I seriously doubt I could ever make that climb and hike

but it sounds glorious. When I was a kid I got a book called World's Last Mysteries, which was a Reader's Digest publication from the 70s. In it are wonderful artists' conceptions of how sites like Teotihuacan, Babel, Catal Huyuk, and Stonehenge looked when new. Oddly enough, there is no corresponding one of Machu Picchu, although it does show pictures of the ruins and discusses the history of it. I love that book. I still have it--as does a friend, as we discovered when comparing our collections. My favourite was Angkor Wat, with its canals. I'd love to go somewhere like this, but with my health problems and lack of funds, I'll be lucky if I ever make it out of the States. Still, a girl can dream.

The Hidden Route to Machu Picchu

A typical Machu Picchu package tour to Peru lasts a week. But anyone able to stretch that to two and a half weeks — and who has relatively sturdy legs — can hike in blissful solitude through roughly 100 miles of some of the world’s most varied and beautiful terrain while pausing to gawk at Bingham’s greatest hits. (April through October are the driest months to undertake such a trip; we traveled in October.) Best of all, by circumventing the most common approaches to Machu Picchu — the train from Cuzco and the Inca Trail — the Backdoor Route avoids the site’s notorious crowds almost entirely.

Can you imagine feeling a quake 1,200 miles away?

Peru Hit by Magnitude 7.9 Quake; 50 People Killed

Hopefully the death toll will not climb higher. A tsunami warning was made but cancelled later. Many of the dead were attending mass at a 16th-century church that collapsed in the town of Ica. State doctors called off a strike to provide emergency services.

I guess the amazing thing for me, too, is just how widespread it was felt. It was felt as far north as Bogata, Colombia and as far south as Coquimbo, Chile.

Scary.

I used to live in California, which is pretty well known for quakes. Kentucky isn't, but...the New Madrid fault that runs where Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas join could prove very damaging to the Commonwealth. In 1812 a quake was so strong it made the Mississippi River run backward and jump positions and was felt as far away as Boston and New York, where bells rang. Oddly enough, in neither state have I felt one, even though I've been through at least three minor ones. Maybe I'm just 'deaf' to earthquakes.