a jaguar carved in relief – a token of the Inca religion’s persistence into Catholicism. Inside, there is an impressive collection of artwork from the Escuela Cuzqueña, or Cuzco School of Art, a distinctive style of religious art from the early colonial period, when the Spanish sought to convert the locals through visual Bible stories. The most famous painting is that of the Last Supper con cuy – with a guinea pig as the main entree. Also look for the Maria Angola bell in the right bell tower, and the Black Christ, a crucifix that gets toted around each year during the Lord of Miracles celebration.

Also facing the Plaza is the Iglesia de la Compañía, a Jesuit church that was built over the ruins of another Inca palace. It’s baroque facade is so ornate that it often gets confused for the main Cathedral. The original church was built contemporaneous with the cathedral, but was destroyed in the 1650 earthquake. The building that stands today was built in 1668. The interior is dominated by an altar gilded in gold leaf, and there is also a collection of Cusquena artwork.

Just a few blocks past the Iglesia de la Compañía down Avenida El Sol is Qoricancha, the Inca Temple of the Sun, which the Spanish Convent of Santo Domingo was built upon. This temple was the Inca’s crown jewel; dedicated to Inti, the Sun God, Qoricancha was gilded in solid gold, adorned with golden statues, silverwork, jewels, and artwork that has become the stuff of legends. Much of it was stripped and taken to Cajamarca, where the Inca emperor Atahuallpa was being held for ransom by the Spanish. A legendary sun disk, which becomes the object of fixation for Hollywood in The Secret of the Incas, is said to have been spared. Dominicans leveled much of the temple to make room for their convent. Some of the original Inca walls remain, and the rounded wall facing the Jardin Sagrado is one of the most elegant examples of Inca stonework. Check out the museum underneath the garden; entrance on Avenida El Sol.

Art-lovers and history buffs should also check out Iglesia La Merced, located one block away from the Plaza de Armas. Inside this church is a collection of impressive art, including one painting of the Holy Family attributed to Rubens, and a golden communion cup encrusted with diamonds and pearls.

After you’ve tuckered yourself out on religious art and extravagant Spanish churches, head to the fine museums that delve into Cusco’s incredible historical legacies. The Museo Inka, to the left of the Cathedral, is the best choice for students of Incan history. Housed in a 16th century mansion (also built over Inca ruins), this museum (rebuilt after the 1950 earthquake) has a wide collection of Inca pottery, textiles, metal work, jewellery, elongated skulls, and mummies that give insight into Inca beliefs and customs. The collection of artifacts covers Incas throughout the empire, including those of the Lake Titicaca and Puno area. There is also a selection of photographs of Machu Picchu from when it was first encountered by the archeologist Hiram Bingham.

Another fine museum is the Museo de Arte Precolombino, also built in a colonial mansion. It features a rich collection of artifacts from pre-Inca cultures such as the Nazca, Moche, Chimu, and Paracas.

Also worthy of note is the Casa Concha Museum, which now houses several hundred artifacts retrieved from Machu Picchu by Hiram Bingham in 1911. Bingham pilfered the artifacts and loaned them to Yale University, where they remained for 100 years. After decades of talks and formal suit filed against the Ivy League college in 2008, Yale recently returned the artifacts, which include thousands of pieces of pottery, jewels, and mummies. According to a letter in 1916 addressed to the National Geographic Society, which backed Bingham’s expedition to Machu Picchu, the artifacts were supposed to be on loan for 18 months.

12-Angled Stone. Don’t miss the famous 12-cornered stone on Hatun Rumiyoc street on the way to the San Blas district, to the right of the Cathedral. The street is made up of giant stone-cut walls that border the Palace of the Archbishop. The walls once lined Inca Roca, the palace of the 6th Incan ruler. The 12-cornered stone fits snugly amidst the other blocks, and it is perhaps the best example of Inca stonework that you can see up-close. (see the hidden animal shapes in this stunning building)

Many Cusco tours include trips to see Sacsayhuaman, Tambo Machay, Qenko, and other Inca ruins in the outskirts of the city. If you have an afternoon to spare, these sites are a must; they afford excellent views of Cusco from above, give you a chance to stretch your legs and get out of the city, and of course, are indispensable to Cusco’s history. You might also want to consider taking a horseback ride or mountain bike ride around the area to make this archeological lesson more of an adventure.

Sacsayhuaman. It was once a magnificent Inca stronghold that overlooks Cusco from the foothills. It too was razed by the Spanish, although many of its massive stones – some more than 8.5 meters (27 feet) – remain as imposing as it must have in the 16th century. Some stones weigh in at 300 tons, and according to a 16th century historian, over 20,000 men were involved in construction. The site is famous for being Manco Capac’s last stand against the Spanish in 1536. This is also the site of the colorful Inti Raymi festival held each year in June.

The seat of the Inca Empire, Cusco is more than just a rest stop on the way to Machu Picchu. It’s the centerpiece of Inca history, and an in-depth look at its historical monuments tells tale of a centuries-long rivalry between deep-rooted Inca culture and strong-handed Spanish colonial influence.

Source: enperublog.com

In the 1954 film Secret of the Incas (watch) starring Charlton Heston, Heston takes co-star Nicole Maurey to visit a museum in Cusco before heading to Machu Picchu. The movie was filmed on location, giving an excellent perspective on Cusco as it was in the 1950s. While the Cathedral’s bells toll, a few trucks, farmers, and passerby make their way along the adobe-lined streets of this Cusco of fifty years past. Much has changed in the city that once was called “the Navel of the Universe” by the Incas, but those on a Peru tour can still see remnants of a bygone era while on an in-depth Cusco city tour.

If you travel to Cusco by plane, you’ll find the Cusco airport, located on the sparse outskirts of the city, is still as small as it was when Heston graced its presence. The airport’s terra cotta tile roof fends off the penetrating highland sun rays, and dust kicks up and blows through the valley surrounded by rounded foothills. A few cars wait in the parking lot to take visitors to their hotels, but crowds are few. The sense of tranquilo, of sustained calm in contrast to the busyness of Lima’s urban sprawl, is dominant. The sky stretches over the sun-lit valley, and it seems no wonder why the Incas were worshippers of the Inti, the sun god.

