We arrived at Machu Picchu yesterday afternoon and spent a few hours touring the ruins. Amazing what the Incas managed to build – and all without ever having discovered the wheel!

We’re staying at the Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge – the only hotel within easy walking distance of the entrance of the archeological site. Very nice property. And they even have Internet access!

Below is evidence of our presence at Machu Picchu.

The Traveling Richters at Machu Picchu

I ended up spending all of last week in Dallas on business, with no time for anything but the project I was there for. I got home to Bonaire two days ago in the early morning hours, and all of The Traveling Richters are due to be on a flight to Quito, Ecuador in the morning for the start of our final exploration of the year.

We will spend the rest of the week in and around Quito, exploring the colonial city, regional crafts and arts centers, and also will take typical tourist pictures of ourselves straddling the equator. On Saturday we start our time with Lindblad Expeditions with a flight to the Galapagos Islands, best known for where, approximately 175 years ago, Charles Darwin got his inspiration for the concept of natural selection as a key process in biological evolution. We will spend a week aboard a ship, exploring various islands, hoping to see Galapagos tortoises in their natural settings, marine iguanas, Darwin’s famous finches, large schools of sharks during our snorkels, and a plethora of other fauna. And maybe some flora too.

From the Galapagos, we fly back to the mainland, and then down to Lima, Peru, and from there to Cusco and by bus to the Sacred Valley of the Incas high in the Andes. A couple of days later we’ll be at the fabled Incan ruins of Machu Picchu – spending the night there. Then we’re down to Cusco for a couple of days before returning to Lima for a final night before parting ways with the folks from Lindblad Expeditions.

We’ll spend a morning being driven to Ica, the wine capital of Peru, spending the rest of the day and night there so that the following morning we can take a private plane over the mysterious Nazca Lines, before returning for a few days in Lima. To get back home we have to overnight in Quito and catch the direct flight back to Bonaire on KLM from there. We’ll be back home on December 4th. And I probably have to head back north for two weeks of consulting right after our return. Gotta love those frequent flyer miles.

At this point Linda and Bas are rather travel weary, so they will undoubtedly be glad when this final trip for the year is over. The only trip of any sort we have scheduled at this point for 2009 is a couple weeks in the southwest, centered around Tucson for the Renaissance Weekend conference, with a few days at a ski area in New Mexico at the end for the kids to enjoy (brr!!!) the snow. And we may head up to New Hampshire later in the year as well. But that’s it. For now.

Krystyana and I will attempt to post missives from our South American travels – hopefully the Spanish we learned in Costa Rica in September will be of use.

We’ve just confirmed a trip starting in mid-November 2008 that will start us in Quito, Ecuador for a view days before we fly out to the Galapagos Islands to see the places that gave Charles Darwin his “Eureka!” moment about the idea of evolution and natural selection. Ten days later we get to Lima, Peru, and from there set forth on an expedition to see the high altitude village of Cuzco, and the even higher altitude Incan ruins of Machu Picchu before a return to Lima, and then ultimately home to Bonaire.

Prior to then we have a one week trip to Texas this month to see a concert and study the Alamo in San Antonio.

And we’re in the throes of trying to figure out exactly what all we want to do on a trip that starts us in Nova Scotia in early October 2008, and lands us in New Hampshire to visit family later in the month (hoping to catch some stunning fall foliage along the way, of course). Any suggestions or ideas would be welcome. One thing definitely on the list is to go out on the water with a Maine lobster man and learn more about the business of catching lobsters, firsthand.

We are also planning on hooking up with friends at a conference/retreat in Tucson, Arizona over President’s Day Weekend in February 2009.

Beyond that my tentative court and work schedule looks pretty full, so we’ll have to steal time for other trips as such time becomes available.

More details are in the Current Itineraries link at right.