Lost City of the Incas

Mar 20th, 2010 by Dale | No Comments »

By Hiram Bingham

Hiram Bingham was the genuine article. It is obvious that he was at least in part the model for the Indiana Jones character, but Bingham was no Hollywood hero. Though he was not trained as an archaeologist he discovered most of the known major ruins of the Inca civilization long hidden by jungle and protected by almost impassible mountains and raging rivers.

The book is divided into three sections. The first section is a brief history of the Incas. Though superseded by new discoveries this section is still worth reading. However, it is not adventure travel and the reader can safely skip to the second section where he describes the search. The third section is about the discovery of Machu Picchu.

“Suddenly I found myself confronted with the walls of ruined houses built of the finest quality of Inca stone work. It was hard to see them for they were partly covered with trees and moss, the growth of centuries, but in the dense shadow, hiding in bamboo thickets and tangled vines, appeared here and there walls of white granite ashlars carefully cut and exquisitely fitted together. . . . Dimly I began to realize that this wall and its adjoining semicircular temple over the cave were as fine as the finest stonework in the world. It fairly took my breath away. What could this place be?”

Bingham’s discoveries fundamentally changed the conventional wisdom about indigenous American cultures. Here was evidence of a civilization that built structures at least equal to anything in Europe.

The Urubamba river had a disastrous flood in late January 2010, and Machu Picchu is as of this writing almost as inaccessible as it was in Bingham’s day. It is a humanitarian disaster that has been overshadowed by the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile.

Image: Hiram Bingham in 1911 after returning from the jungle site of Espiritu Pampa. Note the saddle mule, the snake-proof boots, the waxed cotton jacket with the bulge of a pistol just above his left hand, and the battered felt hat. This is the epitome of the experienced jungle explorer. He looks very thin in this and other photos taken at the time. There was no Cipro or other antibiotics. Photograph taken with Bingham’s camera by an unknown member of the expedition.

Get Lost City of the Incas in paperback.

Posted in Book Review, Great Adventurer |

Monday morning

Mar 8th, 2010 by Weldon | No Comments »

If there’s anything that can make Monday difficult, it’s a video like this. It practically forces you see what airfare to Bangkok is looking like right now. Have a good week!

a journey through asia from ivan vania on Vimeo H/T Andrew Sullivan.

Posted in Uncategorized |

Spain 12: Thanks for the info

Mar 7th, 2010 by Weldon | No Comments »

On the advice of a couple of other travellers, we wound our way over to Cordoba to see the old town and the Great Mosque – one of the greatest Islamic buildings in Spain, and one of the largest mosques ever built. It was indeed a pretty splendid building, a sea of columns with some fantastic treasures including a wall that was a mosaic of gold. It was a rough place to get a picture that really captured a sense of the space though, but it was very magnificent inside.

Unfortunately, the whole place left a bad flavour in my mouth because of the information pamphlet they gave out at the door. The whole thing had a condescending tone towards Islam, first off calling what everyone calls the Grand Mosque is called the the Grand Cathedral, and then diminishing the splendour of the mosque by saying:

Thus the beauty of the Cathedral of Cordoba does not reside in its architectural grandeur, but in the apostolic succession of the Bishop as a symbol of his pastoral service and the unity of the Church, founded upon the Word of the Lord, the sacraments, and the community of believers.

I just don’t understand why they have felt the need to diminish the grandeur of the building or the contribution of the culture that built most of it. Another choice line was:

It is a historical fact that the basilica of San Vincente was expropriated and destroyed in order to build what would later be the Mosque, a reality that questions the theme of tolerance that was supposedly cultivated in the Cordobra of the moment.

So here they are bashing the Islamic empire for a lack of tolerance in a pamphlet that is itself contains. It also condemns the destruction of the historical building, yet the Catholics plunked a massive cathedral right in the middle of the mosque. In any case, if you are in Andalucia, it is well worth seeing the building but I’d avoid the pamphlet.

Posted in Spain Trip |

Spain 11: Alhambra

Mar 7th, 2010 by Weldon | 1 Comment »

This massive castle/palace complex claims to be the most visited site in Spain. Though Sagrada Familia in Barcelona also makes the same claim, the Alhambra is undoubtedly the best camera candy in the country. There has been some sort of palace/fortification on the site since at least the 11th century, with major construction taking place in the 14th and 15th centuries. It was the last hold out of the Islamic empire in Iberia, eventually captured by the Christians in 1492. In the 16th century Carlos V built a whole new palace on the grounds. But after that attention shifted away and the whole complex started a slow slide into disrepair until it started to attract tourists in the 19th century.

We spent a solid day wandering around the grounds, starting before sunrise as we had to queue up early in the morning to get some of the limited number of tickets to the Palacios Nazaries – the old Islamic palace. You can see one of the stunning ceilings from Nazaries above and a view out some of the windows looking over the city of Grenada below.

Read more »

Posted in Spain Trip |

South: the story of Shackleton’s 1914-1917 Expedition

Feb 27th, 2010 by Weldon | No Comments »

Starting up a new segment here, Dale is writing up book reviews of the books of some of the greatest adventurers throughout history. This is the first installment.

By Ernest Shackleton

This is an epic story, a story of exploration and desperate survival in the harshest environment imaginable. If it were fiction you would toss it aside as unbelievable. Ernest Shackleton’s quest was to cross Antarctica on foot from sea to sea via the South Pole. In 1914 he set out in the wooden sailing ship Endurance with 27 men, including the great photographer Frank Hurley.

Their ship was trapped in pack ice and slowly crushed, leaving them stranded on the ice far from land. For several months they lived on ice floes, until at last they drifted near enough an island to launch their lifeboats and cross to solid ground. They were far from any shipping lanes, and the probability of rescue very slight.

Shackleton set out with 5 men in an open boat to sail more than 1200 miles across the stormy Antarctic Ocean to South Georgia Island, where there was a whaling station. They weathered hurricane force winds that sank a ship nearby, but the weather forced them to land on the wrong side of the island. They had to cross the mountains and glaciers with no equipment over an unexplored route. They succeeded, and the entire party was rescued without the loss of a single man.

When they returned World War I had broken out and after a brief moment of honor their achievement was overshadowed by the war news. Robert Falcon Scott, who died in the Antarctic along with his crew, became celebrated as a hero. Shackleton, who had saved his crew, was almost forgotten until 1959 when Alfred Lansing’s Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage was published. In 2002, Nova broadcast the documentary Endurance on Shackleton’s voyage on PBS. About the same time Margaret Morrell and Stephanie Capparell published Shackleton’s Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer.

Although other books and films have been made about this expedition, I prefer this one because it is Shackleton’s own book. He was not a brilliant writer, and he downplayed his own role in saving them, but the story is so compelling that it transcends any literary shortcomings.

Get the book: download the ebook or buy the paperback.

Posted in Book Review |