They’re part of our family… Paddy, Barney, Maura, Stevie G (although we don’t like him anymore for obvious reasons), Scruffy, my first and best… and a pack of others.
And we’ve even got a spectacled bear from Berlin who I think we called unoriginally Berliner.
We don’t though have a Paddington Bear which is OK because the real one lives in Darkest Peru as we all know.
Permit me to say
It was his creator Michael Bond’s idea to have Paddington come from Darkest Africa.
But he was dissuaded as they don’t have bears and instead chose Peru, home of the Spectacled Bear.
Too many people probably visit Peru and forget all about our favourite marmalade-munching bespectacled bears on their way to Machu Pichu.
But the Peruvians don’t and have their own statue to the famous furry fella… http://www.atlasobscura.com.
OK, Machu Picchu is well worth seeing and is one of the Seven Modern Wonders of the World.
The city which means ‘old mountain’ in Quechua, is a city of stone, was built by the Incas around the 15th century and discovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911.
All of which makes me think what a golden age for exploration the 19th and early 20th century were.
And wouldn’t it be good if we could unearth a new civilisation now, one that had never heard of Brexit.
Now Michu Picchu is one of the Seven Modern Wonder of the World and is therefore pretty popular.
With Gap Year students alas, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get to see it.
Particularly as USIT https://www.usit.ie/tours/25295-trekking-the-inca-trail-4d-3n will help you get one of the permits which are like gold dust.
Permit me to say
Only 500 permits per day are allocated for the year by the Peruvian Government and this number includes porters and guides too.
Permits are sold on a first come first serve basis, so you need to book well in advance.
USIT will also give you lots of advice for the Inca Trail…
Such as what you’ll have to carry, how many people to a tent, how many porters for the group and if there are arrangements for special diets.
Last year only 427 people from Ireland were lucky enough to get their hands on a permit and each of them applied on average is months before their departure.
Now that I’ve found myself an ancient civilisation, Petra in Jordan https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/petra-jordan-jesus-and-the-sands-of-time/ I’m after me a Machu Picchu.
And a Great Wall of China, Christ the Redeemer in Rio, Chichen Itza in Mexico and Taj Mahal… I’ve already got me a Colosseum. It was colossal.
I can’t say that they don’t all deserve their place but I’m just saying… no Acropolis? https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/2019/09/21/acropolis-later/
