Machu Picchu

Catherine, Chrissy, and I left Cusco at 4 pm with the two taxi drivers and headed up out of the city into the highlands. We were still mad at our drivers for upping the price on us at the last minute, but they were very attentive and anxious to be of service, telling us the names of all the small towns, pointing out the fields where the people grow potatoes and telling us how they harvest only once a year and keep the potatoes dried to eat all year round. I had bought a new, larger memory card for my camera (the old one only held 24 photos!), and in response to Josue's assurances of "anything you need, anything at all, just ask," I asked if he had scissors to open it. He didn't. The next thing I knew they were pulling over next to a little ramshackle house on the edge of Cusco, and Josué runs in and comes back out with a blunt steak knife, with which he proceeds to free my digital memory card of its plastic. Classic Peru moment.


The drive to Ollantaytambo was beautiful. We went first over long highways rising and falling with the curves of the hills, and then down a long switchback descent into the Sacred Valley itself, to the small city of Urubamba. The mountains are not gradual in the Sacred Valley; Urubamba is on flat land perhaps a few miles wide, with steep, bare rock mountains towering straight up on either side. Their shadows fall early on the valley in the evening, and it seems like dusk in the town while the daylight still shines on the mountains themselves. We passed through Urubamba and wound through more hills, following the river now, to Ollantaytambo. It was getting dark when we got there and the stars were coming out. The train station was a ticket box next to two sets of doors where people could pass through to the train tracks--one door for Peruvians, the other for tourists. The two groups sit on different sections of the train and pay (so I hear) vastly different prices, just as they do for Machu Picchu. In the yellow lamplight we waited in line with our backpacks, watching the crowds mill around with all their stuff in between the little puestas selling everything from chapstick to chullos to fried-egg-and-cheese sandwiches cooked on the spot over tiny gas flames. When the train arrived, the Peruvians returning to Ollantaytambo came out the doors running and literally raced each other up the hill, I suppose to get places on the buses and taxis congregated farther up with their drivers standing outside yelling "Cusco! Urubamba! Cusco! Taxi to Cusco!"

It was too dark to see anything out the train windows. As soon as we stepped off the train in Aguas Calientes, we were swept up in the river of tourists pouring up the hill and found ourselves in the central plaza. We made plans with some people we'd met on the train to meet at the plaza at 5 am to hike up the mountain and be at Machu Picchu at dawn; then we made our way up the brightly lit main street to our hostel. Aguas Calientes is made up almost entirely of hotels and restaurants, as 90% of its population is tourists. As we scrambled up the hill, I looked up long enough to see the mountains, or the shadows of the mountains, blotting out the sky and the stars on all sides like enormous waves in a dream. We felt them rather than saw them--the awesome, unseen presence of the mystery of the place, towering just beyond the little lights of the town.

We found the hostel, but when we gave our names, the guy looked away and said, "No, that wasn't for the 29th, I had you down for the 19th." Translation: they hadn't kept our reservations. At this point it was 10:00 and Chrissy was fading fast. Suddenly a random Peruvian lady was at our side saying she had lodging for 25 soles per person; we shrugged and followed her. Her hostel was off the main road, noisy, but clean enough. It was warmer here than in Cusco, and humid, and we could hear the river close by as we fell into bed.

The next morning, instead of feeling better, Chrissy had diarrhea and nausea and didn't want to get out of bed. Our visitors were dropping like flies! We hated to leave her. Would she be better later? Catherine and I took turns going out to get Gatorade and other foodstuffs, and I got to see Aguas Calientes in the early morning.

Finally at 9:30 we had to face the facts. We paid the hostel lady extra to let Chrissy stay in bed during the day, and Catherine and I set out, the only ones still on our feet, to the sacred summit.

The tourism industry around Machu Picchu reminds one of Disney World. It has taken over the city of Cusco and created the town of Aguas Calientes. But once you get up to the ruins, all of that falls behind; you leave it below in the valley. The bus from Aguas Calientes follows the river around the base of a mountain--the mountains go straight up like tapering fingers, practically piled on top of each other, so that it's no wonder nobody got through to discover Machu Picchu for years--and then starts the switchback climb. We watched the river get smaller and smaller below us, and then we were there at the entrance...

We took a walk up toward Inti Punku, the Sun Gate, but I was too tired to make it all the way. On the path we met some llamas and offered them chocolate, which they were not interested in.

Catherine sat down to write a letter to her boyfriend, and I drank in the view.

The ruins were impressive, but I have to say the mountains were more so, and most amazing of all was the light. I felt I had gone from glasses to contacts or gotten an adjustment to my prescription, it was that sharp and brilliant and clear. I thought, whatever the hardships of the people who lived here long ago, they knew nothing of smog or of Lima fog. Their wars and their sacrifices and their sicknesses and feasts were all lived out under infinite skies, always in the presence of majesty and beauty. Up on these mountains, all you have to do is wait and walk, and one after another these amazing sights open up to fulfill you. In Lima I had been so starved for a glimpse of sun and space and beauty, and here was all that beyond anything I had thought of...

We wandered through the ruins, listened in on tours, and tried to pet the llamas frollicking on the lawn. We were only up there for about two hours before I got dehydrated and had to go.

Incas were short!


(The llama and I both blinked.)

On the way down the mountain, as I drank my Gatorade on the bus, there was a local boy dressed in traditional clothes who ran down the hiking path to wave at the bus at every switchback, yelling a long, singsongy phrase in Quechua. It was charming and all the tourists were looking for him by the end and waving back... but then it turned a little sad when, at the foot of the mountain, he climbed on the bus and called in the same beautiful, high voice, clear as the air of his home-- "Thank you very muuuuuuuuuch! Muchas graaaciaaaaaaaaaas!" and went around collecting tips from the tourists.

...So that was Machu Picchu.

That night we went back to Cusco the same way we came. Tuesday was our last day in Cusco, and it was a day of frustrating decisions because I'd been leaving my mom and sister behind the whole week, and now they didn't want to go on to Arequipa like we planned, because Marissa just needed to get home asap to recuperate. In the end they decided to return to Lima for the two days before their international flight. Catherine wanted to go on to Arequipa, and I chose to go with her mostly because I didn't want her traveling alone, but also because part of me really just needed to leave all the sick people behind and have a few days of vacation not worrying about anyone else. So we got on an overnight bus to Arequipa. Mom and Marissa would have one more day in Cusco in which to go on a tour of the Sacred Valley, which made me feel better because at least they'd have seen something.

But, in keeping with the rest of our vacation, Arequipa did not go as planned either and we ended up spending a total of 15 hours there. It has a very pretty plaza, on which we enjoyed a nice breakfast after our overnight bus ride... very quiet and restful after the stress of Cusco.

We saw the cathedral (much simpler than Cusco's but beautiful) and went to Mass, then went back to our hostel and slept. In the afternoon we went to a tourist agency and arranged a tour of nearby Colca Canyon, the deepest canyon in the world. But the tour was not to be. At lunch I started crying because my family was in Peru and I was not with them, and twenty minutes later Catherine was sick to her stomach. So we gave up and changed our bus tickets to return to Lima that night. And I had two days of hanging out in Delicias with Mom and Marissa before taking them back to the airport on Saturday night.