Take a 10-minute drive down Avenida El Sol into the city, where you can check in to your Cusco hotel. There are plenty of hotels and hostels within walking distance of the Plaza de Armas, or main plaza, which is where you’ll find all the main action and the best views. The neighborhoods of San Blas and Resbalosa are located on the hillside, within walking distance of the Plaza, and hotels here are worth the walk for the incredible views overlooking the city. Take it easy for the first few hours in Cusco; the city is 3399 meters (11,152 feet) above sea level. If you’re worried about soroche, or altitude sickness, you can always bypass Cusco and camp out in the Sacred Valley, which lies at a slightly lower altitude.

Start off your Cusco city tour with a visit to the Plaza de Armas, or main square. You might see some niños selling gorros (hand-knit beanies), finger puppets in the shape of llamas, and other trinkets. Stroll the perimeter of the plaza as you reflect on the historic events this plaza has seen: the Spanish conquistador, Francisco Pizarro, claimed this town for himself in 1532; an earthquake devastated the Church of La Compañía and many other buildings in 1650; the upstart Tupac Amaru II was killed here in 1780; and it is here that the annual Lord of the Miracles procession – a celebration of the Cathedral’s survival of the 1650 earthquake – takes place.

Source: enperublog.com

By Scott Tharler. Our travel technology columnist Scott Tharler just returned from the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where he tested dozens of new products to uncover the year’s best new travel gadgets. Among his favorites were several international finds from Sweden, Japan, and Singapore. Whether providing in-flight entertainment, juice for your cell phone, or assistance navigating new places, these forward-thinking devices are sure to enhance your travels this year.

1. GrooveShark Bluetooth Car Kit – What It Is: Bluetooth car radio player ($119.99).

Why You Need It: Using this device and your Android phone, you can make hands-free calls, stream any of 15 million GrooveShark Radio songs to your car’s radio, share music with friends, and build music libraries. Along the way, it will charge your smartphone (or other device) as it plays.

Buy It: Visit GrooveShark Bluetooth Car Kit.

2. Solowheel – What It Is: A gyro-stabilized electric unicycle ($1,795).

Why You Need It: Advertised as the “smallest, greenest, most convenient” people mover ever, the Solowheel is much less expensive and—at just 26 pounds—more compact than a Segway, yet similarly provides 15 to 20 miles of self-balancing electric riding at up to 10 mph. Other than the green and convenience factors, it’s just a really fun way to get around!

Buy It: Visit Solowheel for more information.

3. RelayRides – What It Is: A peer-to-peer car borrowing-and-lending site, powered by OnStar (rates as low as $5 an hour).

Why You Need It: The premise of this newly launched service is genius: use an app to locate a participating car in your area, unlock it with your phone, and drive it away—for hours, days, or as long you need it. The program comes with a million dollar insurance policy to cover damages, so the car owners—folks just like you—are protected. Even better, for travelers in places where RelayRides becomes popular, it will be a lot cheaper than renting a car.

Buy It: Visit RelayRides.

4. Recon Instruments MOD Live – What It Is: Alpine goggles outfitted with a HD display that shows real-time data and images ($399).

Why You Need It: From the safety of the lift, lodge, or side of the trail, you can use the handy in-goggle heads-up display as a virtual dashboard to text friends, navigate the mountain via GPS, track your real-time skiing/riding stats (like the altitude of you last jump), manage your music playlist, and line up camera shots—all without removing your goggles.

Buy It: Visit Recon Instruments MOD Live.

5. PowerTrekk – What It Is: A water-powered portable fuel cell charger ($240).

Why You Need It: This new product from Sweden allows hikers, bikers, campers, and other outdoor enthusiasts to get instant power to charge their cell phones and other devices, just by mixing just a tiny bit of fresh or salt water with a special PowerPukk. That means not having to worry about finding an outlet or access to direct sunlight, as required by other chargers.

Buy It: Visit PowerTrekk for more information. The product will be available at REI and other outdoor retailers, beginning later this spring.

6. PlayStation Vita – What It Is: Sony’s highly anticipated gaming handheld ($249).

Why You Need It: We’ll soon wonder how restless kids ever survived road trips before the advent of Sony’s latest PlayStation. The device has fancy cameras, motion sensors, and a broadband connection. Its brilliant 5-inch display is touch-sensitive both on the screen and via the back of the device, so you can interact with games without blocking the screen. It’s great for social gaming, because you can locate, connect and play with friends—whether they’re also on Vitas or full PlayStation3 consoles. Plus, the graphics are spectacular and sure to engage even the most disinterested pre-teen.

Buy It: Visit PlayStation Vita; launches February 22.

7. SpareOne Phone – What It Is: A power-efficient, world-friendly cell phone (about $50).

Why You Need It: On just a single AA battery, this phone has a shelf life up to 15 years and offers up to 10 hours of talk time. It’s perfect for storing in the car, keeping at the winter lodge, or leaving at the summer lake house. Even better, it’s compatible with networks all over the world, so it’s great for travel. Forget roaming charges—just load the phone with local minutes once you arrive, and you’re set.

Buy It: Visit SpareOne Phone for more information. The product is expected to launch later this year.

8. TYLT Band – What It Is: A fresh take on the in-car phone charger (about $40).

Why You Need It: This bright 2-foot ribbon has good reach, but won’t get in the way, and can charge two devices at once. And although it’s quite colorful, the TYLT Band doesn’t bother with a distracting light telling you your phone is charging (your phone does that anyway.) Available for either Apple products or other smartphones, the product’s flat design prevents a tangled jumble of wires from overtaking your center console when your devices are charging.

Buy It: Visit TYLT Band for more information; the product is expected to launch in the next few months.

9. jetBook Color – What It Is: The world’s first e-reader with a color E Ink display ($499.95).

Why You Need It: Support for tons of picture and document formats, speech recognition, fluent text-to-speech capabilities and the ability to load your own content make it great for travelers. A speed reading course, vocabulary builder, interactive SAT course, various subject reference materials and wireless access to online textbooks make it great for students on-the-go. And its talking dictionaries, linguistic crosswords and foreign language grammar help will make it that much easier to communicate in other countries.

Buy It: Visit jetBook Color.

10. The Kube2 – What It Is: The world’s smallest touch screen mp3 player (about $50).

Why You Need It: This cute little one-inch cube can hold up to 8,000 songs, uses an intuitive interface without buttons and puts out some good sound. It comes with all the accessories you need to juice up, get songs loaded, and listen for up to six hours of continuous play. By the way, you may want to slap on one of the included snazzy skins to help it stand out…so you don’t lose the tiny thing!

