Machu Picchu Journey

We are back from Peru after a whirlwind trip to Machu Picchu and an awful lot of plane, train, and bus rides. The real object was a day-and-a-half at MP, but we also had half-day tours at Lima and Cuzco which were definitely worthwhile, and spent an evening and an afternoon with Peruvian friends. There follows a blow-by- blow account:

We took an overnight flight via Miami to Lima, arriving at 5 AM somewhat dazed. Supposed to be met by a tourist agent, who didn't show. Off to a bad start, but the airport taxi service was friendly and helpful, calling the tour agency which told us to take a taxi to the hotel and they'd figure out what went wrong shortly (this the first acid test of my Spanish). Fortunately the hotel reservations had been made, the room was comfortable, and we went to sleep immediately. When we woke up, we were in touch with the tour operator, who profusely apologized for a mixup of dates and thereafter didn't miss a beat.

In the afternoon, a van showed up to give us a half-day tour of Lima. We took in the main square and its rich cathedrals, a monastery (now art museum) which was the headquarters of the Franciscans in South America, from which they converted the Indians (and sitting over a catecombs holding 10,000 colonial skeletons!), and, as the piece de resistance, a colonial home which had been in the same family (one of the first mayors of Lima) for four centuries -- descendants still living there, and letting tours see part of the huge interior, filled with colonial art and antiques.

That evening we were picked up by our friends, who first killed time by taking us for a ride down the coast (our hotel was only five blocks from the Pacific), then took us to dinner at a superb restaurant built on a pier over the sea. We were embarassed/shamed by their generosity in entertaining us at a most expensive restaurant, but the seafood and pisco sours were fabulous.

Up at 3:30 AM to be taken to the airport and put on the plane to Cuzco. At close to 10,000 feet, the main hazard in Cuzco is altitude sickness, and we all went to sleep as advised after our cup of Mate de Coca (leaves from which cocaine is extracted, supposed to be a therapy for altitude sickness). The hotel, in an old colonial building, had a unique, cave-like interior design, very cozy. At lunch, Laura felt queasy and we put her to bed at the hotel while June and I took the afternoon tour.

Visited cathedrals and monasteries built on top of the walls of the palaces of the Inca, mainly featuring extraordinary stonework (all their walls built of large stones carved to fit together perfectly without mortar; and which survived numerous earthquakes which brought down the Spanish buildings built on top of them); also the Quechua fortress of Sacsayhuamán, and a couple of other sacred sites. But the best was the overall nature of Cuzco, as a quiet, narrow-streeted town preserving most of its colonial features and populated by Quechuas (proper name for the Incas) and mestizos (mixed ancestry), with superb handicrafts on sale everywhere and costumed Quechua ladies wandering around with llamas to have their pictures taken. We should have had more time there. Returned to the hotel to find Laura in bad sorts; the hotel had taken care of her, providing oxygen and mate de coca and replacing her bed linens, and we felt guilty for leaving her behind. By this time June and I also felt the altitude and we all went to bed early.

By 4:30 AM, after a lot of sleep, we were all in much better shape, and were whisked to the train station for the 4 hour rail journey to Machu Picchu. The train extracted itself from the valley by the unique device of zigzagging forward and backward up the mountain, and after reaching the top, began a long descent of the Río Urubamba valley. The scenery got more and more striking as we descended, with steep and towering mountains on either side of the tracks and river. Reaching the Machu Picchu station, all the passengers climbed aboard a series of buses for a hair-raising, zigzagging half-hour trip up a slope which seemed nearly vertical to the site itself.

If there is one thing to say about MP, it is that no pictures I've seen can do it justice. The ruins, to a large degree extricated from vegetation and reconstructed, sit at 8000 feet at the top of a mountain with a near-vertical drop to maybe 2000 feet. The view is 360 degrees, of green surrounding mountains running to maybe 12,000-13,000 feet. From opposite sides of the ruins one looks nearly straight down at different river valleys. An Inca road, built of stone, leaves the site and climbs, hugging the mountain, to a gap, the Gate of the Sun, from which it continues towards Cuzco. This is the path which we opted not to hike (fortunately, seeing the exhausted look of the many hiking groups who came in that way).

