Part One: Machu Picchu, Take My Breath Away.
Awakening at 4:15 am is no challenge to the body when anticipation electrifies the mind. In truth, I was awake 45 minutes before the alarm even had the opportunity to rouse me out of my dream-world peregrinations. The only reason I even hesitated not to immediately bound out the door and up the staircase to Machu Picchu at the moment I woke were plans to meet two Peruvians acquaintances in the main plaza at 4:30 am. The previous night Eli and I had made an agreement to share the hike with the young artistic Liman couple we had met while being funneled through a cyclone fence door onto the train.
Spontaneous combustion has never seemed an agreeable way to die to me. True fear of such a fate caused me to spend the 45 minute wait in bed flipping and flopping. This measure seemed prudent in the face of my sensation of possible explosion from over- excitement. Physically, I felt like all the atoms in my body were at a rave on ecstasy and had invited all their friends. Overdose would be deadly.
Finally when 4:15 am arrived I verbalized to myself ¨make haste slowly¨ to myself. With that reminder I could be certain that in my excitement I did not strap my kicks on the wrong feet. Such a mistake could make for some bizarre and horrible blisters which was an unpleasantry I didn´t want to endure on my day of magic walking around Machu Picchu. At last at 4:40 am (ten minutes later than planned to meet, but here in the Andes showing up 10 minutes late means usually you are still 20 minutes ahead of schedule), Eli and I were headed out into the dawn. Downhill a half-block and we were at our meeting spot of the main plaza. There the Peruvians we met at the train station in Ollantantambo were waiting, anticipating.
The city of Ollantantambu is the crux of Incan-descendant and Gringo-tourist cultural encounter. Two-person carriages zoom-powered by a motorcycle attached to the front transporting tourists whiz past hundred year old Incan ruins. While the main plaza of Ollantantambo has metamorphosed into a convenience center serving tourist needs, the original city plan maintains it´s Incan roots. The city plan is shaped as a giant piece of corn with each building acting as a single kernel. Indeed, it would be imprudent not to emphasise the local importance of a vegetable with more than 3000 regional varieties. Cities designed in the shape of Incan gods and other revered cultural elements is common in the Incan world. Cuzco takes the form of a puma, an earth God, and another city is known to be in the shape of the Condor, a sky God.
Less than 12 hours after meeting our friends in the stalk of a giant corn, we headed on the road to adventure together. Headed on the road to the train station in Aguas Calientes. Our friend had forgotten to buy her return train tickets and needed to do so that morning to ensure a seat home. So there I was at 4:50am, flipping and flopping around in a series of erratic fidgeting on a park bench.
Par for the morning´s course, the train station´s computer system used to produce train tickets had crashed. But I found compassion easy, I would shut down too if I were put to work at 5am. But the shut-down converted the simple ritual of buying a train ticket into a complicated ceremony of archaic paper-methods. It is fascinating how easily humans accustomed to computer´s become stumped when faced with a manual task that perhaps 10 years earlier would have been completed swiftly and practically on auto-pilot.
The experience was a cruel, harsh test of my patience and I barely passed. I stayed relatively calm (meaning no major outbursts) but in my grapple with anticipation my nervous system took a bruising punch. I had shimmied and shook around the square until I found myself with a cup of coffee in my hand. It was the only food stand or kiosk open, the only place available as an outlet for my precarious enrapturement. Luckily for all members of our party, soon after I chugged the coffee the train station interaction was complete and we finally headed on the road to the trail.
The instructions were almost as simple as ¨follow the yellow brick road¨: follow the road along the train tracks until the bridge, cross the bridge, look for the stone steps, go up. The climb up was no more than a Class I clamber. For most hikers altitude is the real challenge. For a 29-year old Peruvian painter and a 30-year old Peruvian sculptor from sea-level Lima, an ascent of 400m (about 1000 feet) that begins at 2000m is a nearly unbearable chemical burn in the respiratory system. But for capoeiristas and a runner who have been living at 3800m above sea level, the air felt like the warm, thick air from under our bed-covers earlier that morning.