Buy It: Visit theKube2 for more information. You can currently buy it at 7-Eleven stores in Singapore. Stateside, the product is expected to be carried soon at MicroCenter.com.

Enter our sweepstakes to win a touch-screen watch!

Another one of our favorite new gadgets, the Phosphor World Time Sport watch features a curved screen that uses the same technology as e-readers, making it easy to read the time outdoors. Its strap uses the same durable material as many phone skins. And rather than buttons, its sweat and water resistant case features touch controls. So you can swipe your way through big or small numbers for the local time, time in another zone, or a combination of two time zones and the date. For travelers, its a comfortable, useful, and stylish timepiece.

Fodors.com Travel Technology Columnist Scott Tharler is an expert in gadgets, gambling, and travel. He’s written four books, plus hundreds of mobile and wireless tips for Sony and PC World. In addition to his daily Discovery News gadget blog, you can find links to other gadget articles, social feeds and lists of his current favorite gadgets at about.me/gadgetfans.

Source: Fodors.com

by Hayley Hamilton. Filed under Silly Reasons to Celebrate, Wine & Spirits, cocktails

Pisco Sour with Pisco Porton at Bolsa

On the continued trend of every cocktail and spirit having its own day, Saturday marks Pisco Sour Day in 2012. Celebrated annually the first Saturday of February this day celebrates the Peruvian spirit Pisco, shaken or blended with lime, simple syrup and a bit of egg white to create the ideal refreshment on a hot summer day (it is summer in Peru.) Earlier this week Johnny Schuler, a.k.a. Mr. Pisco, visited Dallas to make make sure we are ready to celebrate the occasion. I had a chance to visit with Schuler at Bolsa to learn more about pisco and why he has spent the last 35 years making it the fifth white spirit of the world, “more flavorful than vodka, not as strong as tequila.”

A native Peruvian, Schuler wasn’t always a lover of pisco, preferring scotch or bourbon to the spirit of his homeland made from 8 different varietals of wine grapes. A restaurateur since a young age he had never had the wow experience with pisco, as he often just tried what was poured out of a bartenders well. In 1977 he was then asked to fill in as a last minute replacement judge for a pisco competition and began trying all types from the very small production of maybe 200 or 300 bottles per year to the large production styles. After a few sips of premium pisco his eyes opened, the wow moment happened, and a new passion was born as he smelled the aromas of chocolate, vanilla, white pepper, tropical fruit like banana and mango. He realized pisco was unlike any other spirit, made exclusively from wine grapes, with a very high alcohol content (some as high as 99% proof), and a wide variety of flavors. And, like wine, each and every bottle was different as the terroir effects these grapes just like it would in any vineyard.

After taking the time to learn everything he could about the spirit, he was determined to help others see, taste and experience why pisco was so special. Thus he adopted this role of “Mr. Pisco,” or ambassador for the spirit, traveling around Peru and the world, lecturing on the product, judging competitions, helping producers improve their product, teaching about its heritage and its importance to the Peruvian culture, but never really wanting to make it himself always just helping others. Five years ago this pro bono work earned him the Medal of Honor from the Peruvian Congress for both his work on educating the world about pisco, and upholding Peruvian culture and tradition.

Mr. Pisco, Johnny Schuler

He had never wanted to get into the pisco making business, however a Texan changed his mind, as many Texans do when we set our minds to something. A Houstonian oil-man had lived in Peru for many years and when returning home to Texas found he could not find a Pisco in the United States to fit his taste. Bill Kallop approached Schuler about making an ultra premium pisco for the U.S. market, and gave him the one thing Johnny required – free reign to make the product he wanted to. Last March the first bottles of Pisco Portón rolled out of the circa 1684 distillery in Ica, Peru. Portón is “gate” in Spanish, as pisco is the gate to happiness, pleasure and a new world; it is also representative of the gate at the opening of their distillery at Hacienda La Caravedo, the oldest distillery in the Americas.

Schuler has a hand in every portion of the business, as Master Distiller he oversees each step from riding through the vineyards they own to taste the grapes, negotiating with additional vineyard owners on the purchase of grapes, working harvest, watching over the fermentation and distillation, aging, blending and bottling. Though he has help, the end result is completely a product of his vision and taste.

Pisco Portón blends Quebranta, Albilla and Torontel grapes which are distilled using the mosto verde, or “green must” method, which is also the highest quality pisco according to Schuler. Mosto verde is an extremely expensive process because not all of the grape sugars are allowed to ferment into alcohol and thus there is less pisco in each batch, so more grapes are required for each bottle. It takes about fifteen pounds of grapes to produce one bottle of Portón.

Though often used as the spirit in cocktails, sipping the Portón neat allows the rich flavors of the spirit to shine, releasing aromas of wild flowers, chocolate, white pepper, banana and white peach. Though high in alcohol it is surprisingly smooth without the burn some high alcohol spirits can have. We tried it with a few cocktails as well including a mystery basket competition cocktail the staff at Bolsa had created with banana pudding (the basket ingredient), coconut milk and pisco – surprisingly good, as well as a traditional pisco sour.

When I asked Schuler what is the best way to enjoy pisco, he graciously noted that the best way to enjoy pisco is to sip it with friends. Pisco brings people together through conversation, camaraderie and friendship. After visiting with him and sipping his pisco I couldn’t agree more. Pisco Portón is available at Specs.

Source: sidedish.dmagazine.com

The refreshing, easy-drinking pisco sour is Peru’s national cocktail, and it even has its own holiday — Pisco Sour Day — celebrated on the first Saturday in February. (Personally, we find the frothy cocktail made with pisco liqueur, egg whites, lemons and bitters to be perfect for any day ending in “y.”) In Washington, this momentous holiday is being celebrated at the Passenger, where local resident Melanie Asher, founder of boutique spirit Macchu Pisco, is hosting a pisco sour-centric celebration and fundraiser. Ten percent of all proceeds from pisco drink sales will be donated to the Coprodeli Education Program, a nonprofit group that provides education, health care and meals to disadvantaged families in Peru. Fritz Hahn

Source: washingtonpost.com

At the shores of Lake Umayo, a small lake not 20km from Lake Titicaca, still stands the ancient funerary towers of Sillustani. Thought to be built by Aymara-speaking people called the Colla, they could show the origin of Inca architecture – a westward movement and evolution of Tiahuanaco technology. Whatever the case, the chullpas as they are known, stand out beautifully on the landscape of Puno’s bleak antiplano.

