Join us as we descend into our RTW trip!
So this is our last blog for this WorldTour! The trip was awesome fun and hard work. We would do it again in a heartbeat! It was great getting all your help, feedback and comments along the way! We hope to see you all soon.
We'd love to know if you've been reading these blog entries - please leave us a note by going to the "Post a Comment" section at the bottom of this blog or clicking on "Comments" below.
Cheers and Happy Travels!
- Smruti & Dev
Here's a quick way to click through to our blogs on different countries - 180 days around the world (much much slower than Phileas Fogg). This has links to all our blogs from August 2004 to March 2005!
:: Luggage - Looking at my backpack
:: Moscow - One step back, two steps forward
:: Prague - Prague's Disco Cows
:: Barcelona & Madrid - Darling, how Gaudi!
:: Cairo & Giza - Tut and Touts
:: Mt. Kilimanjaro - Polay, Polay
:: Mabula - Malaria-free Reserve 2004
:: Gujarat - Veerayatan
:: Rotorua & Auckland - HHHaaaaaa!!!
:: Rio de Janeiro - Heeo dge JhaneihoWe now have panoramic photos from our trip! The panoramics give a completely different feel for the place being photographed - much more space and light and perspective. (Our camera had a panoramic photo feature which allowed us to take some great shots.. we could only assemble/stitch them together into composite photos once we got to California though. So here they are. Note that you should click on the image to see a bigger & better image. You will see some weird effects in some of the photos - the stitching software had some problems.)
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RUSSIA - THE HERMITAGE, ST. PETERSBURG
The Hermitage is quite a huge palace, rivaling the Louvre in size and also in quantity and quality of art. The photo here shows the front of the palace. It was somewhat of any overcast day. Note the little statues on the top of the building.
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RUSSIA - THE HERMITAGE, ST. PETERSBURG
This is a view of the building opposite from the Hermitage. The archway in the middle goes on to an interesting part of St. Petersburg - lots of cafes, shops, canals and more!
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EGYPT - RAMSES TEMPLE, ABU SIMBEL
The massive status of Ramses II stand right in front of the temple. In addition to being gigantic and very nicely carved, the whole temple, including the statues, have been moved uphill block by block to avoid being drowned under the waters of the Aswan lake. There are absolutely no clouds in the sky and it is very hot - upwards of 40 degrees Celsius or 100 Fahrenheit! And we've been awake since 3am to get here in time! Note the tourist on the right-hand side who's leg was cut off by the photo stitching software!
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EGYPT - ABU SIMBEL
This photo shows both the Temple of Ramses and the Temple of Hathor. You can see the hills above the two temple - both sets of hills were moved in their entirety to avoid the waters of the Aswan lake which you can see on the right hand side.
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EGYPT - ASWAN LAKE
Right next to the Temple of Ramses at Abu Simbel is the Aswan Lake, formed by the Aswan Dam. The other side is Sudan!
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EGYPT - LUXOR
This is one of the walls at the Temple of Hatshepshut at Luxor. In 1997, 50 Greek tourists were gunned down over here. The hieroglyphics on the wall are fantastic. For some reason, our guide kept talking about some James Bond movie being shot here.
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EGYPT - GIZA PYRAMIDS
One of the pyramids at Giza, near Cairo. Again, it was a hot hot day.
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EGYPT - GIZE PYRAMIDS
All three pyramids at Giza. You can see the entrance that goes into the right-hand side pyramid.
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EGYPT - GIZA PYRAMIDS AND THE SPHINX
You can see all three pyramids here, in addition the Sphinx. There're a couple of nice lunch places right next to the Pyramids - somewhat a tourist trap but completely worth it after nearly getting sun-stroke walking around the Pyramids.
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EGYPT - ELEPHANTINE ISLAND
Nubian ruins on Elephantine Island near Aswan (inhabited from 5500-3100 BC). The people who still live here speak Nubian and Arabic.
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EGYPT - ABU SIMBEL
Wall carvings from the interior of the Temple of Ramses at Abu Simbel. Low ceilings and dim lighting made it hard to see much.
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EGYPT - MT. SINAI
The completely barren landscape near Mt. Sinai. You can see the St. Katherine monastory to the right hand side. The path to the top of Mt. Sinai continue behind the photographer.
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EGYPT - MT. SINAI
Sunset, as seen from the side of Mt. Sinai. The path continues on the right hand side.
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EGYPT - MT. SINAI
Chapel on top of Mt. Sinai. Some campers brought their tents and pitched them here. Apparently, the sunrise is quite spectacular.
