The Traveling Pancy

Second stop of our around the world journey is Easter Island, a remote volcanic island in Polynesia, 1500 miles off the coast of Chile. Its native name is Rapa Nui. Easter Island is famous for the monumental statures called moai, created by the island’s inhabitants during the 13th-16th century. As we approached the island, our…

Caught the Hiram Bingham train at Ollantaytambo station to Aguas Calientes.  Hiram Bingham is the English explorer credited with ‘discovering’ Machu Picchu although legend has it that he only passed through as he looked for the lost sacred city of the Incans.  The train ride was fun although slow, and followed the Urubamba River with…

The Andean region has a rich diversity of animal and plant life. Here is just a sampling of what we saw. Llamas are domesticated pack animals used by Andean people, including the Incans for centuries. The llama is a South American relative of the camel, though it does not have a hump. We saw llamas…

This morning we drove through the Sacred Valley of the Incas to the village of Ollantaytambo.  This valley has lush, fertile terraced land where farmers still grow potatoes, corn and other tubers just as in Incan times. Enroute, we passed through Pisac, a typical modern city in the valley.  Thirty-five years ago, I can remember…

Spent an afternoon visiting Korikancha, or Temple of the Sun, in Cusco.  This site was formerly the main Incan temple of Cusco and was believed to have walls covered in gold.  The Spanish looted the temple when they invaded and converted it to the Convent of Santa Domingo, using the original Incan walls and adding…

Chinchero is a charming Andean village about an hours drive outside of Cusco. It has an important Incan archaeological site with well preserved terraces and an Incan fort. Incans believed this site was the origin of the rainbow – an important mythical symbol of fortune. In fact, all over Peru people fly rainbow flags. The…

First stop on our around the world trip is Cusco. So much has changed in the 35 years since we last visited. Although a world heritage site because of it significance as the capital of the Incan empire, the Cusco of 1985 was a quaint, undeveloped city of 200,000 people that was installing its first…

This has long been a bucket list trip – visiting many of the historical and natural world heritage sites while circumnavigating the globe. Our adventure starts in Cusco, Peru with a visit to Machu Picchu, then continues to Easter Island to see the moai, a quick stop in Samoa and diving the Great Barrier Reef….