The Sillustani peninsula that extends out into Lake Umayo is a beautiful place and just 40km from the city of Puno – 20km from the much larger Lake Titicaca. In Sillustani, like most of the altiplano, the sun is blindingly bright but refuses to share any of its heat. At 4000 metres above sea level the air is chilly, the sky a perfect blue and the fluffy white clouds appear very close by. The ground is rocky in places, covered in moss in others. Grass can’t grow here. The rays of the sun reflect off the ripples in the large lake, in the middle of which is an odd looking island referred to as the table top for obvious reasons.

With just the sound of the wind and barely a person in sight, I can’t say it’s a bad location for eternal rest. The people who lived here buried their dead in towers they called chullpas. Cylindrical in shape, these would hold a mummy and various precious objects. Although this custom was also followed in a not too dissimilar way in other parts of the Andes there is no-where else where this burial technique was so prominent and with such skill effort employed to carry out. There were chambers inside the tombs, and these were built to resemble wombs. The dead were placed in the foetal position, with a single opening facing east toward the reborn rising sun.

The chullpas come in various sizes and quality of build. Some are very roughly put together with field stones just piled on top of each other, while some are still field stones but cut minimally so that they slot together well. Others are constructed with adobe cement and so are well sealed, while some are constructed of bricks cut and fitted to perfection much like those of the Incas. Yet others are clearly of Inca origin. What are we to make of this?

The Aymara peoples of today’s Titicaca region, and what is now Bolivia, have a very proud heritage as descendants of one of the Andes’ greatest civilizations. Its great capital of Tiahuanaco demonstrated their capacity for building fine brick walls. These walls consisted of blocks cut very accurately so that they would fit together almost perfectly with no need for cement. The Wari, the civilisation that bordered them to the north-west in what is today called Peru, built roughly with small stones filling the gaps between large ones. While structurally brilliant and earthquake-proof, they were not as fine at those in Tiahuanaco or those of the Incas who came much much later. This is just one of the clues, along with Inca origin myths and linguistic evidence, that the Incas had their origin somewhere in the Titicaca region and are more culturally descended from this region’s great civilisations. Inca brick work, in that case, would be progression from brick work developed in this region.

So, the majority of Chullpas here are said to be the work of the post-Tiahuanaco Aymara warrior people called the Colla – cousins of the early Incas who set out west to settle in Cusco and to found a city state that hundreds of years later turned into an empire. Are the Colla responsible for the extraordinary fine chullpas? Or did they just make the low quality versions? Are all the fine ones from the Inca imperial period? Well, though the Incas, on conquering and ruling over the area, continued with the local tradition of chullpa burials and did indeed raise their own towers, some of the finest do in fact lack the Inca’s tell-tale 3D-like brick bevelling. They do appear to be a halfway between Tiahuanaco bricks and final Inca perfection.

Dating rock is impossible, and the tombs were long since raided, so it seems this part of Andean history can only be alluded to with some pretty intense theorising.

Source: enperublog.com

Start dreaming about your next adventure in Peru in 2012 and 2013!

Peru’s diverse geography and fabled Inca history provide a dramatic backdrop for an array of adventure travel possibilities in 2012, 2013 and on… From magnificent Machu Picchu to the fragile Amazon rainforest, our Best and varied tours of Peru ensure close encounters with “must-see” archaeological sites, diverse flora and fauna, and indigenous peoples.

Our best tours of Peru also allow ample time to browse colorful markets, sample amazing meals or just relax with family or friends. All our travel packages can be personalized all according to your requests in a prívate travel package to Peru.

Fascinating 2012 / 2013 tour of Machu Picchu. Discover the legendary “Lost City” of Machu Picchu after sampling Peru’s “must see” sites in Lima, Cuzco, the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu.

Complete 2012 / 2013 Inca Trail Tour. Trek along the Inca Trail, Peru’s most popular hike. Pass through mountains, cloud forest and jungle before arriving at the Sun Gate, the entrance to Machu Picchu.

2012 / 2013 Salkantay Trail Tour. The “Other Inca Trail” is for hikers seeking the road less traveled. Trek Peru’s rugged mountains and cloud forest on this gem of an alternative to the Classic 4-day and 3-night Inca Trail.

2012 / 2013 Andes and Amazon Tour. Explore the majestic beauty of the Andes in Machu Picchu, Cuzco and the Sacred Valley. Then descend to the Amazon Basin for fantastic jungle encounters.

2012 / 2013 Taste of Peru Tour. Experience everything you’d expect from Peru and more in this in-depth tour spanning Peru’s multi-layered Inca and colonial past to its colorful present.

Choose from one of our carefully crafted best tours of Peru or contact one of our adventure travel experts to customize your family or friend adventure in 2012.

El camino de los Incas es una las experiencias mas inolvidables. Durante ésta expedición a pie de 4 dias y 3 noches estamos en contacto único con la naturaleza. Pasamos por diversas zonas geográficas de mas de 4000 metros de altura e impresionantes valles andinos. A lo largo de la caminata por el majestuoso sendero del Camino Inca visitaremos los grupos arqueológicos de Runkuracay, Sayacmarca, Phuyupatamarca, Wiñayhuayna y el famoso parque arqueológico de Machupicchu.

Luego de la visita a Machu Picchu podremos disfrutar de las aguas termo medicinales de Aguas Calientes para finalmente retornar a la ciudad del Cuzco en tren turístico (servicio expedition). Opcionalmente podremos pernoctar una noche en el poblado de Aguas Calientes.

Contacta a nuestros expertos en viajes y empieza a soñar con tu aventura 2012 ó 2013 por el gran tour del Camino Inca a Machu Picchu.

Itinerario Detallado del Camino Inca de 4 días y 3 noches

DIA 01 del Camino Inca: CUZCO – CHILCA – KM-82 – Huayllabamba

Recojo del hotel, transporte al km-82, contacto con nuestros porteadores, inicio de la caminata; jornada de 5 a 6 horas; visita al grupo arqueológico de Patallacta, campamento en Huayllabamba. Almuerzo, cena y camping.

DIA 02 del Camino Inca: Huayllabamba – Pacaymayu

Desayuno muy temprano para sobreponernos al abra de Warmihuañusca de 4050 metros de altura, luego descender al valle de Pacaymayu, 6 a 7 horas de caminata.