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JORDAN - PETRA
Near the Treasury at Petra. In the distance, around the corner, is the rest of Petra, including the amphitheatre.
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JORDAN - PETRA
Another fantastic view of Petra. You can see steps on the left-hand side that have been worn away over the centuries by wind and water.
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JORDAN - PETRA
The walkway toward Petra. The walkway leads to the Siq which is a gorge that runs for over a kilometer through solid rock, leading to the Treasury at the entrance to Petra. Horses and their riders thunder up and down this pathway, trying to lure tourists. On the right-hand side, you can see the Djinn rocks - huge boulders that look very strange and sometimes have tombs carved out inside them.
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JORDAN - PETRA
On the left-hand side is a small hill full of little tombs. Some are fully carved out, some are half-carved for some reason. The tombs themselves are not very high - one has to crawl or stoop to move around inside them.
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JORDAN - PETRA
The monastory at Petra. It took us a good 1 hour to climb up to this monastory. In the distant hills behind the monastory, one can see Aaron's tomb.
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JORDAN - PETRA
The view from the monastory at Petra. Completely moon-like barren landscape.
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JORDAN - NEAR PETRA
On the road from Petra to Wadi Rum. Apparently, somewhere in the distance, one can see Aaron's tomb.
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JORDAN - WADI RUM
This was apparently a house where Lawrence of Arabia lived.
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JORDAN - WADI RUM
Huge mountains rise up vertically from the sand. The mountain sides have been carved away over the millenia by water and wind. Also, several millions of years ago, this area was apparently under water.
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JORDAN - WADI RUM
View from our camp. The rock in the middle somewhat resembled a tiger's head.
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TANZANIA - NGORONGORO PLAIN
You can see zebra and wildebeeste grazing here as well as some gazelles resting on the right hand side.
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TANZANIA - NGORONGORO CRATER
This is the view from the road leading to the Ngorongoro Lodge overlooking the crater. It's quite an awe-inspiring moment to see the clouds drifting across the plain and also shadows moving across the plain which turn out to be huge bunches of animals.
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TANZANIA - NGORONGORO CRATER
This was the view from our room at the Ngorongoro Lodge. The most spectacular view I have ever seen from a hotel room!
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TANZANIA - MT. KILIMANJARO
The view from the top of Mt. Kili, near Gilman's Point. You can see the Kili glacier on one side.
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TANZANIA - MT. KILIMANJARO
Half-way up Kili, we rested for a day to acclimatize. That day we walked up to Zebra Rock (so named because of the distinctive striped running down the side, as you can see in this photo) and then back down to the camp.
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KENYA - KAREN BLIXEN'S HOUSE, NAIROBI
This is where part of the movie "Out of Africa" was filmed with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. Karen Blixen herself lived here and this house was gifted to her by the Danish Consul General.
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SOUTH AFRICA - TABLE MOUNTAIN, CAPE TOWN
The view from table mountain is fantastic. One feels like one is at the edge of the earth.
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SOUTH AFRICA - TABLE MOUNTAIN, CAPE TOWN
You can see the cable car cables on the left-hand side. People come climbing up the rock also!
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SOUTH AFRICA - JOHANNESBURG
Football game between Nigeria and South Africa. Emotions were running high!
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SOUTH AFRICA - SAFARI PARK
Safari park belong to Vijay Mallya, an Indian businessman. You can the rhino eating peacefully on the right hand side.
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INDIA - NEW DELHI
This is a view of the maidan near India Gate in New Delhi. Lots of people playing cricket!
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INDIA - GUJARAT
This is the Sun temple in Modhera, near Ahmedabad. The geometric patterns of this place were quite amazing. Apparently, this temple was built 200 years before the Sun Temple at Konarak and the Konarak temple took much inspiration from this place. In the center, you can see a green area which is the bottom of the tank. Rainwater would fill up the tank and people would use the steps to go down to the water level.
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INDIA - RANTHAMBORE TIGER RESERVE, RAJASTHAN
A rest-stop inside the tiger reserve. Near the stream are a few crocodiles, basking in the sun.
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INDIA - RANTHAMBORE TIGER RESERVE, RAJASTHAN
Area near the lake at the tiger reserve. You can see peacocks in this photo.
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INDIA - RANTHAMORE TIGER RESERVE, RAJASTHAN
Central lake at the tiger reserve. Towards the left-hand side, you can see a sambar (type of deer) that has waded into the water to drink. Apparently, the tigers have adapted to this by plunging into the water in pursuit of the sambar.
