Photography – Page 27 – Michael Rappa

Eurotrip 2009 Part 4: Lucerne

March 28, 2013 Michael Rappa2 Comments

This is the fourth part of my Eurotrip 2009 Revisited series, a special edition of sorts in which I have divided the original post into smaller parts while incorporating minor copy edits and a few new (and reprocessed) images.

We left Innsbruck after lunch for a very long bus ride to Switzerland. On the way we stopped briefly in Liechtenstein, the world’s smallest principality, basically a tiny independent kingdom complete with its own royal palace:

Our guide Keith pointed out that Liechtenstein has three political parties: the conservatives, the more conservatives, and the ultra conservatives. I thought to myself: sounds like some places I know in the States. 🙂 We didn’t have time to tour the palace, so after taking a few photos and getting our passports stamped, we were back on the bus.

On the way to Lucerne we passed by some of the most beautiful scenery you are likely to gaze upon, including giant lakes surrounded by tall mountains and rolling green hills like something out of The Hobbit:

Swiss countryside taken from bus.
Bad window reflections but I wanted to get a shot of the rolling hills.

Right outside of the city we got stuck in a traffic jam due to an accident that had people rubbernecking, so it took us a little longer to get in. After finally reaching the city we were dropped off in the town center for shopping. I bought lots of chocolate and picked up my free souvenir spoon from the Bucherer. I also picked up another t-shirt and a postcard, which I had been collecting from every country for a friend of Jen’s.

We later checked into a very nice hotel right along the lake, of which I had a nice view from my room when I stuck my head out the window. The room had motion sensor lights for the bathrooms that I thought were pretty cool until I realized that the lights would often go out when I was in the middle of doing something like brushing my teeth. The hotel served a good dinner that night: a cheese ravioli appetizer followed by a beef dish with hash browns. The dinner portion was a little on the small side, but I’m used to gluttonous America where everything is supersized. 😉

That night we walked to the Lion Monument, and then around town and the lake, which is all lit up at night:

The covered pedestrian bridge in Lucerne

We ended up at a cafe where we sat in the outdoor balcony overlooking the lake drinking a beer that cost 8 1/2 franks. One thing you learn about Lucerne is that it’s kind of a tourist trap; everything is very expensive. Nevertheless, of all the cities I have visited in Europe, it is one of my favorites. The views of the massive lake surrounded by the Alps (especially Mt. Pilatus, which towers over the city) are phenomenal, and the town itself exudes old world charm with its pedestrian streets, old buildings, and covered bridges.

After our beer we walked to McDonald’s to quell the late night munchies (sort of a tradition in that we did the same thing two years ago), where I had a Cheeseburger Royale (for you Pulp Fiction fans). During the long walk back to the hotel we bumped into a few less-than-kind locals. First, an older guy cut in front of our group, holding his hand up like a stop sign as he crossed in front of us. Later, a young guy with his friends mocked us for having cameras. Oh well, it’s all part of the travel experience. That night I finally got to bed around 1:30am.

The next morning the hotel served a nice breakfast that included bacon! Most of the breakfasts on the trip were more of a continental style, so this was a treat. After breakfast we hopped on the bus for Mt. Pilatus. To get to the top of the mountain you take two sets of cable cars. The first is a small four-person car, then about halfway up you transfer to a large car that holds roughly 30 people standing. At one point, the land along which the car is skimming suddenly drops away and you find yourself dangling over nothing but air—this always elicits a “whoa!’ from the crowd. On the way up the mountain you watch as the terrain gradually changes from green to snow.

The top of the mountain is breathtaking; no picture or description could ever do it justice, but here are a few:

View of Lucerne from the top of Mt. Pilatus

That afternoon I had some time to myself so I walked along the lake toward town taking photos. I stopped for a Doener, a popular Middle Eastern sandwich similar to a gyro, and decided to join the other lunching Europeans by eating it down by the lake with my feet hanging over the edge, enjoying the beautiful day and the incredible view:

After lunch I walked into town to take out more francs in order to pay for the boat ride our group was supposed to be taking that evening. Unfortunately, the boat ride would later be canceled, so I ended up with a bunch of extra franks. Anyway, I went to a place called the Tea Room and ordered a cup of green tea for five francs. As I mentioned, things are expensive in Lucerne: I had earlier bought an eight-franc Fanta on Pilatus, and two years ago Uncle Kipp and I shared a cheese fondue lunch that cost around 50 francs.

While in the tea room I bumped into Keith and the adults from the Virginia group, so I sat with them. I decided to go up to the bakery counter and order a chocolate mousse cake to go with my green tea. About halfway through my delicious desert, one of the store employees came up to the table and asked me to come to the cashier at the bakery counter—I had left my wallet, passport, and return plane ticket (which had been inside the passport) on the counter!!! Everything that identified me as me was sitting on that counter for anyone to take. I would have been stuck in a foreign country with no money or identification, so I was eternally thankful for the honesty of the cashier. That was the second time I had misplaced my passport on the trip, so lesson learned—I’ve used one of those around-the-neck portfolio wallets for every trip since then.

After dessert I made my way back to the hotel following a quick stroll through the underground pedestrian mall. After getting back to the hotel we had about an hour before dinner so I decided to take a walk along the other end of the lake taking more photos, with Amber and Sam tagging along:

Dinner at the hotel that night was roast chicken with french fries and ice cream for dessert. I also had some white wine. That night the students decided that they didn’t feel like going out; they just wanted to hang out at the hotel, so I took Amber out and we walked around the town:

We stopped at a small bar off the beaten path and I bought Amber a radler, though when I ordered the drinks the waiter looked at me like I had two heads because they call it something different in Switzerland. At this point I still had 20 francs left and since it was our last night in Switzerland, I needed to blow through them. Sure, I could have exchanged them later, but where’s the fun in that? So I decided to take Amber to her first ever casino since the legal age there is 18.

We had to pay a cover charge to get in, which left us each with only five francs, but that was fine, because I’m not a gambler myself, and it was enough to give Amber a taste (and bragging rights to her friends who still had to wait three years to legally enter a casino in the States). We stuck to the slots, and needless to say, we lasted about 15 minutes before running out of money. A guy from the New York group named Mark had actually won $200 the night before, but no such luck for us.

After leaving the casino we went back to the hotel. Amber went to bed while I stopped in the hotel bar, where I bumped into Mark, and we hung out for about a half hour talking before I finally went up to bed myself. The next morning we would be heading back to Germany for the final leg of our trip, which will be covered in the next installment.