DIA 03 del Camino Inca: Pacaymayu – Wiñayhuayna

Muy temprano damos inicio a la caminata; es una zona de construcción inka, original, visitamos los grupos arqueológicos de Runcurakay, Sayacmarca, Conchamarca, Puyupatamarca y finalizando con la visita de Wiñayhuayna; 6 a 7 horas de caminata, desayuno, almuerzo, cena y campamento.

desayuno, almuerzo, cena y campamento. Vista panorámica de impresionantes nevados de la región.

DIA 04 del Camino Inca: Wiñayhuayna – Machupicchu

Partimos muy temprano para luego de 2 horas de caminata llegar a Intipunku, lugar de donde podremos contemplar el parque arqueológico de MACHUPICCHU;

Visitando los lugares más importantes del conjunto; retorno a la ciudad del Cuzco, desayuno y almuerzo, posibilidad de pernoctar una noche en el pueblo de Aguas Calientes. Posibilidad de subir a Waynapicchu. (Por cuenta del pasajero)

La aventura del Camino Inca INCLUYE: Transporte turístico al km-82, Guía en inglés y/o español, Cocinero, Porteadores para el transporte de alimentos y equipos de camping, Boletos de ingreso a camino inca y Machupicchu, Alimentación durante la caminata: desde el 1er almuerzo hasta el desayuno del 4to día, Carpas triples para dos personas, Colchonetas, Equipo de Cocina, Carpa comedor y cocina, Equipo de primeros auxilios y oxigeno, Tren de retorno de Aguas Calientes a Cusco.

La aventura del Camino Inca NO INCLUYE: Boletos de bus de bajada, Alimentos el 4to día, Bolsa de dormir.

Contacta a nuestros expertos en viajes y empieza a soñar con tu aventura 2012 ó 2013 por el gran tour del Camino Inca a Machu Picchu.

Just a couple of years ago, headlines were about the demise of the travel agent, about to go the way of the Dodo and the dinosaur. Guess what? Travel agents are not only still here, they are experiencing a rebound – despite (or because of?) the myriad travel tools available online.

So why should you use a travel agent?

There are many, many good reasons, which I will explain. But the bottom line is that they know more than you do, they are better connected than you, they have access to benefits you can’t get otherwise, they can often beat any other prices available (even online, yes), and after you have planned everything, they provide a safety net during your trip that you simply won’t get by booking yourself or buying insurance. Having a top travel agent can also make you an instant VIP – free room upgrades, hard to get restaurant reservations, cutting lines, access to otherwise closed stores and exhibits, private guides, and cheaper – often much cheaper – premium airfares. Here’s the best part: even though most top agents charge fees, in almost every firsthand experience I or my friends, family, and acquaintances have had, travel agents have saved money, often a lot of money, thousands of dollars, and in every case, more than paid for themselves.

To be frank, not everyone taking a trip needs a travel agent. The benefits they offer increase as your travel becomes more luxurious, expensive, and specialized. Need a cheap flight to Florida to visit family and a night at a 3-star airport hotel en route? By all means let your fingers do the walking. Need a bargain-priced, all-inclusive ski vacation or Vegas weekend? You can easily find that online. Need a cheap cruise on a mass market ship? Yes, you can book that yourself. But I’ve already written at length here at Forbes about why if you are taking any higher end cruise you would be foolish – I mean making a really big mistake – not to use a top cruise agent. The same goes for plenty of other travel: If you are staying at 4 and 5-star hotels, flying in the premium cabin (or private aviation), planning complicated itineraries with multiple stops, planning complex airline routings, or taking any trip using guides/drivers or local experts, any trip that VIP access would make better, any trip to a destination where you do not already know all the best places to eat and best things to see and do, or any cultural travel, from safaris to ancient ruins, you need a travel agent. In fact, in any of these scenarios, if you don’t use a travel agent you are and likely making a costly mistake, no matter how much you think you know. I travel for a living and write on travel for a living and I still use travel agents.

To be clear, I am talking about true experts, the really good travel agents who add value, not the ones running full page ads of deals in the Sunday papers. The best travel agents are essentially consultants, and many prefer “travel advisor,” because it is their advice, expertise, and connections that are of great value, not the ability to print airline tickets for you. A few have become hyper-specialized, and in some cases, like booking a cruise, golf vacation, space travel, or a very specialized theme trip like art, music or polar exploration, you will want to seek out a niche specialist. But for most travelers, it is better to find an excellent generalist travel advisor and stick with them, because a big part of the equation is that they get to know you and your wants, likes and dislikes, and make suggestions accordingly. You would not use a different financial advisor every time you opened a new bank or brokerage account, so why keep switching travel agents? “Once we get to know each other, the time I save them is invaluable to them. If I can get the client to ‘let go/give in/trust in me!’ once, then they become clients for life,” said Leigh Sullivan, a highly acclaimed luxury travel expert with Regency Travel in Memphis, TN. If you choose right, you won’t lose any expertise in the process, because the best agencies have multiple agents with overlapping spheres of specialization who collaborate, so while your agent who is an expert on Asia may not specialize in safaris when the time comes for you to book one, there’s a good chance one of their colleagues at a nearby desk does.

“How will I find a great and expert guide to the wonders of Ancient Rome?” A good travel agent already knows one.

Among the many major advantages high-powered agents bring to the table is personal connections and clout. “Connections” means knowing GMs and execs at top hotels (and airlines, chefs, cruise lines, adventure travel outfitters, etc.) personally. It is very rare for luxury hotels or the most desirable restaurants to truly be sold out: they usually have rooms/tables available in case Tom Cruise or another VIP makes a last minute visit. This is especially important if you are trying to visit a destination at a very peak time: the Superbowl, New Orleans at Mardi Gras, Cannes during the film festival, Park City over President’s Day weekend. Who do you think will be able to get the coveted and hidden room inventory, you calling an 800 reservation center, or your travel agent calling the GM who he or she has known for 20 years – and sends a lot of business to? It’s not just these scenarios, it is everyday room upgrades, special amenities, bottles of champagne on arrival, the GM greeting you personally, all these extras come from the travel agents calling on your behalf – at no extra cost to you. The clout part comes from volume. For example, even the top luxury hotels are notorious for refusing to guarantee connecting rooms in advance for families booking multiple rooms. This is one of the most frustrating recurring problems I hear in the industry, and a reason why some people rent houses and apartments over multiple hotel rooms. When your travel agent books hundreds of room nights with a high profile luxury hotel each year, the hotel will move heaven and earth to give that agent’s client – you – guaranteed connecting rooms.