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INDIA - WHITEWATER RAFTING CAMP, GANGA RIVER
All along the Ganga, above Rishikesh, there are a number of camps situated on clean white sand. In this photo, you can see the lunch tent in the center as well as the tents we stayed in on the right hand side.
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INDIA - WHITEWATER RAFTING CAMP, RIVER GANGA
The white sand gave way to rocks on one side of the camp. On the right hand side, you can see one of the rafts, ready to be placed in the water.
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INDIA - TSUNAMI-HIT COASTAL AREA, VEDARANYAM
The coastal area had been completely swept clean. There were patches of quicksand everywhere as well.
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NEW ZEALAND - KAIKOURA, SOUTH ISLAND
We went on a cliff walk on Kaikoura. This is the view looking away from the cliff toward to mountains in the background. The photographer casts a shadow on the right-hand side.
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NEW ZEALAND - ROAD BETWEEN QUEENSTOWN AND CHRISTCHURCH
Along the way, we stopped to admire some Lord of the Rings scenery.
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NEW ZEALAND - ROTORUA, NORTH ISLAND
The hot springs near Rotorua were quite colorful. In the center, you can see an upwelling of rose/red/orange-colored water. In the background, you can see a little footbridge that has been put in place to let people walk close to the hotsprings.
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BRAZIL - RIO DE JANEIRO
The photos below are all taken in Rio de Janeiro. Beautiful views from the top of Sugar Loaf!
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BRAZIL - RIO DE JANEIRO
Sunset, as seen from Sugar Loaf Mountain. You can just about see Copacabana beach on the left-hand side.
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BRAZIL - RIO DE JANEIRO
The cable car is reaching the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain. More of the sunset.
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BRAZIL - RIO DE JANEIRO
Little secluded beach about an hour north of Ipanema.
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PERU - CUMBAYO, NEAR CAJAMARCA
This was taken on the road on the way up to Cumbayo.
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PERU - CAJAMARCA
An aerial view of Cajamraca city.
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PERU - CUMBEMAYO
The strange formation on the right hand side is volcanic. We walked down to it and then through it!
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PERU - CUSCO
Cusco, city of the Incas. The church in the middle was situated right in front of a beautiful ground.
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PERU - MACCHU PICHU
Beautiful setting of Machu Pichu. It was the rainy season, so clouds kept drifting in and out. We took this photo sitting near the caretaker's hut overlooking the main residential area of Machu Pichu.
Hope you enjoyed the photos as much as we did!
Cheers,
Dev & Smruti
It is difficult to answer the question "What was your favorite place?" It depends on so many things! - from the natural surroundings to man-made artifacts such as buildings and temples to experiences with tours to meeting with friends to entertainment shows and more.
As you know from reading the blog, we have missed out huge chunks of the world. These include Italy, Greece, Turkey, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, Australia, Great Britain, Central Asia, Scandinavia, Western Africa, North America, Central America and much much more. Sounds like the whole world, right? In addition, we didn't even do justice to the countries we did manage to visit on this trip.
As we were told before we set off on our trip, there are many themes we could choose to focus on during our trip... we could have taken any one of these themes and made that our central focus for the trip - but we did not. If you are planning on a trip, perhaps you might like to pick one such theme to focus on. These themes could be wildlife, culture, writing, history, partying, religion, adventure sports, colonialism, mysticism, among many others. As an example, it's amazing for us to think that our tour of the world could be depicted as a religious tour of the world (this was not our intention) - after all, we visited religious establishments (as historical places) all over the world and much of what we saw was built or destroyed because of religion.
Notwithstanding all this, we have put together a list of our favorites - yes, some of these lists are quite long, just about sufficient to put you to sleep quite quickly :-) they're more to help us remember as we lose our brain cells inexorably over the next few decades. :-) None of these lists are sorted in any way.
FAVOURITE NATURAL WONDERS & LANDSCAPES
Wow! The world has an amazing amount of beautiful places! From scorching deserts to snow-capped mountains to beautiful beaches to green meadows, here're the countries we thought had outstanding natural beauty:
FAVORITE MAN-MADE WONDERS
Humans have done amazing things with all sorts of natural resources - carved cities out of mountains, extracted metal from the earth and built it into huge towers, created islands out of plants and mud, and created & collected huge amounts of works of art in fantastic settings. We would nominate some of these places for the the top man-made wonders of the world!
FAVORITE EXPERIENCES
These experiences were unforgettable. Something that we would go do again if we could! More than anything else, these experiences have whetted our appetite to do more of the same! We've got to go do more diving, more whitewater rafting, more flying in helicopters, more mountain climbing, more safaris and much much more...
