Recently my wife and I travelled to South America on our honeymoon. Needless to say it was a spectacular journey, however the highlight for us was Peru, more specifically Cusco and the Inca Trail.
Having recently become a little bit too interested in photography for my bank balance to handle, I documented much of the trip using my brand new Canon D600 DSLR camera.
In true photography nerd fashion I have decided to put together a photo blog using some of (what I think) are the best photos. I'm sure any more experienced photographers out there would tear these photos apart, however I like them!
Read on and enjoy...
This is a cool looking idol from an old Inca temple.
I saw this banged up old VW on the street in Cusco and fell in love with it. Only in South America!
This is a photo of the cathedral in Cusco. There used to be an enormous Inca temple here, however it was destroyed in an earthquake and the Spaniards (they weren't very nice) built a Christian cathedral in the ruins. You can see the remains of the beautiful Inca wall in the picture above. It is the grey wall, with the huge blocks of granite that fit together perfectly. You couldn't even stick a razor between those blocks.
This is one of the huge pieces of granite that were used to build Saksaywaman (pronounced sexywoman hahaha!). They reckon this block weighs about thirty tons. Not a bad piece of engineering considering Incas had neither the wheel or writing in their toolbox.
Nuff said. Llamas rock.
Love this picture of a Quechua family with their baby Llama. I had to pay them 1 sole for this (20p) but it was worth it.
The view down from Ollantaytambo, a large, terraced Inca ruin in the Sacred Valley.
I gave my Mrs one of these when she was feeling nauseous and she perked up immediately. Don't know why.
Our campsite on the first night.
This is the highest point on the Inca Trail, known as Dead Woman's Pass. As you can see from the post it's pretty high - 4215m.
The Mrs strolling through the third pass on the way to Machu Pichu.
The view from here was mind blowing.
This is the Inca ruin of Antipati. There was an amazing terrace at the top where we stopped and chilled out for a bit to admire the view.
Two grasshoppers getting it on hahahaha!
This is me standing at the very top of Winay Wayna, which is an ancient Inca agricultural town. This place was truly stunning. There were four of us in the whole ruin and the place was huge.
Winay Wayna in all its glory.
Close up of the terraces.
This is a crap photo but I thought I would include it because through the fog you should be able to see Machu Pichu! This is the view from the famous sun gate, except when we arrived you could hardly even see your own hand in front of your face!
The must have photo of a foggy Machu Pichu.
There is some seriously cool architecture in Machu Pichu. Check out these wonderfully hewn granite blocks. It looks like an Escher painting.
More crazy brick laying.
A clearer shot of this amazing ruin.
Another awesome Llama at Machu Pichu.
I thought this was cool; it's a copy of the invoice for all of the equipment that Hiram Bingham took on the trip where he discovered Machu Pichu in 1911.
Couldn't resist snapping this beautiful old VW beetle in the streets of Cusco.
As you can see Peru is steeped in history. The story of the Inca civilisation and it's destruction by the invading Spaniards is gripping. If you're interested I would recommend this book. I read it while I was doing the Inca Trail and it really added a lot of colour to the ruins that I was seeing along the way.
Also I like to big up our Inca Trail guide company - Enigma Peru - they properly looked after us and I would definitely recommend them to anyone thinking of heading out there.