If you do not believe that top agents’ personal clout can take you further than the internet or any prestigious credit card or “concierge service,” here’s a true story. I was going to a hard to reach island in the Caribbean for a story, and when a travel agent who does a lot of volume with a particular airline suggested flights I winced. She asked me why, and I explained that I was elite on two other major carriers, and prefer to fly them because of the miles, points and status, and to this airline I was a nobody, so the miles would not help me. “No problem,” she said, “I’ll call my guy at the airline’s sales department and he’ll make you Gold.” And he did. This is one of the largest airlines in the world, and Gold is the second tier of their elite program, not entry level, reserved for those who fly 50,000 miles per year – the equivalent of about 8 transcontinental round trips and over 100 hours of flying time – or one phone call, depending who you know.

Another big selling point of the best agents is their expertise. A friend was taking his children to Italy for the first time, on a biking and walking trip in the Dolomites, and decided to add Rome because he wanted them to see the historic sites. He called me and asked for help, so I told him to call Anne Scully, President of McCabe World Travel in Virginia, a true industry superstar who is perennially ranked one of the 5 or 10 best travel agents in the nation by anyone who ranks these things. She arranged a van and driver to take his family from their bike tour drop-off point to Rome, helped him pick a well-located luxury hotel that suited his needs, and set up private tours of ancient Rome and the Vatican with two different specialized expert guides. Alternatively, he could have booked guides, hotel and a driver for the long trip for his family blindly on the internet. But this way, he was getting a very known quantity. And free upgraded hotel amenities.

I’d like to take a moment to talk about internet travel resources. I have nothing against booking travel online and do it all the time. I use Kayak, Travelocity, Vayama and many specialized foreign sites. I read reviews and ratings in Travelocity and TripAdvisor. But here’s the problem – these skew very much towards the lower and middle end of the market, because it’s a numbers game and the luxury segment is very small. So when they are giving the airport Radisson a four and half star rating, on that relative scale, how can Hong Kong hotels such as the Landmark Mandarin Oriental and Peninsula be differentiated in a way meaningful to you? They can’t be. That’s a difference your travel agent will be able to explain to you that you cannot possibly garner online. When many of the best and most specialized tour guides cannot even be booked online, how can you rely on online ratings for them? You cannot. I just read a survey that said searching for “Villas In Italy” yielded 7.3 million results in Bing and over 9 million for Google. Good luck with that research project. All this is in addition to the fact that such ratings can and have been manipulated, and that you have no idea who the baseline raters are. Now on the other hand, let’s say you have a friend whose taste and judgment you know well and trust and they tell you to stay at one hotel over another in a particular destination they are very familiar with for several specific reasons. You would probably believe them. Think of your expert travel agent as such a friend.

For leisure travel, most of the questions I get are of the following variety: where is the best place to go, best place to stay, best things to do, best places to eat? In almost every case, the answer is that there is no “best” place – but there is the best for you. That is why a relationship with a travel consultant who asks a lot of question – the good ones will – is all important. So is their firsthand experience, and because they have been checking these hotels in person, eating at these restaurants, and using these guides for years, they know the best ones for every need. All of these skills come together into a vacation you simply could not plan on your own, using your credit card’s agent, or the internet. “I think one of the most surprising things to clients is the fact that we are able to secure with ease and in a very timely manner ALL the components of their trip: accommodations (with perks like upgrades/breakfast/credits), private transfers, dinner reservations, sightseeing with exclusive access (skip the line), theatre tickets, etc.,” said Regency’s Sullivan.

“We’ve had clients who return to a destination just because of the experience with the guide we got them the first time, said Anne Scully. “I’m like a custom tailor. I make bespoke trips to fit you personally, not the other way around. It’s not just about knowing which are the best hotels – it’s about knowing the GMs at the best hotels. It’s unique access and giving my clients a rare experience. I had a college history professor who specializes in World War II visiting London, and I did not just have him tour Churchill’s War Rooms, I had Churchill’s granddaughter meet him for tea at his hotel and then take him on a tour – he got to sit in Churchill’s chair. If I have a passionate shopper go to Paris, I don’t tell them what stores to go to, I send them on a private tour behind the scenes at Louis Vuitton where they can see the things being made.”

“A good travel agent is there ‘pillow to pillow.’ People think they can just book flights, hotels, or car rentals themselves, and sometimes they can, especially if nothing goes wrong. But when your flight is cancelled and you are standing in line waiting to be rebooked, believe me, you’ll wish you had a travel agent. I’d already be working on it for you.”

The advantages and extras these super agents offer are literally too numerous for me to list in detail, but In Part 2, I will give specific, real life examples of the immense value a top travel agent can add in the realm of hotels, airfares, and more, both saving you money and greatly improving the quality of the travel experience. In Part 3, I tell you how to find such an agent.

Source: forbes.com

By Heather Pringle

On the remote Peruvian island of Taquile, in the middle of the great Lake Titicaca, hundreds of people stand in silence on the plaza as a local Roman Catholic priest recites a prayer. Descended in part from Inca colonists sent here more than 500 years ago, the inhabitants of Taquile keep the old ways. They weave brilliantly colored cloth, speak the traditional language of the Inca, and tend their fields as they have for centuries. On festival days they gather in the plaza to dance to the sound of wooden pipes and drums.

Today, on a fine summer afternoon, I watch from the sidelines as they celebrate the fiesta of Santiago, or St. James. In Inca times this would have been the festival of Illapa, the Inca god of lightning. As the prayers draw to a close, four men dressed in black raise a rustic wooden litter holding a painted statue of Santiago. Walking behind the priest in a small procession, the bearers carry the saint for all in the plaza to see, just as the Inca once shouldered the mummies of their revered kings.

The names of those Inca rulers still resonate with power and ambition centuries after their demise: Viracocha Inca (meaning Creator God Ruler), Huascar Inca (Golden Chain Ruler), and Pachacutec Inca Yupanqui (He Who Remakes the World). And remake the world they did. Rising from obscurity in Peru’s Cusco Valley during the 13th century, a royal Inca dynasty charmed, bribed, intimidated, or conquered its rivals to create the largest pre-Columbian empire in the New World.