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Comet Pan-STARRS

March 24, 2013February 18, 2018 Michael RappaLeave a comment

On March 23rd there was finally a clear enough sky in Central Jersey to try and get a good view of Comet Pan-STARRS. I had managed to view it with my binoculars a week-and-a-half ago through some trees near my house but it would have been impossible to photograph, so I had to bide my time and wait for the weather to cooperate.

There are not many good viewing locations in my area so I took a ten-minute ride to Mercer County Park and walked down to the pier on the lake waterfront. The comet was too faint to see with the naked eye (I had to use binoculars), but my camera was able to pick it up. It would have been nice if I could have photographed it two weeks ago when it was brighter, but these shots are better than nothing.

All photos were taken with my Panasonic FZ40, which has fairly decent night shooting capability for a point-and-shoot, but still produces more noise than an SLR would.

First view of the comet (center of the photo).

It’s a shame about the power lines, but I still like the views of the comet over the water.

This was only a couple of minutes after the first shot and
it had already descended to almost touch the power line.

The temperature was supposedly in the low 40’s (Fahrenheit) but the wind made it feel more like the low 30’s. By the time I got to the next few photos I could barely feel my right hand (I had to keep removing my glove to work the camera). It was also a little creepy out there in an empty park in the dark, but I persevered. 🙂

This shot shows the comet as a big streak because
the camera was zoomed in with a 60-second exposure.
That’s how much it moved in a minute.

Not a great shot of the comet, but I liked the effect of the airplane streaking across the sky.

I’ll leave you with a couple of shots that don’t have much to do with the comet but they were taken on the same night.

An accidental wide shot, but I liked it so I kept it.
The comet is actually visible as a tiny dot above and to the right of the center power line tower.

This is an 8-second exposure sunset shot I took while I was waiting for the comet.

Eurotrip 2009 Part 3: Neuschwanstein and Innsbruck

March 20, 2013 Michael RappaLeave a comment

This is the third part of my Eurotrip 2009 Revisited series, a special edition of sorts in which I have divided the original post into smaller parts while incorporating minor copy edits and a few new (and reprocessed) images.

After spending our last night in Munich, we had a (gasp) 6:15 wakeup call the next morning, though I actually awoke on my own at 5:45. Following breakfast we were on the road to Neuschwanstein, the fairy tale castle of King Ludwig II. The Sleeping Beauty castle of Disneyland was based on Neuschwanstein . . . and for you Spaceballs fans, it was also used as Castle Druidia in that film.

Hohenschwangau Castle, Ludwig’s childhood home, located beneath Neuschwanstein

The long climb to the top of the mountain where Neuschwanstein sits was much easier for me than it had been two years ago when I was carrying around 30 extra pounds. We toured the amazing inside of the castle (Ludwig was like an overgrown child; all of his rooms were extravagantly themed on Wagner operas, and he even had an indoor cave built just outside his bedroom). Unfortunately, they don’t let you take any pictures inside (I tried to sneak a few pics from under my jacket but they didn’t come out), so here’s an exterior shot of the valley taken from the castle:

One of my favorite scenes at Neuschwanstein

After the tour we made our way to the Marienbrücke, a bridge over a gorge that normally provides a stunning view of the castle, but unfortunately the entire side of the castle was covered in scaffolding. Luckily, I had gotten great pictures when I was here in 2007, so it wasn’t a huge loss.

Neuschwanstein unfortunately covered in scaffolding

Amber and I crossed the bridge and began climbing the path to the top of the mountain, during which I took my obligatory Karate Kid photo:

After a short climb we decided to make our way back, but were separated from the rest of the group, so we started walking back down the mountain on our own. We came to a fork, at which a sign seemed to indicate that we could get to the bottom taking either path, but one was shorter than the other. We took the short path, which was steeper than the traditional path.

About halfway down we reached a dead-end, so we climbed back up to an intersection where the path appeared to continue on down the hill, but we didn’t want to take anymore chances and wind up late for the bus, so we climbed all the way back up the steep path to the original fork, an arduous climb with the clock ticking—Amber had never heard me curse so much in her life 🙂

Eventually we made it back to the original path on which we had climbed up to the castle, but way too late for lunch, so I grabbed a Bavarian hamburger and munched it on the way down. We made it back to the bus just in time, putting a little scare into Uncle Kipp, but as it turned out, the leader of the NY group was 15 minutes late, so we would have been fine.

Our next stop was the Wieskirche (also known as the church in the meadow). Here’s one shot of its amazing interior:

The meadow that gives the Wieskirche its nickname

Following that we stopped in Oberammergau, a town famous for its Passion Play, as well as its wood carvings and painted buildings. I was still worn out from our mountain experience, so I just explored the town briefly before sitting down with a radler at an outdoor cafe, relaxing, and enjoying the view:

We eventually arrived at our hotel in Innsbruck, Austria around 6pm. My room had a nice view of the alps:

View from an Innsbruck street
(McDonald’s truly is everywhere)

After unpacking and eating a hotel-provided pork dinner, we went on a brief walking tour. The kids wanted to find a nightclub, so Uncle Kipp befriended a group of local kids and had them lead us to a bar. A few of the girls did not want to stay, so I led them home, which was fine with me because the smoke in the bar was disgusting. Everyone who stayed at the bar apparently had a great time, but as my uncle is fond of saying: “To each their own.” After a very long day, I slept like a log for most of the night.

The next morning we went on another brief walking tour, culminating in a visit to a church with cool statues:

After that I did a little shopping with Amber, as well as Sam and her grandmother. I picked up another t-shirt (which I would only get one use out of because it shrank to nearly a half-shirt after I washed it). This was the same store where I bought my nephew Jamie’s t-shirt, so I hope his fared better than mine did.

A little later I bought a small bottle of absinthe, just to see what all the fuss was about. Amber and I then walked down to the river, where we got some great photos:

Innsbruck historical district at riverside

We then ate lunch at an outdoor cafe where I had a good spaghetti bolognese (even though I was enjoying the German food, I couldn’t go a whole week without eating Italian :-)).

Following lunch we hopped on the bus for a very long drive to Switzerland, which will be covered in the next installment.

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Eurotrip 2009 Part 2: Munich

March 14, 2013 Michael Rappa1 Comment

This is the second part of my Eurotrip 2009 Revisited series, a special edition of sorts in which I have divided the original post into smaller parts while incorporating minor copy edits and a few new (and reprocessed) images.

Flash Forward: Nymphenburg Palace in Munich

Soon after our adventures in Rothenburg we left for the bus ride to Munich. On the way we stopped at two more medieval towns that also had city walls like Rothenberg. Our first stop was Dinkelsburg, a charming town that looks like it jumped right out of the pages of a storybook.

