PERU:
SACRED LANDSCAPES and
ENDURING MYSTERIES
DR. JAMES KUS and ANANDA ASPEN
our trips are private tours
(that is, not sponsored by
any organization or university)
anyone is free to join
us!!!
Our 2010 tour
will be in
late May and early June, 2010
|
UPDATE ... UPDATE ...
UPDATE ... UPDATE ...
UPDATE ... UPDATE ...
UPDATE
We've begun to work on the details
of our 2010 Peru tour. This past Christmas we were in Peru (Cuzco
and Ollantaytambo) checking out some new hotels and looking at other
possible changes to our traditional tour. During February and March each
year we usually make the final arrangements for our trips -- it's
also when we send out notices about the tours to past participants (who
have often been our best recruiters -- and several people have gone with
us twice!) and when we have our main "advertising" campaign (via
announcements on KVPR and at the local archaeology society meeting).
We have, however, worked out the
general outline of our 2010 trip -- this will be our traditional tour,
starting with a brief stay in Lima (with an introduction to Peruvian
archaeology via a tour of the National Museum), followed by an extended
stay in the Cuzco area (with one night at Machu Picchu) and a visit to
the Colca Canyon. As usual, also, we'll have a double focus:
Jim will lead tours to archaeological sites while Ananda will emphasize
the study of Peruvian schools. At the end of the trip, we will
have an optional tour to the great new archaeological sites and museums
that have been recently opened in northern coastal Peru.
Our plans for 2010 are still flexible
-- in recent years, we've been able to tailor our trips to the interests
of the participants and we've added stops based on the wishes of the
people traveling with us. Also, our dates and schedule are not yet
set in stone -- do not hesitate to contact us if you have special
interests or needs that are not specifically accommodated by the
preliminary tour itinerary shown on the attached links.
We're also prepared to develop other itineraries within Peru (or Chile
and Argentina) for small groups -- we've led tours for groups as small
as a single couple.
Please note that we are not running this
trip through any organization. We've done this numerous times
in the past -- it gives us more flexibility and certainly reduces the costs
of the trip. We will be working directly with our travel agent in Lima and
with our god-daughter, who is a guide in Cuzco. We are thus able to
provide the very best tour possible at a very reasonable price.
Please contact Dr. Kus for info about the 2010 trips at
559-325-8020 or at:
jamesk@csufresno.edu
updated February 1, 2010 |
Once again, Dr. James Kus and Ananda Aspen will be
leading a tour to Peru in 2010. The focus of our trip will be
on archaeology, geography, and history -- our two leaders, both specialists in their
fields, will provide you with an exciting and fascinating adventure in the
Andean highlands along with a brief introduction to Peru's capital, Lima.
We use very nice hotels on our trips (although not the most expensive!), which
makes for a great experience in terms of comfort and convenience, while still
keeping costs at a reasonable level. Check out the rest of this website to
learn more about our great tours....
Highlights of our tour will include a
number of great lunches and dinners at some really nice restaurants in Cuzco and
Urubamba, as well as intimate visits to a weaving center in Chinchero and to a
Peruvian family in Ollantaytambo. We will have
special guided tours at several museums and at all archaeological sites that we
will visit. Our visit to the Colca Valley in southern Peru will provide
an opportunity to see (and photograph) llamas, alpacas, vicuñas,
and condors in the wild. In sum, this will be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to visit Peru
"up close and personal."
The
trip organizer and tour guide will be Dr. James S. Kus, who recently retired
from his position as Professor of Geography at California State University,
Fresno, after a forty year career in higher education. Dr. Kus has spent more than seven years in Peru and has directed several archaeology
projects there as well as serving as a visiting professor in archaeology at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica
in Lima (Peru's leading university). He has published extensively about
Peruvian archaeology (click
here to read his
Encyclopedia Britannica article on Peru) and has led more than two dozen tours to various parts of
Latin America since the early 1970s, including very successful tours to Peru in
1982, 1988, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007
(for private groups, California State University, Fresno, the Fresno Art Museum, and the Archaeological
Institute of America). In recent years he has presented lectures on
Peruvian archaeology at several universities in California as well as in Oregon,
Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, Georgia, Florida, and at the University of British Columbia.
Co-leader
for our trip will be Ananda Aspen, autism specialist for the California
Department of Education (Central California Diagnostic Center) and director of Early Childhood Education at Fresno Pacific
University. Ananda first traveled to Peru thirty years ago; since then she
has traveled numerous times to various parts of Latin America (and lived for
extended periods in Mexico). She has made nine trips
to Peru in recent years to study Special Education and has provided inservices
for teachers working with students with autism in Cuzco. Ananda is
currently finishing her Ed.D. degree through the Joint Doctoral Program at
Fresno State/U.C. Davis.
We
will also be joined on this trip by Natividad Zevallos Sisa, a young Peruvian
tour guide
who is a native of the town of Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley. Naty
has worked with us on previous tours and is an absolute delight -- her knowledge
of the people and culture of Peru will be a major addition to this trip, and we
are sure that you will fall in love with her. She spent
the 2005-2006 academic year at California State University, Fresno to improve
her English proficiency.
After our tour, we will be offering an
add-on extension to the North Coast region -- please contact us for more details about this part of the tour
(or check out the link below).
The links below will lead you to:
This website was created by Dr. John Cagle of the Speech
Communications Department at Fresno State. Revisions for the 2010 tour, continual updates, and any
errors are the sole responsibility of James Kus.