Scholars long possessed few clues about the lives of Inca kings, apart from flattering histories that Inca nobles told soon after the arrival of Spanish conquistadores. The Inca had no system of hieroglyphic writing, as the Maya did, and any portraits that Inca artists may have made of their rulers were lost. The royal palaces of Cusco, the Inca capital, fell swiftly to the European conquerors, and a new Spanish colonial city rose on their ruins, burying or obliterating the Inca past. In more recent times, civil unrest broke out in the Peruvian Andes in the early 1980s, and few archaeologists ventured into the Inca heartland for more than a decade.

Now archaeologists are making up for lost time. Combing rugged mountain slopes near Cusco, they are discovering thousands of previously unknown sites, shedding new light on the origins of the Inca dynasty. Gleaning clues from colonial documents, they are relocating the lost estates of Inca rulers and examining the complex upstairs-and-downstairs lives of imperial households. And on the frontiers of the lost empire, they are piecing together dramatic evidence of the wars Inca kings fought and the psychological battles they waged to forge dozens of fractious ethnic groups into a united realm. Their extraordinary ability to triumph on the battlefield and to build a civilization, brick by brick, sent a clear message, says Dennis Ogburn, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte: “I think they were saying, We are the most powerful people in the world, so don’t even think of messing with us.”

On a sun-washed July afternoon, Brian Bauer, an archaeologist from the University of Illinois at Chicago, stands in the plaza of the sprawling Inca ceremonial site of Maukallacta, south of Cusco. He takes a swig of water, then points to a towering outcrop of gray rock just to the east. Carved into its craggy summit are massive steps, part of a major Inca shrine. Some 500 years ago, says Bauer, pilgrims journeyed here to worship at the steep outcrop, once regarded as one of the most sacred places in the empire: the birthplace of the Inca dynasty.

Bauer, a wiry 54-year-old in a battered ball cap and blue jeans, first came to Maukallacta in the early 1980s to uncover the origins of the Inca Empire. At the time most historians and archaeologists believed that a brilliant, young Andean Alexander the Great named Pachacutec became the first Inca king in the early 1400s, transforming a small collection of mud huts into a mighty empire in just one generation. Bauer didn’t buy it. He believed the Inca dynasty had far deeper roots, and Maukallacta seemed the logical place to look for them. To his bewilderment, two field seasons of digging turned up no trace of primeval Inca lords.

So Bauer shifted north, to the Cusco Valley. With colleague R. Alan Covey, now an archaeologist at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, and a team of Peruvian assistants, he marched up and down the steep mountain slopes in straight transect lines for four field seasons, recording every scattering of pottery sherds or toppled stone wall he came across. Persistence paid off. Bauer and his colleagues eventually discovered thousands of previously unknown Inca sites, and the new evidence revealed for the first time how an Inca state had risen much earlier than previously believed—sometime between 1200 and 1300. The ancient rulers of the region, the mighty Wari (Huari) lords who reigned from a capital near modern Ayacucho, had fallen by 1100, in part due to a severe drought that afflicted the Andes for a century or more. In the ensuing turmoil, local chiefs across the Peruvian highlands battled over scarce water and led raiders into neighboring villages in search of food. Hordes of refugees fled to frigid, windswept hideouts above 13,000 feet.

But in the fertile, well-watered valley around Cusco, Inca farmers stood their ground. Instead of splintering apart and warring among themselves, Inca villages united into a small state capable of mounting an organized defense. And between 1150 and 1300, the Inca around Cusco began to capitalize on a major warming trend in the Andes.

As temperatures climbed, Inca farmers moved up the slopes by 800 to 1,000 feet, building tiers of agricultural terraces, irrigating their fields, and reaping record corn harvests. “These surpluses,” says Alex Chepstow-Lusty, a paleoecologist at the French Institute for Andean Studies in Lima who has been studying the region’s ancient climate, allowed the Inca to “free up many people for other roles, whether building roads or maintaining a large army.” In time Inca rulers could call up more conscripts and supply a larger army than any neighboring chief.

With this big stick, Inca kings began eyeing the lands and resources of others. They struck marriage alliances with neighboring lords, taking their daughters as wives, and dispensed generous gifts to new allies. When a rival lord spurned their advances or stirred up trouble, they flexed their military might. In all the surrounding valleys, local lords succumbed one by one, until there was only one mighty state and one capital, the sacred city of Cusco.

Flush with success, Inca kings set their sights farther afield, on the wealthy lands surrounding Lake Titicaca. Sometime after 1400, one of the greatest Inca rulers, Pachacutec Inca Yupanqui, began planning his conquest of the south. It was the dawn of empire.

Massed on a high, cold Peruvian plain north of the great lake in the mid-1400s, the army of the Colla bristled with battle gear, daring the Inca invaders to make war. Pachacutec scanned the enemy ranks in silence, preparing for the great battle ahead. The lords of the Titicaca region were haughty men, ruling as many as 400,000 people in kingdoms arrayed around the lake. Their lands were rich and desirable. Gold and silver veined the mountains, and herds of alpacas and llamas fattened in lush meadows. Military success in the Andes depended on such livestock. A llama, the only draft animal on the continent, could carry 70 pounds of gear on its back. Llamas, along with alpacas, also provided meat, leather, and fiber for clothing. They were jeeps, K rations, and fatigues all rolled into one—crucial military assets. If the Inca king could not conquer the Titicaca lords who owned these vast herds, he would live in fear of the day these lords would come to conquer him.

Seated on a shimmering litter, Pachacutec issued the order to attack. Playing panpipes carved from the bones of enemies and war drums fashioned from the flayed skins of dead foes, his soldiers advanced toward the Colla forces, a moving wall of terror and intimidation. Then both sides charged. When the fog of battle lifted, Colla bodies littered the landscape.

In the years that followed, Pachacutec and his descendants subdued all the southern lords. “The conquest of the Titicaca Basin was the jewel in the crown of the Inca Empire,” says Charles Stanish, an archaeologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. But military victory was only the first step in the Inca’s grand strategy of empire building. Officials next set about establishing civil control.

If provinces mounted resistance, Inca sovereigns reshuffled their populations, deporting restive inhabitants to the Inca heartland and replacing them with loyal subjects. Residents of remote walled villages were moved to new Inca-controlled towns sited along Inca roads—roads that sped the movement of Inca troops. Inca governors ordered the construction of roadside storehouses for those troops and commanded local communities to fill them with provisions. “The Inca were the organizational geniuses of the Americas,” says Stanish.