Early into the ascent we all four decided it best to split. Strong and consistent Eli took the turtle philosophy of ¨lento y contento¨ (slow and steady) which is a sagacious decision when you have a 20-pound shell on your back. Eli desired the work-out of Sherpa-duty so I rabbited the ascent, springing and sproinging up the awkwardly tall stone steps. The abnormally large height of the steps may be the first physical structure fit to Eli´s advantage in South America. Several times air-deprived others kindly allowed me to pass but several times I was also humbled by guides and children literally running past me up towards the top. Before I separated from Eli though I didn´t miss the opportunity to hear Eli´s verbal accostment of, ¨that causes erosion, a**hole!¨ to a youthful male red-head scrambling off-trail. Oh Eli, the wily rogue environmentalist.
At 6:15 am I sprung out of the forest and into the clearing that makes the entrance to Machu Picchu. For the sake of being classy I leaned against a post whose enscription matched the slogan of my t-shirt. I stretched on the ¨Peace on Earth¨ post until 5 minutes later I saw Eli emerging through the trees. Eli arose from the brush at the same pace he entered and as we attached our souls in reciprocal smiles, he emanated the strength, wisdom, and patience of the surrounding trees. Old souls existing firm and constant, giving creatures of life.
Grasping hands Eli and I climbed the stairwell up to the office to buy our entrance tickets. The stalwart South American tour experience, of course, wouldn´t be justly titled as such if it lacked in confusion and necessary information. The entrance of Machu Picchu, like so many ¨organized´ South American tours, was more or less a ¨choose your own adventure¨ saga of asking others, poking our heads in offices, etc. until we uncovered the proper steps to gain entry. Oh, and for future visitors to Machu Picchu, exact change is preferred. Thankfully for Eli and I the ticket-seller was gracious enough to let us in $0.30 Soles short since she did not have 5 soles change for our 10 sole bill.
With a handful of unpredictable (mis)adventures already under our belt, Eli, I and our tour group passed go and entered Machu Picchu at 6:45am-ish. At the last instant Eli and I switched from an English-speaking guide to a Spanish-speaking guide due to the lack of tact and care displayed by the English-speaking guide. Despite shaking Eli´s hand only 8 hours before, that morning at 6:45am the guide blew right past us, responding to Eli´s ¨hola¨ with a baffled look of, ¨who the hell are you?¨. Eli´s impression the night before was less than favorable as well so we opted for the ultimately more educational option of the Spanish-speaking guide. Won´t say it was the wrong choice, but certainly can´t say it was the right choice. Our guide seemed the better choice until she spoke. While I can´t complain about her knowledge of Machu Picchu, her screeching delivery was as terrifying to me as the enthusiastic delivery by Pat Robertson of blatant untruths to a susceptible evangelical public. Shocking in different ways, but equally terrifying. Or perhaps a more immediate and more universally recognizeable analogy is better; she was, more or less, the Peruvian conterpart of Frau Farbissina of Austin Powers.
Amogst the mystic mountains of the surrounding Cordillera and the remarkably enigmatic masonry of Machu Picchu ruins, however,our guide was easy to listen to selectively. After the entrance a 10 minute walk up path lead us to a grass lawn on the terraces earth with our first even non-photographed view of Machu Picchu. Looking down on the ruins made me feel like I was looking down on a field sprinkled by a vast sea of dead butterflies. The astounding and eloquent beauty that physically remains is so damn vivid it seems impossible the life is truly gone. I stood in contemplation haunted by the notion there is something more that remains, something more to be uncovered and understood. And like the many mummies Eli and I saw crouched in fetal position with their original hair and fingernails, the ruins of Machu Picchu seemed at any moment capable of stirring to life and reawakening their beauty.
Awakening at 4:15 am is no challenge to the body when anticipation electrifies the mind. In truth, I was awake 45 minutes before the alarm even had the opportunity to rouse me out of my dream-world peregrinations. The only reason I even hesitated not to immediately bound out the door and up the staircase to Machu Picchu at the moment I woke were plans to meet two Peruvians acquaintances in the main plaza at 4:30 am. The previous night Eli and I had made an agreement to share the hike with the young artistic Liman couple we had met while being funneled through a cyclone fence door onto the train.
