In The Center of the Belly Button

Once through the basics, our guides started off by telling us we are all saying Cusco wrong. The correct word, Cosco, is actually an old Incan word in the Quechuan language, meaning umbilicus. This reflects that Cosco was the center of the Incan empire and was viewed as the center of the world. So here […]

Something To Do In Lima and On To Cusco

The Larco Museum houses 4,000 years of pre-Columbian Peruvian relics, and this was the one thing we all agreed we should see today. We had booked an afternoon flight to Cusco, thinking that we might be cutting our time in Lima short. Now that we were in Lima, we recognized that there are reasons people […]

A Day In Lima Is Enough

The traffic pressed tight around our car, closer than even L realized, as she jumped when she saw the bus a few inches outside her window. This is Lima, a colloidal mix of impoverished neighborhoods where trash overflows into the streets and mixes with exhaust to perfume the air, and wealthy restored neighborhoods where pedestrians […]

I Don’t Really Have a Bucket List, But If I Did…

The first seeds of any trip are sown well before I step out my door and head to the airport. Sometimes they have been laid mere weeks or months in advance, such as in my trips to Budapest and Marrakech, which began with me scouring the internet for fare sales, and in the end choosing […]

Summary of Marrakech: When Work Intrudes

I rose with the sun, showered, and packed the last of my belongings. My driver collected me before breakfast and guided me through the empty alleyways to the waiting van. Speaking no English, he drove the entire time in silence, with a hood pulled up over his head, and low to his eyes. The streets […]

What I Did On My Last Day In Marrakech

I walked among the stalls, trying to decide what to eat. As I approached each stall, a vendor stepped into my line of sight, demanding that I sit and eat at his stall. Some accepted “no” right from the start. Others, however, blocked my path, and I turned my back to them. Plenty of the […]