A Man of Many Mysteries
by Stuart Murch

            Travel is alluring to all kinds of people. It attracts those who like going to new places, having adventures, meeting new people, and learning new things. There are hundreds of countries in the world and each one has a history just waiting for someone to study and learn from it. Whether you travel for business, pleasure, or personal reasons, it’s a blast.
            It doesn’t matter where you’re from or what you’ve done, traveling to forty countries is impressive. Alex, who was born in Hungry and now lives in Los Angelos, has done such a thing. He lived in Hungary for much of his younger life, but was finally ready for something new, and warmer. “I didn’t like it in there [in Hungary], I didn’t like the cold in there,” Alex said. There is something to be said about a person who can constantly be moving and seeing new places. Alex has been to some amazing places, including Thailand, Tahiti, and Peru where he spent some time hiking. “I think Mexico was my favorite,” Alex said.
            While Alex said the one he liked most was Mexico, the one that intrigued me the most was Peru. Alex’s trip to Peru grabbed my attention as soon as he said, “Peru is a mysterious country.” Not many people know Peru as mysterious, but the stories Alex provided would have quickly changed anyone’s mind.
            Alex had many stories to back up his feeling that Peru was mysterious, “The way they cutting stones and building walls, even today we cannot do it,” Alex said. Keep in mind that these walls were built thousands of years ago. This fact, along with what else Alex has learned about the Inca, seemingly makes no sense and boggles the mind. He told a similar story about the Inca cutting huge rocks and carrying them over the mountains to build a fortress, all without wheels.
            An even more perplexing mystery lies in the mountains in Nasca, an old city in Peru. On the side of a mountain there is a huge picture that is a couple hundred yards long. There is no artist for this piece of art, only people trying to figure out where it could have come from. “[It] looks like a human being waving with its right hand,” Alex said. Alex also saw some perplexing things he called airports while he was in Peru. “The top of the mountain is leveled and has an airport in there for landing stripe,” Alex said.  No one claims to have built these strange things. These mysteries strain the mind, one can scramble to know why, but come up empty handed every time. The answers to these and many other natural mysteries elude us.
            Traveling is a great experience, but to really leave feeling like you know something about where you spent your time and the people who live there, you must mind the countries secrets, its mysteries. It’s not just the places you go, but also the people you meet and the things you learn that make traveling a wonderful experience. I’m an adventurous person, I like to go places and meet people, that’s why I’ve traveled to almost forty countries around the world,” Alex said.