Unforgettable
Very memorable
WORST EXPERIENCES
We had our share of bad experiences as well - mostly very frustrating times such as getting visas, getting lost and getting sick!
FAVORITE SHOWS/ ENTERTAINMENT / SPORTS
We saw a bunch of different shows around the world from tribal dances to flamenco dances to players dancing on the soccer pitch to samba dancing. Live shows were the best. We did see a bunch of movies but did not think it made sense to mention movies here.
FAVORITE RESTAURANTS
The quality of food was very variable in all the different places we were in. Chinese food seemed to be the most high quality and standardized everywhere we went!
COUNTRIES WITH THE BEST NIGHTLIFE
The partying went on late into the night all around the world. One thing is for sure - people everywhere are intent on having fun. I must say though that the Latin world (Spain, Brazil etc.) are on quite another level when it comes to partying! We also had a wonderful time meeting friends for dinner and drinks!
COUNTRIES WITH THE CRAZIEST TAXI DRIVERS
We had taxi drivers who would scream at us, shout at us, change the price half-way through the drive and, worst of all, tell us they knew where they were going when they had no idea where to go!
- Dev & Smruti
If you are planning a trip to several countries, you may be interested in what we learnt from our trip. The bottomline is that you don't need as much as you think you need. You can get a lot of what you need along the way. Also, don't forget the option of shipping stuff back home.
We went through various climates along the way, including winter-like cold in Russia, Peru and Mt Kilimanjaro, hot summer in Brazil, Africa and India and temperate weather in New Zealand and France. So we had to pack for all these types of weather. We had to plan for the following things:
Luggage - Our backpacks (bought from REI) each weighed in at about 20 kgs (about 44 pounds) when packed. Very heavy! This isn't counting the weight of our daypacks which we used for carry-on luggage on planes and also to carry water/food/tickets/passports etc. We also made sure that our bags, money, passports & tickets were secure at all times. We carried number locks plus money belts. We also bought two "stuff" bags each - these can be used to separate out things that would otherwise get completely lost or messed up (such as socks or electronics.
Clothing (Smruti)
Clothing (Dev)
Footwear - We took along several pairs of footwear given that we were going to be trekking, shlepping around tourist sites, running and going out at night! Apart from books, this took up the largest volume of space in our backpacks. We had trekking boots (Hi-Tec is a good brand), we had day-wear sandals (with ankle straps to offer the best support), sneakers, we had running shoes and we had going-out shoes. We thought we had overdone it but it turns out that we used most of these pretty frequently! The only one that we did not end up using too often were our running shoes (unfortunately).
Finances - It was surprisingly easy to get access to funds and keep track of bills etc. ATMs are available in every single country in the world - you have to manage how many times you go there since there is a hefty transaction fee for international ATM withdrawals. Best thing to do is to use the credit card (rather than cash) so that you get the best exchange rates and also don't have to go to the ATM that often. Also, we had already set-up online bill payment (best thing since sliced bread!) so that all our bills were being electronically sent to us and paid electronically. We also kept track of our expenses on paper (I tried to do this on my PDA but it was too time-consuming!). We had also taken along traveller's checks - I had originally thought that we would never need this but we found that there are several places in the world where ATMs are not available.
Medicine - For medicine, we picked up a first-aid kit at Walgreens. They come with bandaids, antiseptic liquid & cream, needle & thread, small pair of scissors etc. We also took along our prescription Malaria pills which we had to take once a week. We added some aspirin, cottonwool and some Immodium (anti-diarrheal). This served our purposes for the whole six months. The one thing that we did require along the way was some Diamoxx (anti altitude sickness) when climbing Mt. Kili - we got that there.
Toiletries & washing - Along the way, we got mostly all the toiletries we need (soap, shampoo, etc.) plus washing detergent. The most important items were sunblock and chapstick with a good SPF. The sun tanned us something fierce! We did take along with us insta-dry handwash gel - this is invaluable whenever sitting down for meals without access to a clean bathroom and was difficult to find anywhere in Africa. We did take along a universal sink plug with us to enable us to do laundry wherever we were staying.
Entertainment - We had our MP3 player along with a pack of cards. We did pick up a travelpak of Scrabble & Chess which was great for long train or plane journeys.
Books - 
Books were essential, although we've heard from some other people that they never even once opened up the books they took with them. Most of the places we went had book exchanges so we were able to exchange anything we bought along the way for things we hadn´t read yet!
