Around The World In 80 Waves

As with all the Aztec, Olmec and Mayan ruins I missed through Central America I am not going to have the time available to go and see any of the Inca sites here in Peru.

The Inca Empire was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was located in Cusco here in Peru. The Inca civilization arose from the highlands sometime in the early 13th century.

The most famous of these sites is Machu Picchu located high in the Andes, but there are a great many more that I would have like to have seen had time allowed. 

It is not to be however, and at the end of the day they are just piles of old rocks. Very  spectacular piles of old rocks, but just piles of rocks all the same. 

I had also hoped that when I flew south to Chile I might catch a glimpse of some of the Nazca lines through the aeroplane window.

The Nazca Lines are a series of ancient geoglyphs located in the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. 

The hundreds of individual figures range in complexity from simple lines to stylized hummingbirds, spiders, monkeys, fish, sharks, orcas, and lizards.

The lines are shallow designs made in the ground by removing the reddish pebbles and uncovering the whitish/grayish ground beneath. Hundreds are simple lines or geometric shapes.

The largest figures are over 200 metres across.

However because my flight south will be taking place at night I have no chance of seeing any of them.

It would seem that the closest I am likely to get to any of the ancient worlds of the Americas will be drinking the local Inca Kola.

It is as popular here as the usual colas would be back home and tastes a bit like cream soda.

It isn’t fortified with anything funky as I believe the original Coca Cola was. The clue is in the name as to what the real thing really was!