The guide for the English-speaking tour was excellent -- a mestizo who could hold an M.A. degree in archeology, judging by his knowledge and presentation. The site is one of rocked-walled, topless buildings, stoned-walled agricultural terraces (with soil brought up from the river valley by llama), and various sacred rocks. The Incas left few clues -- they didn't write, and left no statues, household goods, etc. behind when they evacuated MP (probably all at once, by order of the king, when he was consolidating his people at a remote site which Pizarro's boys didn't conquer for another 40 years). So much of what the guide described was clever deduction and occasionally blatant guesses. We had briefed ourselves on the history beforehand, so properly appreciated that this was one node in an empire which encompassed some 12 million people and stretched from Colombia to Argentina, larger than the Roman empire, and in some ways (except writing) more sophisticated.

After the 4 1/2 hour walking tour, we ate a hearty lunch at the hotel adjacent to the site and decided we would find our own hotel back down in the valley and postpone further exploration to the following day. As our bus zigzagged down the mountain, a Quechua boy about Laura's age raced us down (taking the steep route), and at each hairpin turn he slapped our bus and shouted "goodbye" or "sayonara" (covering all bases). Laura, fascinated by his unique method of earning a living, contributed a sol (=$0.50) to his outstretched palm at the bottom of the mountain. Our hotel turned out to be one constructed in colonial Spanish style, with a large and airy cottage set in gardens of native flowers. After a nap, we visited the little town of Aguas Callientes (Hot Springs), sleepy but starting a small-scale boom as the tourist trade revives. We saw an advertisement for a wandering comedy/circus show in the primary school that evening, and decided to come back after further rest. When we went to the school at 7 PM, nothing was happening -- it seems the townspeople weren't willing to pay the $0.50 per kid or $1 per adult required, and nobody showed. After a while, a comedian came out to the town square and put on an act trying to attract customers -- to no avail, although plenty of people gathered to enjoy the free show. I managed to avoid becoming one of the butts of the comedian's jokes by playing the dumb gringo who didn't understand Spanish (a natural role for me).

After sleeping "late" (to 6:30) the next morning, we again took the bus up to MP to explore on our own. We had a choice of three short hikes, one some 1500 ft. straight up an adjacent peak (from which a Japanese girl had fallen from vertigo) which we immediately eliminated. Instead I talked two reluctant ladies into starting a 20 minute walk to the "Inca bridge" -- two planks lying over a gap between two rock walls against a sheer cliff on the back face of the ridge, probably an escape route for the Inca population. The walk was gentle but moderately hair-raising, given the drop off adjacent to the path. None of us were about to "walk the planks", which in any case were closed to walkers. Then we tackled the second walk on the other side -- nearly an hour climb on the Inca Trail to the Gate of the Sun, so we could get the feel of what we had missed by not hiking the Inca trail, notably the entrance to the gate of Machu Picchu from above. The scenery, as we climbed ever higher, was astonishing, and coming back June's legs turned to jelly as she was forced to descend steep steps facing out over the precipice which seemed to end in thin air 10,000 feet above the valley floor. (By this time poor June, who had chosen a pair of cheap and new sneakers to bring along on the trip, had blisters on both feet and wasn't the picture of a sturdy hiker.) But all of us made it back to MP safely, and after exhausting our film, we said goodbye to Machu Picchu.

A late afternoon train took us back -- well, almost -- to Cuzco. Actually the train stopped well short and disgorged its passengers into waiting buses (something was wrong with the train or tracks ahead -- never found out just what), so we returned by road in the dark. All of us were now acclimatized to the altitude, so we took advantage of the remaining evening hours to walk around town and shop a bit.

After another long sleep (7:30), we were off to the airport for the flight back to Lima, which we almost missed due to confusion at the gate. We were taken to the same hotel and shortly picked up by our friends for a lunch at their home, in another Lima suburb. Their home turned out to be quite extraordinary -- a seven-bedroom, architect-designed with two indoor gardens and outdoor swimming pool, very impressive and beautifully-furnished home. It had cost him "only" $160,000 in the mid-1980s, though probably worth 2-3 times that now. We were served home-made pisco sours and, for Laura, a drink made from purple corn; their cook served us a fabulous crayfish and Inca corn soup, followed by paella, and a dessert of plums in a sort of jelled purple corn sauce -- truly the best Peru can offer. June and I started thinking about how nice it might be to take a job in Lima!

That afternoon brought our trip to a close on a high note, and the next morning we took the flight back to Miami and Washington.

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