Miscellaneous - Our swiss knives were very useful - good for cutting up fruit, annoying plastic luggage tags, has a nail file, etc. Also useful were tweezers. It was very useful to bring along a diary/journal and pen for things like addresses, travel info, numbers, recipes and more!
Communications - keeping in touch with friends and family through the phone, email etc. Covered in a separate blog.
Electronics - taking along all gadgets that we deemed necessary to take photos, hear music, make phone calls etc.! Covered in a separate blog.
RTW tickets & visas - covered in a separate blog on ticketing, guides, visas and health insurance.
What we did not use - we ended up getting several things that we did not use, including:
Hair dryer- seriously got to be a pain to have to plug in the transformer and hold it in manually when it didn´t fit the weird sized plugs in Egypt, Morocco, etc.
What we should have taken along -
- Dev & Smruti
Planning the trip was quite insane, in terms of plane tickets, train tickets, lodging, visas and health insurance.
In order to know enough about the places we were visiting, we chose to stick with Lonely Planet guides - we tried a few others such as Frommers, Rough Guide and Fodors but found Lonely Planet to be the best one. Also, Lonely Planet guides turned out to be available almost everywhere in the world. The negative of doing this is that almost everybody used Lonely Planet and you are liable to be doing the same thing everybody else is doing - you'll have to make any active effort to break out of this wherever you are! Chances are that if you are on a RTW trip, you'll need many many travel guides - this creates a quandary - do you buy all these in advance (to help in planning) and then carry these with you around the world OR do you buy these along the way. We also used VirtualTourist.com to check out traveler blogs on specific places in the world - the great thing about this site is that it allows you to post questions about specific places and have them answered in a day or two! Also, many cities have VirtualTourst teams (VT teams) that meet every couple of months - you can connect with VT members in each city if you don't know anybody else!
Even better than written guides and online sources, we connected with friends and family in different parts of the world... there's nothing better than a local to get you on the right track! And it was wonderful to have so many people willing to help us!
Getting our round-the-world ticket turned out to be quite difficult! Most travel agents are not incented to provide RTW tickets - my guess is that this is because there is a ton of research/work involved in putting together a ticket (which eats up a lot of time) and the profit margins are very low. There is an agency called Airtreks to whom you can specify all your locations and they then put together an itinerary - but they do not do Round-the-world tickets - rather, they string together a bunch of one-way tickets which turns out to be much more expensive. We also looked at online world travel sites such as Boots 'N All, LonelyPlanet and EthicalTraveller.
The best way to travel is to get a round-the-world ticket, available with most airlines. In fact, most airlines stitch together a round-the-world ticket on an alliance of airlines (such as Star Alliance or OneWorld). Don't forget to take all your frequent flyer numbers with you!! The cheapest round-the-world tickets can be purchased from Australia, New Zealand or England - seems to be that people from these countries do the most RTW travelling - you ca n get tickets for between $1500 and $3000 per person! What you can do is to call an agency in that country, book the ticket and then fly to that country to commence your travelling. Most RTW tickets come in one of two formats:
Note that the travel does not all have be connected i.e. you may take a flight to London and then travel by train to Spain and then take the next flight out from Madrid. Also note, that some parts of the world don't have any airlines that belong to a RTW airline alliance so be ready to buy individual one-way tickets sometimes as well! Also, RTW tickets usually require you to finish your travel with 12 months.
Visa-wise, I had to get 16 visas and Smruti 6. Instead of trudging around each of the consulates & embassies and/or fedexing our applications around the US, we decided to use a visa agency (named Visa Network, in San Francisco) to handle all the work. For a little bit of extra money, they procured more visas for us in a shorter amount of time than we would have been able to do ourselves. If we had had more time, we might have done it ourselves. On the other hand, many of the consulates required plane tickets and hotel reservations prior to giving us a visa and since we didn't have this till shortly before we left, we had to scramble at the last minute anyway. Unfortunately, we didn't get all our visas done before we left on the trip, so we had to get a bunch along the way - if at all possible, don't do this as many countries do not allow visas to be given outside of your home country. For example, the Brazilians and the US have some tit-for-tat going on in terms of visas, so we had to jump through many hoops to get Smruti a Brazilian visa from the Brazilian embassy in New Delhi, India. (As an aside, it is pretty funny when Americans are asked to fill out some of the onerous forms that Americans ask others to fill out... questions such as "Are you a terrorist?" or "Are you a prostitute?"...and they're also fingerprinted!) Also, some countries have separate procedures you have to go through if you want to visit a "sensitive" area, so plan for this in advance.