Our next stop was Nordlingen. For film buffs, this is the town that can be seen from the glass elevator at the end of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (most of the movie was actually filmed in Munich). I did not know this during the time I was there, though, or I might have taken more pictures (I didn’t snap many photos in this town because it looks so similar to Dinkelsburg and Rothenburg).

Later that day we arrived at our Munich hotel. The room card was needed to activate both the elevator and the electricity in my room, which I thought was an interesting feature. We had some free time to get settled in before leaving that night for the Augustiner restaurant. What was supposed to be a 15 minute walk turned out to be a half-hour walk, and by the time we got there people were starving (in retrospect, complaining about a 30-minute walk seems a bit silly in light of all the walking I did last year on the Inca Trail :-)).

Dinner began with a basket of pretzels (which you see more often in Munich than bread). The dinner was good, pork chops and spaetzle. I also ordered a radler (beer mixed with lemon soda). It’s a tasty alternative to beer and was my drink of choice for most of the trip.

On the way home that night we went to the Augustiner beer garden, where I had my first Mas beer of the week: a one-liter beer in a giant mug. Uncle Kipp had bought Amber her first beer earlier in the day (a radler), but she had not tried real beer yet, so I let her taste mine, to predictable results:

A couple of German guys (who we thought worked there) came over and talked a few people from our group into going up on stage to dance and sing. The kids who went up soon discovered the truth when a real employee yelled at them. Soon after we headed back to the hotel. Exhausted from a general lack of sleep over the first couple of days of the trip, I fell asleep pretty easily a little after midnight, though I woke up a couple of times during the night.

The next morning for breakfast I had some outstanding croissants with tasty European butter, as well as a good chocolate-frosted pound cake. That day we went on a bus tour of Munich with the same guide that we had two years ago. Our first stop was Nymphenburg Palace:

I snapped this quick photo of Nymphenburg Palace from the bus.
Gotta love Photoshop’s spot healing tool for getting rid of window reflections.

While inside, I briefly leaned against one of the pillars in the picture below to take a photo of the ceiling mural, which was a no-no. A little old lady came over to yell at me, then proceeded to follow me around for the rest of the tour.

After finishing our tour of the palace, we hopped back on the bus and stopped by the Eisbach river to watch surfers ride the rough waters where the river forms a standing wave.

Our tour ended in the town square known as the Marienplatz, where we watched the Glockenspiel in action.

Our group then split up and I bought Amber lunch for her birthday—we ate with Sam and her grandmother. Like the previous evening, we were supplied with a basket of pretzels. However, unlike the previous evening, they charged us for them—and neglected to mention this until after we had already eaten them. That was kind of annoying, but what are you going to do? These things happen when you travel. The lunch was good anyway: sausage and potato salad.

That afternoon I skipped the group excursion to the Dachau concentration camp since I had already seen it two years ago, choosing instead to walk to the famed English Garden (Munich’s version of Central Park). It’s a beautiful oasis in the middle of the city complete with mini waterfalls and babbling brooks.

Before going I bought a t-shirt (the first of many I would buy on this trip because the April weather was much warmer than I was expecting and I had mostly packed heavy clothes) and changed into the only pair of shorts I brought. By the time I got to the English Garden I realized it had taken me an hour to walk there, and it would take me another half hour to walk to the beer garden at the back of it. While in the park I discovered firsthand how much less prudish Europeans are than Americans when I saw a naked guy running around playing Frisbee with himself. There were tons of people there; including children, but nobody cared. It was certainly a jarring site for someone who grew up in a country that freaked out over a Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction.

I made my way to the back of the park, first stopping at a gazebo on a hill overlooking the entire park with the city line in the background:

Munich city line behind the English Garden

I then continued on to the beer garden, at the center of which stands a large Chinese pagoda:

Chinese pagoda and beer garden in the English Garden

I sat down and drank a Radler and ate a giant donut type of pastry, soaking in the beautiful sunny day. I also took this time to call Jen at work. On my way out of the park I stopped and had a chocolate gelato (I was pigging out on this trip). A German man then asked me to take a picture of his family. We had a brief conversation, during which he sort of made fun of me for wearing an Oktoberfest shirt in the spring, but it was good-natured ribbing.

While walking back through the city, I saw an accident happen in front of me in which a motorcycle wiped out. The guy was okay; he had jumped off the bike. Interestingly, we had also seen a motorcycle accident on the trip two years ago.

When I got back to the hotel I stopped and spent a few minutes on the pay-per-minute internet computer to check email (this was back before I had a cell phone or kindle capable of keeping me connected abroad) . . . facebook was down so I couldn’t check that (perish the thought!). I then went to Uncle Kipp’s room and we chatted for a while only to realize that we had lost track of time and were late for the bus that was taking us to dinner. Everyone took turns being late on this trip, today was ours–and Amber now had some ammunition to fire back at Uncle Kipp. 😉

Dinner that night was roast chicken and fries, and once again we fell victim to the pretzel bait and switch, only this time it was more egregious because our dinners were supposed to be all inclusive except for drinks (the pretzels at the previous day’s dinner had been free). It wasn’t a big deal for me, but many of the students were there on limited budgets and were not expecting to have to pay money toward their dinners.

For dessert, Uncle Kipp gave Amber a very good birthday cake that our table shared. Later that night we went to the famed Hofbrauhaus for drinks.

Amber & me with Mas beers at the Hofbrauhaus

At one point during the evening I discovered that German women have no problem coming into the bathroom to clean while you are still using the facilities. Anyway, we got home that night a little after 11. We had a 6:15 wakeup call the next morning to leave for Innsbruck, Austria. Along the way we would be stopping at King Ludwig II’s fairy tale castle, Neuschwanstein, and a few other places. Those events will be covered in the next installment.

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Supermoon

March 7, 2013February 18, 2018 Michael RappaLeave a comment

I decided to add a Photography section to this blog for showcasing some of my favorite photos. I’m not a professional by any stretch of the imagination, but I love to take pictures, and some of them actually come out not terrible. 🙂

In honor of the arrival of Comet Pan-STARRS, which I hope to have the opportunity to photograph over the next week, I thought I’d kick things off with an astronomy-themed photo: the supermoon from March of 2011, photographed in my front yard with my Panasonic FZ-40. It does a pretty good job for a non-DSLR camera.

Netx up: Pan-STARRS [fingers crossed], and in November: ISON!

Eurotrip 2009 Part 1: Rothenburg

February 25, 2013May 22, 2018 Michael Rappa2 Comments

This is a re-posting of my 2009 Eurotrip journal. I am revisiting it in order to split the long original post into smaller parts that will fit more neatly into the country categories of the top menu. I also wanted to restore some images that were lost when I imported my old blog to WordPress.

