Chan Chan is huge – an adobe city over 20km^2, made up of ten “palace complexes”, of which only one is open to the public. The site is so big that the Pan-American highway cuts through the middle of it, and as we drove along I could see adobe walls on both sides of the […]
After scattering the ashes, we drove south on the Pan-American highway for about three hours to a temple complex at El Brujo (The Witchdoctor) where some very interesting discoveries had been made in 2006 which the archaeologists are still getting to grips with. The first part of the visit was interesting enough. You can see […]
I took some of Christopher’s ashes with me to Peru, with the aim of scattering them somewhere I thought he’d appreciate. He would have really enjoyed the holiday, and would have loved taking photos of all the ruins. Obviously, I didn’t know the area at all, so I asked my guide for some advice for […]
On the afternoon of Boxing Day, my guide and driver took me to Túcume, also known as the Valley of the Pyramids. In fact, they’re not really pyramids at all, but large mud-brick platforms, some used for ritual purposes (e.g. temples) and others apparently being administrative complexes. It’s mostly unexcavated as yet, but there have […]
On Boxing Day I was again picked up from my hotel at 08:30, and driven out to Huaca Rajada, a mud-brick burial platform from the Moche culture, spanning the years approximately AD1-700. Archaeologists were first alerted to the site in 1987, when looters discovered a burial rich in gold. There was a major falling-out amongst […]
As I mentioned yesterday, I’d challenged Explore Tailormade to come up with a full programme of visits on Christmas Day, despite the fact that it was a public holiday in Peru and all the main site were closed. They rose to the challenge magnificently. I was picked up at 8:30 in the morning by my […]
I was asked last week if I was succumbing to Torch Fever, by which was meant over excitement at the thought of the once-in-a-lifetime experience of having the Olympic torch pass briefly through Malvern on its travels round the country. Well, no, in fact I can’t say that I was. But since I then found […]
One of the reasons for going to Cambodia was to scatter some of Christopher’s ashes at or near Angkor Wat – somewhere that had very firmly been on our list of places to visit. All through the holiday I kept thinking about how much Christopher would have loved it – he would have so enjoyed […]
I managed to see nine temples in the three days I was in Siem Reap – out of the thousand or so temples that are in the Angkor area. And, believe me, nine was enough – even I was getting all templed out by Boxing Day! They are all built on much the same plan, […]
About the only online account of Christopher’s which I haven’t deleted is his one with the photo-sharing site, Flickr. That’s partly because I like to go there every so often and look at his photos, but mostly because it gives me very little hassle. So I was very surprised, about two weeks ago, when I […]
