How to Peru in 2 weeks, Day#7: Machu Picchu – Aquas Calientes
I’ve always wondered why these names got stuck in my head since my elementary school. Like Machu Picchu, Titicaca, Popocatépetl, or Vesuvius. Maybe for the way my geography teacher pronounced them, or the way they resonated in my brain? They dwelt in my head for years, feeding my imagination and desire to see what is outside of my little box, making me dream of this beautiful world. And one day, the dream became true..
It was a regular work day for Traian Curta, when, back in 1975 he was in charge with dynamiting a new area while working in a local mining exploitation company, when suddenly, a big grotto had opened beneath the ground. He didn’t want to get famous for being the first person to be lowered into that grotto, but he did it, and he was the first person who “visited” the cave up to the main gallery. After 5 years of explorations by amateur and professional speleologists, and building a basic infrastructure, the cave was opened for visitors in 1980.
Bears’ Cave is located in the Apuseni National Park, in the western side of the Apuseni Mountains, Transylvania, on the outskirts of Chiscau village, Bihor County, Romania.
If you are ready for a road trip along Columbia River, then Columbia River Gorge is the destination you are looking for. The 130-km gorge, the boundary between states of Washington and Oregon, offers wonderful places and stops along the way.
The Columbia River, the largest river in the Pacific Northwest, is about 2,000 km long, starting its journey from Columbia Lake, in the Rocky Mountains in BC, Canada, and ending in Astoria, between the states of Oregon and Washington in the U.S.
After a night spent in Greybull and a quick stop in Cody, the road took us from Devils Tower to Yellowstone National Park. It was still morning when we reached the East Entrance. The long lines at the entrance didn’t scare us, we were excited to get in the park. The Interagency pass we obtained at our first destination (Badlands National Park) let us move quickly once we had arrived at the booth. I didn’t really notice when the scarce vegetation thickened and became greener, and when the surrounding heights became elevated.
Continuing our way up north on Icefields Parkway, after leaving Banff National Park, we pursued our adventure through Jasper National Park. Do you think we run out of superlatives in BNP?.. that was not really the case.
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Leaving Canmore, where we had our base for few nights, for Jasper (our next stop), we found ourselves going through the heart of Banff National Park. I still didn’t know at that time BNP was going to be our secret memory factory.
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Canadian Rockies, home to a wealth of wildlife, is such a great place to observe many species! There are certainly specific rules for hiking in the “bear country”, and the safest one is to stay away from them🙂, since the bear spray might not be useful all the time!
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Name of Athabasca has originated from the Cree word where there are reeds, and most of the Athabasca names are to be found in Alberta.
The Athabasca River, with its 1,538 km, is the longest river in Alberta, and starts from an unnamed lake north of Mt Columbia, on the west side of Mt Athabasca and Athabasca Glacier, flowing to the north, and ending into the Arctic Ocean. The first 168 km, located in JNP are designated as a Canadian Heritage River, for its importance to the fur trade and the construction of railways and roads.
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Rocky Mountains, North America’s largest mountain system, are widely known for dazzling valleys, rocky peaks, abundance of wildlife, snow-covered ridges, and alluring meadows. The Canadian Rockies extend 1,200 km north from the American borders, in both provinces of British Columbia and Alberta. You could spend months in these pristine lands, never seeing the same scene; you can do biking, hiking, horse riding, boating, fishing, rafting, Via Ferrata, or just simply open-mouthed staring if that could be named as an “activity”J. The week we spent in 2016 in these lands filled me with so much gratitude and energy I could hardly imagine I could get.
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1000 Places and Memories 