What follows is the original text with minor edits and a few new (and reprocessed) images here and there. Consider it the special edition, or Eurotrip 2009 Revisited. 🙂

: This is actually a photo from later in the trip (Innsbruck, Austria),
but I thought it was a nice choice for kicking off the journal.

This journal chronicles my trip to Europe from April 4th to April 12th, 2009. First, a little background. My Uncle Kipp is a high school German teacher who takes his students on biennial Spring Break trips to Germany through a tour company called ACIS. As group leader, his trip is free, and he is allotted a certain number of chaperones, who also get to go for free. This was my second trip with one of his classes (I had also chaperoned two years ago). As with the previous trip, I paid extra to be guaranteed my own room, so my trip ended up costing $280, which is still obviously an enormous bargain for a trip to Europe, and more than worth it to have my own room for the week.

On this trip we were joined by my cousin Amber, who would be turning 18 in Munich (coincidentally, I had celebrated my 36th birthday in Munich two years ago). I wish I had kept a journal for that first trip because it would have been interesting to compare the two trips, but this one will have to do…

Flight

After packing all night and getting little sleep, we left the house around 12:45 p.m. for Gateway high school in South Jersey. The airport shuttle arrived at Gateway a little after 2 p.m. and, after saying our goodbyes to family, we were off.

We breezed through check-in at Philly airport—and I wasn’t searched for a change! The flight did not leave until 6:15 and we had some time to kill, so I watched the Star Wars episode of Family Guy on my iPod. Also during this time, I learned how easy it is to misplace your passport as I had a brief panic attack when I couldn’t find mine (it was under the seat I had been sitting in.) It would not be the last time on this trip that I would have a passport snafu (more on that later).

On the flight I got separated from the rest of the group and wound up with a window seat. I would have preferred an aisle seat but at least I had a nice view. I like this shot of the sun setting over the runway as the plane turned for takeoff:

During the flight, Lufthansa serves food and drinks (all free). The dinner was actually pretty good for plane food and I had a few glasses of white wine to wash it down. The woman sitting next to me was nice and we had a good conversation for the first half of the flight. She was headed to Germany on business for Siemens.

I tried to sleep during the second half of the flight to no avail thanks to the guy behind me kicking my seat the entire time. I finally gave up and decided to watch a movie. They now have touch screens on every seat where you can choose from a number of movies, TV shows, and music channels. The movies are edited for content, but it wasn’t too noticeable. I decided to watch Twilight (the first film had just come out) to see what all of the hype was about—there’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back. Anyway, we soon landed. I bought a pair of earplugs supposedly designed to help relieve the pressure during takeoff and landing, but they didn’t work; I pulled them out about halfway through the landing. Thankfully, I’m more of a veteran now and better at popping my ears on flights, but at the time it was only my second flight in 20 years.

Rothenburg

We arrived at Frankfurt airport around 8 a.m., met up with our tour guide, Keith, and hopped on the ACIS bus. The other two groups had arrived before us, so there wasn’t much choice in terms of seating (it would be the first salvo in a week-long battle for seats on the bus). The drive to Rothenburg, a charming medieval town surrounded by a perfectly preserved city wall, took around two hours.

We were unable to check in to our hotel until 3:30 in the afternoon so the bus dropped us off and we embarked on a walking tour of the city with our full plane carry-ons in tow (I had not been to sleep since the previous day). After the walking tour we split up and went off on our own. I ate lunch with Uncle Kipp, Amber, her friend Sam, and Sam’s grandmother Elizabeth. This was the group I hung out with for most of the trip. We sat outside at a restaurant in the town square. The lunch I had was fantastic, and would prove to be my best meal of the trip. It was a pork steak in a dark beer sauce topped with onions and thick bacon, with a large pile of awesome fried potatoes on the side. After lunch we stopped for some delicious gelato. We then walked around the city streets and on the wall, taking lots of photos. Here are a few:

Amber and me with Sam (the girl Amber befriended and hung out with for most of the trip)

I was finally able to check into my room around 4pm, at which time I crashed and got about an hour of sleep before dinner at the hotel. Dinner that night was decent, a beef pot roast. That night we walked back into town for more gelato and to see the town crier, who was dressed in full period costume.

After that I went to bed early, around 11:15 p.m., but not before I realized that I had forgotten to bring my contact case, so I was forced to improvise a container to store my contacts for the evening. The next morning I awoke before the wake-up call (after waking up several other times throughout the night) and went down to breakfast in the hotel. Following breakfast we had to be packed and ready to put our suitcases on the bus by 8:30. Amber was late and wound up having to store her suitcase at the hotel front desk after the bus driver left, which led to a scolding from Uncle Kipp. 🙂

That day we had some free time before leaving town, so I walked around Rothenburg by myself. First I toured the historical museum in the town hall devoted to the 30 Years War, which had a cool dungeon complete with cells and instruments of torture. I also tried to climb the town hall tower to get a bird’s eye view of the city, but it was closed for the day, so I did some shopping and then ate at the same restaurant where I had the great meal the day before. This time it wasn’t as good, but it was still okay: a pork chop, sauerkraut, and my first beer of the week.

I was disappointed to discover that I could not use my credit card to pay for the meal because there was a $25 minimum (this would be a recurring theme throughout Europe), but when you’re traveling you have to roll with the punches and realize that many things are not going to be the same as they are back home, though Europe is pretty close—if you can’t handle the minor differences in Europe you should probably do all of your vacationing in the States. 😉

Later I bought a chocolate covered snowball (a local specialty for which I cannot remember the German name), and soon after we were back on the bus for Munich, which will be covered in the next installment. Until then, I’ll leave you with a couple of night shots of Rothenburg.

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Dubrovnik: A Tour of King’s Landing (and other locations)

February 15, 2013 Michael Rappa6 Comments

When I visited the medieval walled city of Dubrovnik, Croatia in November of 2011, I had no idea that one of my favorite television shows, Game of Thrones, had just recently finished filming its second season there. When the season premiere aired four months later, I realized that Dubrovnik had been used to depict King’s Landing (though I also recognized a few other parts of the city in other scenes, such as those in Qarth).

The strange sensation of seeing the city walls I had so recently walked and photographed being used to represent this fantasy world led to some occasional difficulty suspending disbelief, but I nevertheless thought it was quite cool to have actually stood in the same locations as the characters in the show.