Health insurance was easy enough. All the travel books suggested the same thing - get basic domestic US insurance to cover emergencies. And then get international travel insurance to cover medical evacuations from the other country to the US. No international insurance will cover doctor's visits or prescriptions abroad. So take several months supply of prescription medicine along with you.
One other practical thing to do is to scan your passport, health insurance and travellers cheque forms and email them to your own Internet-based email account (Yahoo! or Hotmail or Gmail or the like). This will come in extremely handy if you happen to loose your papers and need to get them redone.
- Dev
Internet Access
In terms of email and Internet access, each and every country we went to had a lot of Internet cafes (in most of the world, "Internet cafe" is the wrong phrase these days,.. most people call it "Cyber Shop" or "Internet Shop"). I was pleasantly surprised as most cyber shops had Windows XP which made it much easier to manipulate photos and connect the Archos device and Inland multi-card reader through USB ports. Prices around the world for internet access are pretty uniform, ranging from $0.50 per hour to $2 per hour. Beware of cybershops that advertise as LAN houses and Games houses - these cybershops usually have gazillions of 10-year old boys playing Doom against each other and shouting very very loudly all the time! Check out an interesting article on multi-player gaming by Benchmark Capital's Bill Gurley at http://www.abovethecrowd.com/atc/2004/10/the_revolutiona.html.
Blogging
In order to keep our families and friends current with what we were doing on our trip, we decided to keep a blog (i.e. what you are reading right now). At first, we knew nothing about blogging. But slowly, we travelled up the learning curve. Our options roughly split into three categories:
I chose option#2 and signed up with Typepad. After setting up the basic framework, it was pretty easy to add new blogs and photos. Two other thing also greatly added to the usefulness of this blog - first, I found a free Internet service called Bloglet which enabled me to have a subscription feature - people could automatically get emails whenever we updated the blog - I had to insert some HTML code from Bloglet into our blog. Second, I found another free Internet service called StatCounter which tracked how many people had visited the site and displayed it on the blog.
We also found a great resource to link to repeatedly - Wikipedia - which is a blogged encylopedia, believe it or not. Blogging has grown exponentially in the past year, so I'm sure there are many other options now.
Email Access
If you haven't already done so, please create an email account on Yahoo! or Hotmail or Gmail or the like that you can access from anywhere. People have a reason to contact you for many reasons and this is the best way to interact with travel agents, hotels, friends etc. in distant countries.
-Dev
Having lived in Silicon Valley these past few years, we had collected lots of gadgets. So figuring out what to take with us was a challenge. We ended up taking the following:
digital camera with 5 megapixels, video capability and compact-flash memory. Excellent value-for-money. We've seens tons of other people carrying the same camera all over the world. We added a 512MB Compact Flash (CF) card.
combination MP3 player, photo storage (40 Gigs) and MPEG4 video player. Excellent for storing all the thousands of photos and videos we've taken and also music we've collected along the way. A surprise was how we could view all the photos taken on the camera on this device - unfortunately, we could not view the videos taken on the camera on this device. Comes with universal charger and USB cord to connect to any PC. 
One can plug this into any computer, plug any Compact Flash/ MD/ SD/ MMC/ SM card into this and upload all photos and videos onto the computer. In any internet cafe that I went to, I´d plug in the Archos device and the USB card reader (with the CD card from the camera plugged into this) and transfer all photos/videos to the Archos device, thus freeing up the CF card for more photos. We saw a lot of other travelers constantly having their photos burnt onto a CD. This took up a lot of space and gets to be very expensive. Of course, a copy on CD that is shipped home is a lot less likely to be stolen so there is an advantage to doing it this way.
I took this along, thinking this would help us keep up with everybody´s birthdays, wedding anniversaries etc and also keep everybody´s phone numbers. The device is fantastic but, on the road, it is a disaster in terms of recharging, updating etc. Unfortunately, I forgot to recharge for a few days and all of its data got wiped out! So that was that. I´ve managed to get along fine without it.
This has been the surprise of the lot. SMS has been great - direct calls are very expensive from around the world ($5 per minute in Russia!) but SMS is cheap. The folding keyboard on this device is ideal for SMS. Also, a very blaaah feature such as the alarm on this device was very useful - we couldn´t have done without it - when travelling, there are numerous time when one has to wake up early to catch flights, get on tours, etc. And finally, this does have a calendar feature which was very useful. In some countries, we bought a local SIM card and plugged that into this phone. Also, in any country, you can get local calling cards that you can use from any payphone.Music & MP3's
On thing that we did for music was that we would create MP3´s from the music CDs we bought and load them onto the Archos MP3 player. We would do this by downloading Apple´s iTunes client onto the cybershop computer and then using this to rip all the songs off of the CDs. Very convenient for travelling as we could now listen to the music at will and also ship home the bulky CDs.
