Sunduism: The Inca Itch !!!

In 2009, my friend hiked the Inca trail for 4 days to visit Machu Picchu. His experiences and photos triggered the desire to visit Peru. During the summer of 2010, I was all set to go on a trip to Peru with my family and two of my cousins' families. I picked up a book on the Incas, "The Secret Of The Incas: Myth, Astronomy, And The War Against Time" by William Sullivan.

It turned out to be an outstanding book connecting my favorite hobby, Astronomy with the the mythology, culture and the history of the Incas. As I was reading the book, with each chapter, my interest in the Incas exploded exponentially and I was getting very eager to make the trip.

Then, just few weeks before the trip, my Mom fell sick. I encouraged my family to go on the trip (which they did, very reluctantly) and rushed to India to be with my Mom.

For the last 5 years, I was having the "Inca Itch" and finally, this summer along with my family, made the trip to Peru and Bolivia.

A really brief summary of the Inca's culture:

It is impossible to write just a few lines about the Incas. Like every ancient culture around the world, the Incas looked up the sky during the day and night, watched the movement of the Sun, the Moon, the planets and the stars. They tried to make sense of the repetitive movements of the celestial bodies. As they recognized the patterns, they started making use of them for agricultural purposes - when the rainy season starts, when to plant the seeds and when to harvest. They also realized the importance of the Sun and worshiped the Sun. From this regard, they are no different from any other culture.

The Incas built many temples for the Sun (in Ollantaytambo, Pisac and a magnificent one in Cusco). They tracked the Sun's Solstices with a stone pillar called Intihuatana in Machu Picchu. In addition, the Incas paid a lot of attention to the black clouds located in the Milky Way and created their myths based on them. They considered the Urubamba river in Ollantaytambo as the earthly equivalent of the Milky Way (As a side note, Indian epics refer to the Milky Way as Akasha Ganga (The river Ganges in the Sky).

A really, really brief historical Timeline of the Incas:

200 AD - Tiwanaku City (now in Bolivia) was built south east of Lake Titicaca (which is
partly in Peru and partly in Bolivia).
650 AD - Beginning of the Wari - Tiwanaku period.
1000 AD - Tiwanaku culture collapsed due to an extended period of drought.
1200 AD - Mythical founding of Cusco city by Manco Capac (founder of the Inca Empire).
1438 AD - Pachacutec's (9th Inca Emperor) 33-year reign began.
Pachacutec expanded the Inca empire from current day Ecuador in the
north to Chile in the south.

1525 AD - Huayna Capac died; his son Huascar succeeded and fought with his brother
Atahualpa.

1532 AD - Spanish explorer Francisco Pizarro with just 168 men, captured Atahualpa
starting the down fall of the Inca Empire.
For almost 300 years the Spanish ruled Peru, ransacked the Gold, converted the Incas to Christianity, demolished the Incas' temples and built their cathedrals over the Inca foundations.
1824 AD - After many battles, Peru gained complete independence from Spain.

The massive Inca empire lasted just for a century (highlighted in blue, above).

This vacation was a complete immersion in to Inca's culture, history, Peru and Bolivia's people, food, drinks, the Llamas, Alpacas, Condors, very high altitudes (and the effects of it) and the light pollution free Southern Hemisphere night sky constellations and the Milky Way. All in all, a dream vacation :)