I will write much more about my visit to the magnificent city of Dubrovnik in my travelogue, but for now I thought I would just share some of my photos that match up with locations from the television series (based on my foggy memory from seeing Season 2 nearly a year ago). Very minor spoilers ahead for those who haven’t watched the second season . . .

A CGI-enhanced version of this city line stands in for King’s Landing in the show.
The island in the background was used for some of the scenes with Daenerys in Qarth.

Streets of Dubrovnik, err, I mean King’s Landing.

This area was used for some external King’s Landing scenes.

The tower to the right was used to depict the
outside of the House of the Undying in Qarth.
Daenerys walked along this area before entering.

You can see why Dubrovnik makes such a perfect shooting location for a fantasy show.

Many scenes were filmed along these walls that surround the entire city.

This angle is similar to one used in the show, with
a CGI-enhanced version of the fort in the background.
The fort itself was heavily used for King’s Landing exterior scenes.

These hobbit-like doors built into the hill underneath the fort were featured during
the montage in which Joffrey had all of King Robert’s bastard sons murdered.

The interior of the fort was used for several scenes in and around the castle.

Another interior fort shot. Cersei and Littlefinger had a conversation in this hall.

This fort courtyard was frequently used.

This upper level of the fort was one of the main exterior filming locations for King’s Landing.

The fact that the background is all water and sky probably made the fort the easiest
location to use in terms of not needing to hide a bunch of stuff or crop it out with CGI.

A closer look at the island that stood in for Qarth (i.e., the Daenerys scenes).

The area among the trees down by the water was also used for a few King’s Landing scenes.

I’m sure there were several other areas used for filming that I’m not recalling at the moment, but I don’t feel like re-watching the entire season right now to find them :-), so I’ll just leave you with one final long-exposure night shot that feels a bit like a fantasy photo with the smoothness of the water:

See more photos from Dubrovnik

The Inca Trail Day 4: Arrival at Machu Picchu (My Trip to Peru, Part 7)

February 2, 2013 Michael Rappa4 Comments

At long last, the day had arrived to make the final trek to Machu Picchu. We awoke around 3:30 am to get in line with the other groups for admission into the final stretch of the trail. This turned out to be quite a long wait, but eventually we were on our way.

As usual, the younger members of the group raced off ahead, leaving me behind with Uncle Kipp and our guide Alex. However, unlike previous days, I was feeling good from the start of the hike, so I raced off ahead by myself (carrying my own backpack for a change), eager to make it to the Sun Gate (Intipunku) by sunrise.

I didn’t take any pictures during this stretch of the hike, opting instead to leave my camera in its case so that I could concentrate on reaching the Sun Gate as quickly as possible. The hike turned out to be a bit longer than the roughly hour or so I was expecting, but I’m sure the faster hikers made it to the Sun Gate within that time frame. However, I did a much better job of keeping up on this day, so I was usually among other hikers, either passing them or being passed by them.

I eventually came to a set of narrow stone stairs so vertically inclined that ascending them was almost like climbing a wall. It was such a difficult climb, in fact, that the guides referred to it as the “Gringo Killer” and there was a logjam of hikers waiting to climb it. Some people hollered in triumph when they reached the top, which led me to believe that this was the end of the trail and that the Sun Gate awaited me at the top, so when my turn came to climb, I went all in, rapidly climbing on all fours like a monkey, making it to the top in record time.

I looked around. No Sun Gate. No Machu Picchu. Doh!

I still had about another 20-30 minutes to hike and I had just expended all of my energy and muscle reserves racing up the Gringo Killer. Additionally, I started noticing a pain in my shin that worsened with each step. It felt like a stress fracture or shin splints or something. Although it was probably the result of the cumulative effect of walking/running and climbing/descending on stone steps for three days, there’s no doubt that the Gringo Killer was the final nail in the coffin. Had I taken my time with it instead of flying up like a bat out of hell, I might have saved myself a lot of pain.

Anyway, I hiked the last stretch of the trail and finally arrived at the Sun Gate, where I got my first spectacular view of Machu Picchu.

My view after emerging through the Sun Gate.
The winding road going down the mountain is where the buses bring the non-hiker tourists.

When you stand here you are seeing Machu Picchu and the surrounding mountains as the Incas did when they emerged through the Sun Gate all those centuries ago. This is the view that the bus tourists never see unless they make the hour-long trek up to this spot. As it turned out, I didn’t reach the gate by sunrise but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because the sky was overcast all day, which unfortunately resulted in some dulled photos, though I was still able to get some nice ones. However, in my excitement over finally gazing down on Machu Picchu, I neglected to take any of the Sun Gate itself.

Zoomed in view of Machu Picchu from the Sun Gate.

Shortly after arriving I encountered the guys from Argentina and we exchanged some high-fives. I then walked down a bit from the Sun Gate and found a quiet rock overlooking the trail, where I sat down to eat breakfast while enjoying the pristine view and basking in the feeling of being at the top of the world in the middle of nowhere.

Although I still had another 45 minutes of hiking before I would actually get to Machu Picchu, this moment really felt like the end, the culmination of my four-day struggle. Everything I had gone through had been worth it just to be sitting here.

About 20 minutes later Uncle Kipp and Alex arrived.

After a few more moments of relaxing it was time to make the final trek down to Machu Picchu.

A view along the trail down from the Sun Gate.

When we finally arrived, we waited in line to get the classic photo taken.

We then had to actually leave the park, meet up with the rest of the group, and then re-enter. On our way down we began to pass all of the bus tourists entering the park. I couldn’t help viewing them a bit like intruders, like “How dare you enter this sacred citadel that we have expended so much of our blood, sweat, and tears to reach? Be gone!” Or maybe I was just jealous that they looked so clean, well-dressed, and rested in comparison to us. 🙂

After hooking up with the rest of the group (and sadly abandoning my trusty walking stick, which was not allowed back in the park) we re-entered and followed our guide Freddy on a roughly two-hour tour. Rather than detail what I saw on the tour I’ll just let a few of the pictures I took speak for themselves.

My leg pain had gotten progressively worse as we toured Machu Picchu. By the end of the tour I could barely put any weight on it, so when Freddy asked which of us wanted to climb to the top of Huayna Picchu (the taller mountain that looms over Machu Picchu) there was no question that I would be opting out of that excursion. Everyone in the group except for Uncle Kipp and me went on the climb.

We still had about two hours left to explore more of Machu Picchu before we needed to leave, but since I could barely walk, we decided to leave early and head down to the city of Aguas Calientes. We had seen most of the major points of interest during the tour, but there was much more we could have seen (such as the view from the guard house), so having to leave early was a major regret.