Electricity Issues
A word on chargers, adapters and transformers: As you know, the voltage and amperage of local electricity supplies varies around the world. The best thing to do is to buy devices that have chargers/power supplies that can work with all voltages/amperages without requiring a separate transformer. This greatly reduces the potential for anything to go wrong. All you have to do is buy an adapter kit that allows your power supply plug to fit into the correct shape of the plugs in the country you are in.
We´ll have a few more blogs on packing insights and more!
- Dev
It´s hard to believe, but we are in the home stretch with our final stop of Cajamarca, before we head to the US! For this final stop in Peru, we decided to get off the usual gringo trail and head to the northern highlands of Peru. It´s supposed to be more laid-back, less touristy, and have excellent Andean food. We hopped on an all-nighter bus heading to Cajamarca from Lima and after a relatively comfortable night (we got to see trailers for the next Star Wars movie, a cooking show in the spirit of Naked Chef, and a dubbed version of About a Boy- it´s not the same without Hugh Grant´s distinctive voice.) we reached Cajamarca.
Cajamarca is best known to be the city where Pizarro (the Spanish conquistador aka murderer) killed the Inca king Atahualpa after kidnapping him, demanding ransom, and faking a promise to release him after the ransom was paid. In fact, what happened is that even though the ransom was paid in full (estimates by our guide were about 6000 kg of gold and about 12,000 kg in silver), the conquistadores ended up killing Atahualpa and setting up a puppet ruler so they could march into Cuzco as ´liberators´.
(On the flip side, I am currently reading a book called ´What If? 2´ which has essays speculating how the world would be different if key historical events had been different. And wouldn´t you know it, there´s an essay on what would have happened if Pizarro hadn´t found potatoes in Peru. Ireland might never have used the potato as a main subsistence crop! )
My first impression of the town was that it was green and wet! In the rainy season, the countryside blooms with tons of different wildflowers, some of which look like they would be home in the Alps. Some of these flowers have adapted to the terrain - for example, the yellow flower on the left now has no stem to protect it from the wind. However, there are no snow-capped mountains- Cajamarca is a mere 2655 meters above sea level.
Like most other colonial cities, the Plaza de Armas 
has a large park in the center with a fountain, topiaried trees and bushes and lots of locals strolling around at all times. Not as crazy in terms of trying to get us to buy handicrafts like it was in Cuzco or Lima. But maybe because it´s low season. In fact, in our three days in Cajamarca, we only saw a few other non-local tourists!
Deciding to skip the churches and focus on more earthly matters, we made our first stop at Los Banos del Inca- a natural hot springs site where Atahualpa was camped when the conquistadores came- hence the name. They have a public pool as well as private cabins where the thermal waters (70C or 158F) are piped in and you can enjoy a lovely spa experience (allowing for the sulpherous smell!) We ended our experience here with a great massage. (By the way, it doesn´t always look like this..I think the artist was going for some ´artsy´photo!)
The next day, we went to Cumbemayo, a large valley area at 3,390 meters dotted with carved water canals that archaeologists trace to a water cult about 2000 years ago. As we drove up and saw the ´rock forests´or what locals call ´frailones´(because the geologic formations resembles pious friars in prayer), my jaw dropped. They towered to a height of 20 meters (65 feet) above us and were marked with petroglyphs and many carvings sacred to the people who once worshipped here. To get through to the water canals, we actually climbed through the rock through a 12 meter pitch black first uphill then downhill tunnel. It was disconcerting, to say the least!! Thoughts of being swallowed up in the rock (ala Picnic at Hanging Rock) kept coming to mind!
But once we were safely out, the scenery dramtically changed. The path we walked upon become grassy-spongy due to the high water table amount. Rock formations seemed to be recognizable as a face (can you find it in the picture above?) , a witch´s hat, or a gigantic conch shell. We could see little caves dotted all through the higher reaches of the formations. According to our guide, these formations came about through tectonic and volcanic movement and rock and lava being pushed up from the earth´s center. And it might sound hokey to say so, but you can definitely feel some vibrations or energies swirling around in the air (let me stress that I felt them. Dev....not so much) .
The channels themselves are well made. The builders created some 90 degree angles and varied the width of the channel to regulate the water flow. Pretty modern of these Pre-Inca peoples!
