Travel Related Developments
Oct. 12th, 2009 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fauxkloreMy planning for my trip to Peru is progressing. I decided to splurge on a luxury resort for a night at Aguas Calientes, in lieu of staying at the Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge. The Inkaterra is still mind-bogglingly expensive, but appears to be better value for money. And they have spectacled bears. Bears are good.
The contrast between that and the under 10 bucks a night rooms in some of my other stops is pretty dramatic. But there is only one night on the trip when I won't have running water. (That involves an overnight bus between Cuzco and Nazca. I'm somewhat apprehensive about a night bus, particularly over the Andes with its risk of bus plunge, but it's a 15 hour trip and there's not really a better way.
At any rate, I continue to be impressed by how much the internet has simplified travel planning in some ways. I was able to buy my Peru Rail tickets on-line for example. (And I will buy the bus tickets on line, but it's a bit early to do so.) However, I still had to fax my credit card info to one hotel to secure a reservation, so not everything is up to date in Inca cities. I am waiting to hear back from a couple of other places and I still need to decide between staying in Ica, Paracas or Pisco for one night between Nazca and Lima. (Paracas is the closest for seeing Islas Balleastas, but has the least infrastructure. Though I can probably get a room at the new Doubletree Hotel there free.)
Amazing Race - Episode 4 Comments:
I'm always delighted by the racers going to places I've been to. I'm also surprised again and again by their inability to pronounce the names of them. Is Phnom Penh really all that obscure? Anyway, their first stop there was the Foreign Correspondents' Club, which hardly needs the publicity. There are certain places every traveler goes to. You know that if you spend enough time at them, you will run into everyone you have ever traveled with anywhere in the world. The FCC is one of those. (Apropos of nothing, my favorite example is The Magic Bean, a coffee house in Quito, Ecuador.) It's a great place for a drink at sunset, looking out over the Tonle Sap River and just soaking up the atmosphere. It's kind of wasted on something like the Amazing Race, where the participants don't get to just hang out and linger over a drink or two. But, still, it's fun to see the race go to places I've been to. (I've also been to Wat Phnom, which was the pit stop.)
The scarf matching at the Russian market seemed to have a large element of luck. At least none of the teams abducted some random woman with a non-matching scarf. I guess they gave them unpopular scarf patterns, versus the gingham-like checks that are more or less the standard in Cambodia.
The ending was, of course, tragic. But knowing where your passport is at all times is really important and I think it was perfectly fair that Zev and Justin got eliminated for losing Zev's. If you watch Elimination Station (the CBS on-line post-episode video with the eliminated teams), it turns out that it fell out of the pack when Justin took out his headlamp at the monkey temple. Fortunately, it was turned in to the U.S. Embassy. I'd actually suspected that Zev had his pocket picked at the market, which is notorious for that. So, in a sense, they got off lightly.
Of the teams left, the Globetrotters are my favorite.
The contrast between that and the under 10 bucks a night rooms in some of my other stops is pretty dramatic. But there is only one night on the trip when I won't have running water. (That involves an overnight bus between Cuzco and Nazca. I'm somewhat apprehensive about a night bus, particularly over the Andes with its risk of bus plunge, but it's a 15 hour trip and there's not really a better way.
At any rate, I continue to be impressed by how much the internet has simplified travel planning in some ways. I was able to buy my Peru Rail tickets on-line for example. (And I will buy the bus tickets on line, but it's a bit early to do so.) However, I still had to fax my credit card info to one hotel to secure a reservation, so not everything is up to date in Inca cities. I am waiting to hear back from a couple of other places and I still need to decide between staying in Ica, Paracas or Pisco for one night between Nazca and Lima. (Paracas is the closest for seeing Islas Balleastas, but has the least infrastructure. Though I can probably get a room at the new Doubletree Hotel there free.)
Amazing Race - Episode 4 Comments:
I'm always delighted by the racers going to places I've been to. I'm also surprised again and again by their inability to pronounce the names of them. Is Phnom Penh really all that obscure? Anyway, their first stop there was the Foreign Correspondents' Club, which hardly needs the publicity. There are certain places every traveler goes to. You know that if you spend enough time at them, you will run into everyone you have ever traveled with anywhere in the world. The FCC is one of those. (Apropos of nothing, my favorite example is The Magic Bean, a coffee house in Quito, Ecuador.) It's a great place for a drink at sunset, looking out over the Tonle Sap River and just soaking up the atmosphere. It's kind of wasted on something like the Amazing Race, where the participants don't get to just hang out and linger over a drink or two. But, still, it's fun to see the race go to places I've been to. (I've also been to Wat Phnom, which was the pit stop.)
The scarf matching at the Russian market seemed to have a large element of luck. At least none of the teams abducted some random woman with a non-matching scarf. I guess they gave them unpopular scarf patterns, versus the gingham-like checks that are more or less the standard in Cambodia.
The ending was, of course, tragic. But knowing where your passport is at all times is really important and I think it was perfectly fair that Zev and Justin got eliminated for losing Zev's. If you watch Elimination Station (the CBS on-line post-episode video with the eliminated teams), it turns out that it fell out of the pack when Justin took out his headlamp at the monkey temple. Fortunately, it was turned in to the U.S. Embassy. I'd actually suspected that Zev had his pocket picked at the market, which is notorious for that. So, in a sense, they got off lightly.
Of the teams left, the Globetrotters are my favorite.