We took the 20-minute bus ride down to Aguas Calientes, a town that gives you a taste of both the beautiful (being surrounded by majestic mountains) and the tacky (the touristy shops and restaurants). The pictures below are a couple of panoramas I took with my cell phone, so they’re a bit messed up due to the quality of the cell phone software, but they give you an idea of what the town looks like.

The portion of the Urubamba River that runs through town is filled with giant boulders like these:

We headed to the restaurant where our group would be meeting. Uncle Kipp and I got there first since the rest of the group was still climbing Huayna Picchu. Alex had one of the waitresses show us to a locked room upstairs where we could access our large duffels, which had been carried here by our porters, once again proving what a great decision it had been to hire personal porters. It was a huge relief not to have to lug those massive things through the last part of the Inca Trail, up the Gringo Killer, and all day through Machu Picchu. Overall, I was very pleased with the Dos Manos tour company—they had everything down to a science. Even when I realized that I had left my train ticket back at my hotel in Cusco, they were able to easily secure me a new one, and the various drop-offs and pickups to get us home ran smoothly as well, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Since we had some free time while waiting for the rest of the group, we decided to try the town’s hot springs. Alex joined us and showed us the way. Unfortunately for my injured leg, it was a very painful, 15-minute uphill walk. We eventually got there and jumped into the hottest pool they had. Words cannot describe the glorious feeling of sitting in that hot spring after four days of relentless physical exertion. We relaxed and enjoyed some cocktails that had been delivered to us at poolside.

The pools are all fed by real hot springs.
The bottoms consist of gravelly sand.

Later we returned to the restaurant and joined the rest of the group for our farewell lunch. After lunch we said goodbye to Freddy and Alex, who were getting an early train home, and tipped them very generously for everything they had done for us–they truly went above and beyond. Alex, in particular, had been like my guardian angel during my struggles on Days 2 and 3. Here are a couple of photos in tribute to our intrepid guides:

We then said our goodbyes to the rest of the group and exchanged contact info. Here’s a shot of the group from the previous night enjoying our final dinner on the Inca Trail.

Our Fellowship (minus the Elves and Hobbits).

So after four days of living among a group, it was down to just Uncle Kipp and me. We had a few hours to kill before our train left that evening so we walked around town, had some ice cream, did some shopping, etc. Finally we got the train back to Ollantaytambo, where we transferred to a bus back to Cusco. The bus dropped us off in a square in the middle of town and for a minute I thought I was going to have to walk uphill to my hotel carrying all of that luggage on my bum leg, but the bus driver hailed a cab, gave him some money, and instructed him to take us to our hotels. I said goodbye to Uncle Kipp after the cab dropped me off and then checked back in to the Hotel Rumi Punku. Finally, at around 11:30 pm, I walked through the door of my room and, just as promised, found the luggage I had left behind with the hotel waiting for me.

After unwinding and unpacking I collapsed into bed and slept until noon the next day—longer than I had slept in the previous few days combined. I decided to treat myself by renting out the hotel spa, complete with jacuzzi and sauna—I’d earned it. Between the hot springs and the spa, my leg, while still sore, was starting to feel better. I dropped off my rented sleeping bag and duffel at the Dos Manos travel office in the afternoon and then met Uncle Kipp and his friend Yuri that evening for a final dinner. Uncle Kipp was staying for a couple more days to stand as godfather to Yuri’s baby, but I was leaving the next afternoon.

The hotel was nice enough to give me a late checkout to coincide with my afternoon flight without charging me extra. I took a cab to the airport and was soon homeward bound. I won’t detail my misadventures getting home except to say that I will never fly American Airlines again if I can help it. I finally got back to Newark airport the following afternoon and back to home sweet home later that evening. And just like that, my adventure was over.

From the Sacred Valley to the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu, it truly was the adventure of a lifetime. I don’t know if I would ever again put myself through four days of roughing it like that, but I’m glad I did it. I challenged myself both physically and mentally in a way many people never will. It is an accomplishment I will always look back on with fondness and pride.

More Photos from Machu Pichu

More Photos and Videos from My Entire Peru Trip

The Inca Trail Day 3: Almost There (My Trip to Peru, Part 6)

January 24, 2013 Michael Rappa2 Comments

After surviving the trials of the previous day I awoke with a new lease on life, not quite refreshed, but feeling much better. Uncle Kipp and I had to wake up extra early to get a head start on the rest of the group since we had been lagging so far behind, so we had to skip breakfast, though they did provide us with a sandwich in a bag to eat along the way. There would be no time to ease into the hike on this morning–we had to immediately begin climbing the steps toward the second highest pass of the trail at nearly 13,000 feet above sea level.

The beginning of the steps to the second pass

Our guide Freddy accompanied us while the rest of the camp slept. Although I felt better, it was still a slow slog due to my ongoing altitude sickness. About halfway up the mountain we came to the first of many Inca ruins we would see on this day: the tambo of Runkuraqay.

Runkuraqay (this was actually taken from further up the mountain)

We explored the structure for a few minutes and took a break to eat. By this time the rest of the group had caught up with us and it was time for Freddy to give another history lecture. However, Uncle Kipp and I were not able to stay for the lecture because we needed to press on in order to keep pace, so we once again left the rest of the group behind (unfortunately, we missed out on a lot of Freddy’s history lessons because of our slower pace).

Interior of Runkuraqay. I thought the rock formation to the
left looked remarkably like a certain Dark Lord of the Sith.

This time we were accompanied by Alex, the assistant guide who had basically saved my life on the previous day by carrying my backpack for me. He picked up my pack with the intention of carrying it again, and although I was reluctant to make him haul it for a second day, he was insistent, so I gave in. It was probably a good thing since I was still suffering the effects of altitude sickness, which slowed me down to the point where I once again lost sight of Uncle Kipp as he went off ahead. The rest of the group eventually passed me again as well.

So I was on my own again, struggling my way to the summit. Well, I wasn’t entirely on my own because Alex, as he had the previous day, hovered within viewing distance ahead of me, occasionally stopping to let me catch up. He would be my constant companion for the rest of the day, which was nice because it gave me someone with whom to share my adventure, as well as someone to photograph me at various points along the trail.

Finally, I reached the top, and unlike the previous day when the sleet storm forced me to high-tail it off the mountain, I was able to take few minutes to enjoy my accomplishment and snap some photos under the warm sun.

A view of the trail heading back down after reaching the second pass

On the way down the guys from Argentina and their guide caught up to us (they had gotten off to a later start), so we stopped for some photos.

Me with the guys from Argentina. They didn’t speak English but
they were always there to high-five me at the end of each day’s hike.

