Unphotographable - Perú Edition

Hat tip: Unphotographable

This is a picture I did not take in Ollayantambo, of a small but colorful cemetery on day 1 of the Inca Trail trek. It was an odd little cemetery - with colored crosses and flowers - and it was right by the trail. We were trying to avoid bringing out the camera at every small opportunity - a misguided attempt to conserve battery. Turned out we had more than enough.

This is a picture I did not take in Arequipa, of a father encouraging his little girl to hop off the cathedral steps. It seemed like a very private moment and I did not want to intrude.

This is a picture I did not take in Huacachina, of Alberto - our driver who brought us to the hotel from Ica, and then spend the day with us in Nazca. He asked us if we enjoyed watching the Nazca lines from the air - with a look in his eyes that suggested he had not seen them from the air yet. I hope I am wrong about this.

This is a picture I did not take of the waitress in Nazca, who was a little offended by what she thought was us patronizing her when we asked her about Shah Rukh Khan - "of course I know SRK, what kind of a (bullshit) question is that!?". We tipped her well.

This is a picture I did not take in Arequipa, of the city streets and the cathedral steps - where we spend most of our time. In the 4 hours we had to kill, we circled the main square - mostly wandering aimlessly.

This is a picture I did not take of Machu Picchu, from the mountain top on the way in. It was cloudy and the visibility was extremely limited - to say the least. This is where we all got philosophical about the journey and not the destination (ya right!). Once we descended into the lost city, there was no hope was climbing back up - our legs would not allow it.

This is a picture I did not take in Lima, of the meticulously arranged bones in the basement of the Catacombs cathedral in Lima. They would have made for some very disturbing pictures - especially of a well that we were told is 10 meters deep, but the bones in it made it look just 3 meters.

This is a picture I did not take along the Inca Trail, of Dead Woman's pass as we got close to it and on the way down - it was raining and I was woozy and I did not want to make this post as long as a book.

Day 5 - Sunday lunch cruise on the Flying Cloud

Flying Cloud, originally uploaded by CláudiaM.

A Sunday like no other - one for the ages. It started out pretty ominously - the bus that was supposed to pick us up did not show up on time. But once they did show up to take us to the ferry dock at Paradise Island - it was all good.

And I do literally mean "all good!"

We boarded the 57 foot proud catamaran, paid our balance, got introduced to the crew and set sail. The plan was to cruise to a reef, do some snorkeling, anchor on the Rose Island beach for lunch (with unlimited rum punches!) and then chill out till it was time to head back.



Needless to say it all went perfectly according to the "plan". The sun was out - it was a beautiful Sunday (pardon the pun). We got our snorkeling gear and instructions on the way to the reef. Kai, our on board snorkeling instructor, was quite funny ("No questions? I must have had it right then! How would you'll know anyway?"). The water was clear as a (clean) fish tank and the fishes and the reef were beautiful. We saw a bunch of tiger fishes and some others - luckily no lion fish, which is a non-intrusive but poisonous fish.



After an hour of snorkeling we headed to the beach at Rose Island where we had lunch on the boat - salad with dressing, bread and fruits for the veggies but we had unlimited rum punches to wash that down and we were not complaining a bit!

Rose Island is one of the islands that is under development - so I'm glad we got to it before it is off-limits to "regular" folk. The sand was soft and white, the water was blue and clear! We took a short walk on the island and then bobbed about in the water for a bit before it was time to go back.

We wanted to sign off this post by saying a big "Thank You" to the Flying Cloud crew for making our last day in the Bahamas one we will never forget!

Day 4 - Ardastra Gardens, Cricket and Cabbage Beach

Saturday began with a disappointment - we had set 3 alarms to wake ourselves up to take the ferry to Harbor Island - to see the pink sand beaches. But on reaching Potters Cay we found that the ferry was full and we had no luck on getting in as stand-bys.



With the plan for the whole day being shot, we now had a challenge to make lemonade out of the lemons we had been handed. We started by going back to the hotel and partaking the breakfast. Once fed, we decided to check out the Ardastra Gardens and Zoo - home of the famous parading flamingoes. We got there just in time to see the flamingo parade. And after strolling around for some time we got a pleasant surprise - we were going to feed apples to the parrots. The parrot feeding was so much fun - I just couldn't get enough of how comfortably they just went chomp-chomp (thats the correct technical term) on the apples.



We then took a jitney ride to the ground where the local cricket clubs played their matches over the weekend. It was a pleasure watching cricket sitting in the fielding teams pavilion - listening to the lively beer fueled conversation of the spectators.



In the evening we found our way back to Cabbage beach - after a long walk along the beach, we settled near the familiar spot from a couple of days ago. Here we saw a wedding from start to finish - a small ceremony with live music (3 violinists) and barefoot guests. We waited a little longer this time - till the sunset.

The Bahamas - Day 1, 2 and 3

Going to the Bahamas seemed like a good idea for a bit of business (H1B visa stamping) and pleasure (the beach, the sun, more beaches!). And we're back to report that it was.



We arrived at Nassau on Wednesday. After checking into the hotel (Grand Central Hotel) we immediately started plotting our way out. This hotel is nothing like its website suggests - I cannot even begin to describe our disappointment. But the silver lining was that local calls from our hotel room were free and after making a couple of calls we got a room at the Quality Inn, opposite the Junkanoo beach near downtown Nassau. Otherwise Wednesday was quite unevnentful - we hung out around town and had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe(!). In the evening we visited a local bar and sampled some cocktails.



Thursday was for the ugly business of the trip and touring some of the beaches - Cable beach where every good spot belongs to a resort and then Cabbage beach on Paradise Island - which was good. Pretty, pretty, pretty good (hat tip to Larry David).



Friday morning we visited some of the local sites - the Queens Staircase and a fort that was right next to it (forgot the name).



And then after collecting my passport we went back to Paradise Island to check out the Atlantis resort. In retrospect, we should have rented some scooters and gone riding around the island - the residential areas looked quite interesting and typically small town-ish, with most of the homes resembling "bungalows".