There´s a huge sacrifical stone carved through with zig-zags - thought to be the place where llamas were sacrificed. Our guide noted that the blood would be carried down the water channels to the crops...good for planting!
On our way back, we noticed some modern-day graffiti by locals that had almost eclipsed the original petroglyphs. Very sad to see that some people can be so ignorant and disrespectful of these amazing archaoelogical finds. (There was no real control of the site, either- which could be good as there were no people trying to drown you in souvenirs) On the other hand, we could see some people going beyond set boundaries and chipping off bits of rock to take with them.
Our final visit around Cajamarca was to the Ventanillas del Combayo (Little Windows of Combayo). It´s about 20 km away from Cajamarca through some amazing winding unpaved roads that provide vistas of the valley and the Chonto River. The ventanillas is a necropolis from 500 years before Christ to 100 years after Christ where those of high social status or rich buried the bones of the dead along with ceramic pots and textiles (representing what would be needed in the afterlife). This site was chosen due to the volcanic rock and the ease of carving out the windows or niches. 
Of the 500 plus windows, most have been looted unfortunately, but luckily they have not been destroyed. It´s quite eerie looking...all the windows face towards the sun in accordance to the religious beliefs of the pre-Inca civilizations. There is a much closer site at Otuzco (about 8 km away) but the site at Combayo is much better preserved, and there is (as we found out) the added thrill of climbing up 300 meters on a wet and often unmarked slippery hillside!
Some of the tombs are so high up, you wonder how the creators got up there! Our guide took us through a sheep pasture, over grassy tussocks, through mud puddles and over large sheer rocks (luckily, we found footholds and handholds easily). He had told us when we booked this tour that not many people come to Combayo, and now I understood why. Defintely not a Sunday stroll! Oh, and on the way down, it started POURING with rain.
Well, that´s it for Peru....and our trip! We´ll be posting some more stuff soon, including our travel tips on RTW travel and also stuff about our favorite places and more. Stay tuned!
-Smruti
Arequipa is based at the foot of El Misti, a snow-clad volcanic mountain at a height of 5822 meters. Nearby is also the deepest canyon in the world (Canyon del Colca) - we didn´t have the time to go to this canyon unfortunately. Arequipa has been known as the white city as most of its colonial buildings are made from sillar, a whitish-colored volcanic rock.
We visited the Monasterio Santa Catalina which is a old monastery with about 30 nuns living there. It´s as big as a city. In the colonial days, rich Spanish colonialists would send their 2nd oldest daughter here to be nuns. Each nun would come with a huge dowry which would be used to build a house within the walls of the monastery and also used to fund a servant, living expenses and any creature comforts that they required. In 1822, Peru became independent from Spain and in the late nineteenth century, a law was put into place that prevented the monastery from accepting only rich nuns. As a result, a there was a huge influx of poorer Indian nuns (upto 400) . The monastery thus stopped receiving funding - as a result, the active monastery has been scaled down and the rest has been opened up for tourists. The most interesting part of the monastery was the brilliant blue walls contrasting with the rich red walls.
In Arequipa, we also learned about the history of Inca sacrifices. We visited the Museo Santuarios Andinos which houses the bodies of humans sacrificed by the Incas to appease the gods. Juanita is the name of the most famous mummy. It´s quite fascinating how the bodies were found - a nearby volcano started erupting in 1995 - the ash from this volcano settled on Mt. Ampato, leading to the melting of the glacier on top of this mountain. The melting exposed several mummies which had been buried about 500 years ago. Apparently, about 25 such mummies have been recovered in western South America, all from Inca times. The story of Juanita is also interesting though somewhat morbid - she was chosen from birth as one whom would be sacrified - for the occasion, she was starved for a couple of weeks and then made to walk all the way from Cusco to Arequipa and then up the 5800 meter high mountain, clad in light woold and grass slippers. There, already near death, she was made to drink a glass of chicha (local alcohol) and then the chief priest hit her on the left temple with a cudgel which instantly led to her death. There´s a good National Geographic magazine article on this here.
On this round-the-world trip, we have seen many mummies! - at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, we saw mummies of various Pharoahs (over 4000 years old). In Goa, India, we saw the mummy of St. Xavier (about 500 years old). And now, we have seen Inca mummies (about 500 years old).
We also went to the Sol de Mayo restaurant, as we were told that it had good local live music (folklorica). Unfortunately, the local music ended just as we entered and the band started on really bad renditions of Frank Sinatra songs in a Spanish accent. Quite bad.
On to the Northern Highlands of Peru now!
- Dev
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