Although I was now able to move faster, going downhill presented its own set of problems. I had to keep my eyes focused on the dangerous rocks to avoid tripping or breaking an ankle, and the constant staring down at rocks flying by my field of vision added a bit of motion sickness to my altitude sickness, so by the time I reached the lunch site, I felt like I was in the midst of a massive hangover. However, things would get better later in the day.

The trail next took us past the impressive Inca ruin of Sayaqmarka, nestled on top of a cliff. The name apparently means Inaccessible Town, which makes sense when you see that the only access to the site is a steep set of narrow stone stairs located to the left of the ruin in the photo below. The steps are much steeper than they appear in the photo, and I was still pretty sapped of energy at this point and pressed for time, so I skipped the ruin and remained on the Inca Trail, which veered off to the right.

I regretted not being able to spend more time at the various ruins I passed along the trail, but that’s the price I paid for constantly lagging behind the rest of the group.

Then it happened.

At some point during our descent my energy came flooding back. I could breathe again, my heart stopped racing, and my headache vanished. It was as if somebody threw a switch and deactivated my altitude sickness in an instant–it literally happened that quickly. I felt so good that I even started jogging for large stretches of the trail, in much the same way as the porters did for the entire trail.

We passed by several more Inca structures, including an Inca tunnel carved into the rock and the ruin of Phuyupatamarca, known as the Cloud Level town.

I was able to walk through the outskirts of this ruin but I once again didn’t have time to linger. Eventually we came to a pass where I had my first good view of Machu Picchu Mountain, the peak of which can be seen in the center of the photo below, just beneath the top of my walking stick. To the left of (and just below) the peak, way off in the distance, can be seen the agricultural terraces of the Inca ruin of Intipata. It looks in the photo as if it would take forever to get there, but I would actually be standing at that site by the end of this day’s hike.

Posing in front of Machu Picchu Mountain

As we wound our way toward Machu Picchu Mountain the town of Aguas Calientes became visible in the valley below. This is the town where people come to take the bus directly up to Machu Picchu (i.e., the lazy way to see it :-)). It was from here that we would catch our train home at the conclusion of the hike.

The city of Aguas Calientes at the foot of Machu Picchu Mountain

Also visible along this stretch of the hike was the Inca ruin of Wiñawayna. We would be camping later in the evening nearby this impressive site but I unfortunately would not have time to visit it.

I moved much more rapidly through the trail for the rest of the day as it was primarily a downhill hike interspersed with a few uphill stretches. We passed by a few smaller ruins, interesting plants and wildlife, the second Inca Tunnel, and gorgeous vistas of nature everywhere I turned.

One of the Inca Trail’s many inhabitants

Toward the end of the day we came to a crossroad where Alex told me we could either head down to camp or take a detour up to the Inca ruin of Intipata. I decided to visit the ruin since I had been forced to skip so many during this hike, and I’m glad I did.

Intipata, which wasn’t discovered until the 1990’s and has only been open to the public for a little over a decade, offers some spectacular views of the surrounding mountains and the valley below. In a way, it was actually more special to be here than at Machu Picchu itself because the only way to get to it is by hiking the Inca trail, which means there are no buses dropping off boatloads of tourists every twenty minutes. Along with your fellow hikers, you basically have the place to yourself. I believe that most of my group never made it here (probably opting for Wiñawayna instead), so it kind of felt like my secret place.

My favorite part of hiking the Inca Trail was discovering sites like this along the way that are basically hidden from the rest of the world. And for the first time in two days, I actually had time to relax and soak in my surroundings, to enjoy the serenity of being in the middle of nowhere, that feeling of isolation from civilization that you always picture in your head but are rarely able to duplicate when visiting the ruins of an ancient society.

Taking my traditional Karate Kid pose on the cliff overlooking the valley at Intipata

So we stayed for about a half hour, resting and snapping photos. Even after jogging my way through much of the second half of the day, I felt better than I had since the early part of Day 1.

Then it was time to head down to camp, where I exchanged high-fives and congratulations with some of the other group members before heading to my tent. Our tents were set up so close to the edge of a cliff that it would have been quite easy to fall over. The space was so tight, in fact, that at one point, as I was squeezing past a guy who was leaning into his tent, I knew that if he chose that exact moment to back out of his tent, he would have knocked me right over the cliff. The upside of the setup was that we had amazing views from our tents–not a bad way to spend our last night on the trail.

That night we had our final dinner and a goodbye ceremony for the porters, who would not be accompanying us to Machu Picchu in the morning. They would be heading back home for a couple of days of rest and then turning around to do the whole thing all over again. The porters were truly amazing, running through the entire Inca Trail on shoes that were basically no better than sandals, hauling heavy loads on their backs, always having everything set up before we arrived at camp, and serving us delicious food. We collected money from everyone in the group to tip the porters, and one of the Argentinean guys gave a speech, but since he spoke in Spanish, I don’t know what was said.

There were a few times during meals when the group would all speak to each other in Spanish and I would feel a bit left out, but that’s my own fault for being the only group member who didn’t speak any Spanish. Overall, everyone (my fellow hikers, the guides, and the porters) was very nice and there was a feeling of us all being in it together and pulling for each other . . . even if I didn’t see them for most of the four days 🙂

After the ceremony we tried to get some sleep because we would have our earliest wakeup call yet the next morning (I think it was around 3:30 am). We needed to begin so early in order to have enough time to reach the Sun Gate above Machu Picchu by sunrise. That final part of this story will be told in the next chapter. In the meantime, you can see more photos from the Inca Trail at the link below.

View More Pictures from the Inca Trail

Hiking the Inca Trail: The Journey Begins (My Trip to Peru, Part 4)

January 9, 2013 Michael Rappa1 Comment

Our group photo taken at the beginning of the Inca Trail.

After spending three days in Cusco to acclimate myself to the higher altitude (or so I thought), the day had finally arrived to begin my hike of the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. The classic Inca Trail, roughly 28 miles of ascending and descending between elevations of 9,000 and 14,000 feet, is very physically demanding, especially for an out-of-shape 41-year-old like me, but I did make it through, as did my 61-year-old uncle, so if you ever decide to embark on the trek, you should be okay as long as you are in relatively decent physical condition, particularly if you are younger. Nevertheless, preparing physically for the hike can only help you (I’ve read posts of some people who went through intensive physical training in the months leading up to the hike); I would have benefited from much more than the two months of yoga and tennis classes I took prior to the trip.

You also have to be mentally prepared to spend four days in the wilderness dealing with the elements, sleeping in tents, getting dirt in everything, going without hot showers, and using restrooms, each of which is nothing more than a stall with a hole in the floor. As someone who is virtually addicted to his creature comforts, this aspect of the hike was even more daunting for me than the physical challenge.