Under Inca rule, Andean civilization flowered as never before. Inca engineers transformed fragmentary road networks into interconnected highways. Inca farmers mastered high-altitude agriculture, cultivating some 70 different native crops and often stockpiling three to seven years’ worth of food in vast storage complexes. Imperial officials excelled at the art of inventory control, tracking storehouse contents across the realm with an ancient Andean form of computer code—colored and knotted cords known as quipus. And Inca masons raised timeless architectural masterpieces like Machu Picchu, which continues to awe visitors today.

By the time the Inca king Huayna Capac took power around 1493, little seemed beyond the reach of the Inca dynasty. To bring grandeur to his new capital in Ecuador, Huayna Capac put more than 4,500 rebellious subjects to work hauling immense stone blocks all the way from Cusco—a distance of nearly a thousand miles up and down vertiginous mountain roads. And in the Inca heartland, a small army of men and women toiled to construct a royal estate for Huayna Capac and his family. At the king’s bidding, they moved the Urubamba River to the southern side of the valley. They leveled hills and drained marshes, then planted corn and other crops such as cotton, peanuts, and hot peppers from far corners of the empire. In the center of the estate, they laid stones and bricks for Huayna Capac’s new country palace, Quispiguanca.

As the late afternoon sun slants down, I wander the ruins of Quispiguanca with Alan Covey, the archaeologist from SMU. Situated on the outskirts of the modern town of Urubamba, Quispiguanca basks in one of the warmest and sunniest microclimates in the region, which provided the Inca royal family a welcome escape from the cold of Cusco. The estate’s gatehouses now look out on a field of pungent cilantro, and its surviving walls enclose a royal compound that once sprawled over an area equivalent to some seven soccer fields.

Encircled by parkland, fields, and gardens, Quispiguanca was an Inca version of Camp David, a retreat from the world, a place for a warrior-king to unwind after military campaigning. Here Huayna Capac entertained guests in the great halls and gambled with courtiers and other favorites, while his queen gardened and tended doves. The grounds boasted a secluded lodge and a forest reserved for hunting deer and other game. In the fields hundreds of workers cleared irrigation channels, raised and mended terrace walls, and sowed corn and a host of exotic crops. These provided Huayna Capac with bountiful harvests and enough corn beer to entertain his subjects royally during Cusco’s annual festivals.

Quispiguanca was not the only spectacular estate. Inca kings inherited little more than their titles, so each new sovereign built a city palace and country home for himself and his lineage shortly after assuming power. To date archaeologists and historians have located ruins of roughly a dozen royal estates built by at least six Inca kings.

Even after these kings died, they remained the powers behind the throne. “The ancestors were a key element of Andean life,” says Sonia Guillén, director of Peru’s Museo Leymebamba. When Huayna Capac perished of a mysterious disease in Ecuador around 1527, retainers mummified his body and carried it back to Cusco. Members of the royal family frequently visited the deceased monarch, asking his advice on vital matters and heeding the replies given by an oracle sitting at his side. Years after his death, Huayna Capac remained the owner of Quispiguanca and the surrounding estate. Indeed, royal tradition dictated that its harvest keep his mummy, servants, wives, and descendants in style for eternity.

It was during the rainy season in 1533, an auspicious time for a coronation, and thousands of people were packed into the main plaza of Cusco to celebrate the arrival of their new teenage king. Two years earlier, amid a civil war, foreign invaders had landed in the north. Metal-clad and bearing lethal new weapons, the Spaniards had journeyed to the northern Inca town of Cajamarca, where they took prisoner the Inca king, Atahuallpa. Eight months later, they executed their royal captive, and in 1533 their leader, Francisco Pizarro, picked a young prince, Manco Inca Yupanqui, to rule as a puppet king.

In the far distance, voices of the young king’s bearers echoed through the streets, singing songs of praise. Falling silent, celebrants watched the royal teenager enter the square, accompanied by the mummies of his ancestors, each richly attired and seated on a splendid litter. The wizened kings and their consorts reminded all that Manco Inca descended from a long line of kings. Rulers of other realms might content themselves with displaying carved or painted images of their glorious ancestors. The Inca kings went one better, displaying the expertly preserved bodies of their forefathers.

In the months that followed, the Spanish invaders seized the palaces of Cusco and the spacious country estates and took royal women as mistresses and wives. Incensed, Manco Inca rebelled and in 1536 tried to drive them from the realm. When his army suffered defeat, he fled Cusco for the jungle city of Vilcabamba, from which he launched guerrilla attacks. The Spanish wouldn’t subdue the stronghold until 1572.

In the turmoil of those decades, the Inca’s sprawling network of roads, storehouses, temples, and estates began slowly falling into ruin. As the empire crumbled, the Inca and their descendants made a valiant attempt to preserve the symbols of imperial authority. Servants collected the precious bodies of the sacred kings and concealed them around Cusco, where they were worshipped in secret—and in defiance of Spanish priests. In 1559 Cusco’s chief magistrate, Juan Polo de Ondegardo, resolved to stamp out this idolatry. He launched an official search for the bodies, questioning hundreds. With this information he tracked down and seized the remains of 11 Inca kings and several queens.

For a time colonial officials in Lima displayed the mummies of Pachacutec, Huayna Capac, and two other royals as curiosities in the Hospital of San Andrés in Lima, a facility that admitted only European patients. But the damp coastal climate wreaked havoc with the bodies. So Spanish officials buried the greatest of the Inca kings in secrecy in Lima, far from the Andes and the people who loved and worshipped them.

In 2001 Brian Bauer and two Peruvian colleagues, historian Teodoro Hampe Martínez and archaeologist Antonio Coello Rodríguez, went looking for the mummies of the Inca kings, hoping to right a historic wrong and restore to Peruvians an important part of their cultural heritage. “Can you imagine,” Bauer asks, “how American citizens would feel if the British had taken the bodies of the first several presidents back to London during the War of 1812?”

For months Bauer and his colleagues pored over old architectural plans of the Hospital of San Andrés, now a girls’ school in central Lima. Eventually they identified several possibilities for the burial site of Pachacutec and Huayna Capac. Using ground-penetrating radar, they scanned the likeliest areas, turning up what appeared to be a vaulted underground crypt. Bauer and his Peruvian teammates were thrilled.

When the archaeologists finally dug down and opened the door of the dusty chamber, they were crestfallen. The crypt lay empty. Quite possibly, says Bauer, workmen removed the contents while renovating the hospital after a severe earthquake. Today no one can say where Peru’s greatest kings lie. Concludes Bauer sadly, “The fate of the royal Inca mummies remains unknown.”

Source: nationalgeographic.com