Sailing Catamaran: The sacred valley of the Incas.

Countries visited by boat

1 nautical mile(nm)=1.86km

_________________________

Antigua & Barbuda.....61 nm

Australia...........1239 nm

Bahamas.......2009...529 nm

Bahamas.......2012...607 nm

British Indies

- Turks and Caicos

- ......2009..........45 nm

- Turks and Caicos

- ......2012.........478 nm

- Montserrat..........33 nm

Canary Ialands.......172 nm

Cape Verde.............5 nm

Colombia.............293 nm

Dominica..............37 nm

Dominican Republic...293 nm

Equator

- Galapagos............5 nm

Egypt................846 nm

Eritrea..............273 nm

Fiji...................5 nm

French Indies

- St-Marteen.2009....103 nm

- St-Marteen.2012....103 nm

- St-Barth............19 nm

- Guadeloupe.........124 nm

- Martinique..........67 nm

French Polynesia...1,043 nm

Grenada...............85 nm

Greece...............558 nm

Gibraltar.............37 nm

Indonesia..........1,656 nm

Italia...............672 nm

Malaysia.............449 nm

Maldives...............5 nm

Netherlands Antilles

- Bonaire............ 44 nm

- Curacao............ 63 nm

- Aruba.............. 55 nm

Maroc................146 nm

Panama...............692 nm

Puerto Rico (US).....222 nm

Samoa..................5 nm

St-Kitt and Nevis.....61 nm

St-Vincent............80 nm

Singapore.............47 nm

Spain................818 nm

Sri Lanka..............5 nm

Sudan................337 nm

Thailand ............166 nm

Turkey...............419 nm

USA................1,760 nm

Vanuatu................5 nm

Venezuela............391 nm

Virgin Islands (US)

...........2009.......21 nm

Virgin Islands (US)

...........2012......107 nm

Virgin Islands (US)...21 nm

Yemen................457 nm

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46 countries......15,764 nm

Ocean Passages

1 nautical mile(nm)=1.86km

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Pacific ocean

- Panama to

....Galapagos.......880 nm

- Galapagos to

....Marquesas......3050 nm

- French Polynesia to

....Samoa..........1179 nm

- Samoa to

....Fiji............574 nm

- Fiji to

....Vanuatu.........711 nm

- Vanuatu to

....Australia.....1,320 nm

Indian ocean

- Darwin to

....Kupang..........476 nm

- Thailand to

....Sri Lanka.....1,150 nm

- Sri Lanka to

....Maldives........457 nm

- Maldives to

....Yemen..........1503 nm

Atlantic ocean

- Rabat Morocco to

....Canary Islands..459 nm

- Canary Islands to

....Cape Verde...s..866 nm

- Cape Verde to

....Antigua.......2,111 nm

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3 oceans.........14,736 nm

Friday, October 9, 2009

The sacred valley of the Incas.

Before getting to Machupicchu one needs to first visit the sacred valley of the Incas. Basically, a set of archeological sites featuring old sites from the Inca’s era that were not totally destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors. Along the way we sometimes meet the icon of these regions of South America; the lama. However, this could be an alpaca for what I know as they are hard to tell apart for tourists like us! We don’t know what a Lama, rarer, tastes like but the alpaca is quite good.

Not the most visited site in Peru is the “Los Salinas”. This is an incredible set of about 2000 ponds built before the Incas, according to our guide, and used to harvest the salt that comes out of the mountain as a small salty stream. We tasted the water source to remind us the ocean water but to our surprise it tasted way saltier than the sea water if that’s possible! Would you believe that about 350 families still live of harvesting this salt today?

Out of the small town of Pisac are these Inca ruins of a small Inca’s administrative village. Behind me you can see the stone that was used to sacrifice animals for religious and superstitious purposes. Nope, not human sacrifices here that we know of. Human sacrifices were very rare in the Inca’s empire and only used when the Gods were really mad as in the case of the mommy Juanita that was offered to appease the volcano god and who we had to chance to see still frozen in Arequipa. Sorry no pictures were allowed.

This is the set of Inca terraces of Murray that were used for the agriculture in the mountains. This round structure is pretty unique but the terraces are definitively not, as they can be found at every Inca site and are now widely used by the farmers all over the mountains still today.

This one is unfortunately more for our French readers since the word “Quipu” in French is pronounced exactly as “qui pue” and means “that stinks”. So this sign basically announces the Pizzeria that stinks! We don’t know what kind of cheese they use in their pizzas but this is really not inviting ;-)

Sailing Catamaran

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Friday, October 9, 2009

The sacred valley of the Incas.