Anyway, I woke up at 4am to get ready for the bus to pick me up. I filled my large suitcase with everything I would not be bringing on the trail and left it in my hotel room with the luggage tag provided by the staff. The hotel was storing my luggage free of charge for the four days I would be gone, a very convenient service. That left me with a large duffel bag (to be carried by my personal porter) and a small backpack to carry myself. I purposefully chose an extra-small backpack so that I wouldn’t be able to fit too much into it and weigh myself down. This made it a little inconvenient to retrieve items because they had to be packed so tightly, but it was better than having the temptation to over-pack.

Speaking of the large duffel, I have to say that hiring the personal porter was the best decision that I made on this trip, totally worth the extra $50. I would never have made it through the trail carrying all that weight. Uncle Kipp and I were the only people in our group who hired the porters, but everyone else in the group was much younger, so I guess the weight didn’t bother them as much. Still, at one point I picked up a pack belonging to one of the other guys and it was like lifting a bag of concrete; I don’t know how he hauled that thing for four days.

So the bus (a disappointingly tiny, cramped one for the long drive) picked up the 12 members of our group and we were off. We stopped for breakfast in Ollantaytambo near the ruins I had just seen the previous day. At the shop beneath the restaurant, many of us purchased walking sticks—the second best decision I made on this trip. I nearly left without buying one, which would have been a huge mistake given how heavily I leaned on it, as this picture of the walking stick’s condition at the end of the hike can attest:

This is how the bottom of my walking stick looked after four days of hiking.

After breakfast we drove to the starting point for the Inca Trail, where we met our guides (the main guide Freddy and the assistant guide Alex) and everyone in the group introduced themselves. The other ten members of the group consisted of one couple from Spain (though the guy was actually a fellow native of the Philly area), two couples from France, a younger woman from Spain traveling solo (though I think she was actually British), and three guys from Argentina. The Argentina guys did not speak English so they were given their own guide and hiked separately from the rest of us. Everyone else in the group spoke Spanish but the guides were kind enough to give the main tour in English (with the occasional humorous slip into Spanish) in order to accommodate my lame monolingual self. 🙂

Following the introductions, we started pre-hike preparations (e.g., stretching, applying bug spray, sunscreen, etc.). Speaking of bug spray, for the most part I was barely bothered by insects at all during this hike, and this is coming from someone who can’t step outside at home without getting dive-bombed by mosquitoes. The spray I chose (a combo spray/sunscreen from Avon) did a great job.

When the group porters had finished packing up all of the tents and kitchen equipment, we made our way to the check-in point to begin the trail, stopping briefly to take the group photo seen at the beginning of this article. We then crossed the bridge over the Urubamba River and set foot on the classic Inca Trail for the first time.

We crossed this bridge to begin the hike.

It did not take long for Uncle Kipp and me to fall behind the rest of the group. This would become a familiar refrain over the four days, though on this first day it had less to do with physical demands than with my frequent stops to take photos. As a confirmed shutterbug I wanted to savor and document everything I was seeing, whereas the rest of the group, not sharing my photo obsession, moved through the trail much more rapidly.

A mesa in the Urubamba river along the early part of the trail.

The first day of the trail is not overly demanding. You’re mostly walking along the river at low altitude and gradually climbing on trails made mostly of dirt (the more physically demanding stone trails and higher altitudes would come later). There are people living along the early part of the trail, so you see lots of donkeys, horses, mules, cows, and other animals roaming the countryside. In fact, the biggest obstacle to contend with on the first day is the ubiquitous animal dung along the trail.

The first big climb came around the middle of the day and from this point on the trail would become steeper in both its ascents and descents, though still easily manageable on the first day. At the top of the first ascent we came to a plateau with a spectacular view of the Inca ruins of Patallacta.

Unfortunately, the classic trail does not pass close enough to these ruins for a visit, but there is a five-day hike where you camp nearby and visit the ruins. The group stopped here for a rest as our guide Freddy gave us a lecture about the trail and its history. I must confess, after only about three hours of sleep which had followed a few other nights of little sleep, I had to fight to keep from dozing off as I leaned back. Luckily, I had sunglasses on so Freddy couldn’t see my struggle. I wouldn’t have wanted to offend him; the sleepiness had nothing to do with his lecture.

Uncle Kipp and me at the top of the first ascent,
still looking happy, spry, and unbeaten down by the rigors of the trail.

After our break we headed down from the plateau on our first steep descent, passing by another set of ruins known as Willkaraqay.

There are a few places along the trail to purchase water and other things, but after the second morning, you’re on your own. The only water you have from that point on is what the porters boil for you in the morning and at lunch, so you need to carry a good-sized thermos. Speaking of lunch, we stopped for lunch in the middle of the day, though I can’t recall if it was before or after Patallacta. When we arrived at the lunch site, the porters had already set up the dining tent. I wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of food and I was starving, so when they brought out fresh avocado with some cheese, I fought through my historic aversion to green food and ate it. Little did I know that this was only the first of multiple courses that included soup and a meat dish with various sides (they made an alternative dish for the vegetarian in our group). Overall, they fed us amazingly well at both lunch and dinner throughout the trip, and the food was delicious.

A view of the trail and the scenery beyond.

For the rest of the day we made our way along the trail in a casual fashion. Toward the end of the day the trail began to climb again and it started to get dark. At some point, as we were walking in pitch blackness, the guides came back with a couple of porters to carry our backpacks so we could get to the campsite faster. It took about another 45 minutes of walking in darkness for me to reach the campsite, and Uncle Kipp arrived about a half-hour after that. All of the tents were set up and waiting for us when we arrived. I joined the rest of the group in the dinner tent for tea while Uncle Kipp relaxed in our sleeping tent.

A little later we had dinner and then it was time to retire for the evening. At this point it began raining (in the dry season, no less, but more on that later). The guides warned us to keep things away from the sides of the tents because it would cause them to leak, but there isn’t a lot of room for two adults and all of their gear in a small tent, so a lot of stuff did get wet, as we would discover in the morning.

August is in the middle of Peru’s winter, so although the days are warm and almost summer-like, it gets quite cold at night. However, at this time it was still too warm to get into my sleeping bag so I just slept in my liner on top of it, and a couple of hours later I woke up freezing. Overall, I slept horribly that night, getting less than three hours, which would really come back to haunt me the following morning, but that’s a story for Part 5. In the meantime, you can see more photos from the Inca Trail at the link below.

Photos from the Inca Trail