Spontaneous combustion has never seemed an agreeable way to die to me. True fear of such a fate caused me to spend the 45 minute wait in bed flipping and flopping. This measure seemed prudent in the face of my sensation of possible explosion from over- excitement. Physically, I felt like all the atoms in my body were at a rave on ecstasy and had invited all their friends. Overdose would be deadly.
Finally when 4:15 am arrived I verbalized to myself ¨make haste slowly¨ to myself. With that reminder I could be certain that in my excitement I did not strap my kicks on the wrong feet. Such a mistake could make for some bizarre and horrible blisters which was an unpleasantry I didn´t want to endure on my day of magic walking around Machu Picchu. At last at 4:40 am (ten minutes later than planned to meet, but here in the Andes showing up 10 minutes late means usually you are still 20 minutes ahead of schedule), Eli and I were headed out into the dawn. Downhill a half-block and we were at our meeting spot of the main plaza. There the Peruvians we met at the train station in Ollantantambo were waiting, anticipating.
The city of Ollantantambu is the crux of Incan-descendant and Gringo-tourist cultural encounter. Two-person carriages zoom-powered by a motorcycle attached to the front transporting tourists whiz past hundred year old Incan ruins. While the main plaza of Ollantantambo has metamorphosed into a convenience center serving tourist needs, the original city plan maintains it´s Incan roots. The city plan is shaped as a giant piece of corn with each building acting as a single kernel. Indeed, it would be imprudent not to emphasise the local importance of a vegetable with more than 3000 regional varieties. Cities designed in the shape of Incan gods and other revered cultural elements is common in the Incan world. Cuzco takes the form of a puma, an earth God, and another city is known to be in the shape of the Condor, a sky God.
Less than 12 hours after meeting our friends in the stalk of a giant corn, we headed on the road to adventure together. Headed on the road to the train station in Aguas Calientes. Our friend had forgotten to buy her return train tickets and needed to do so that morning to ensure a seat home. So there I was at 4:50am, flipping and flopping around in a series of erratic fidgeting on a park bench.
Par for the morning´s course, the train station´s computer system used to produce train tickets had crashed. But I found compassion easy, I would shut down too if I were put to work at 5am. But the shut-down converted the simple ritual of buying a train ticket into a complicated ceremony of archaic paper-methods. It is fascinating how easily humans accustomed to computer´s become stumped when faced with a manual task that perhaps 10 years earlier would have been completed swiftly and practically on auto-pilot.
The experience was a cruel, harsh test of my patience and I barely passed. I stayed relatively calm (meaning no major outbursts) but in my grapple with anticipation my nervous system took a bruising punch. I had shimmied and shook around the square until I found myself with a cup of coffee in my hand. It was the only food stand or kiosk open, the only place available as an outlet for my precarious enrapturement. Luckily for all members of our party, soon after I chugged the coffee the train station interaction was complete and we finally headed on the road to the trail.
The instructions were almost as simple as ¨follow the yellow brick road¨: follow the road along the train tracks until the bridge, cross the bridge, look for the stone steps, go up. The climb up was no more than a Class I clamber. For most hikers altitude is the real challenge. For a 29-year old Peruvian painter and a 30-year old Peruvian sculptor from sea-level Lima, an ascent of 400m (about 1000 feet) that begins at 2000m is a nearly unbearable chemical burn in the respiratory system. But for capoeiristas and a runner who have been living at 3800m above sea level, the air felt like the warm, thick air from under our bed-covers earlier that morning.
Early into the ascent we all four decided it best to split. Strong and consistent Eli took the turtle philosophy of ¨lento y contento¨ (slow and steady) which is a sagacious decision when you have a 20-pound shell on your back. Eli desired the work-out of Sherpa-duty so I rabbited the ascent, springing and sproinging up the awkwardly tall stone steps. The abnormally large height of the steps may be the first physical structure fit to Eli´s advantage in South America. Several times air-deprived others kindly allowed me to pass but several times I was also humbled by guides and children literally running past me up towards the top. Before I separated from Eli though I didn´t miss the opportunity to hear Eli´s verbal accostment of, ¨that causes erosion, a**hole!¨ to a youthful male red-head scrambling off-trail. Oh Eli, the wily rogue environmentalist.
At 6:15 am I sprung out of the forest and into the clearing that makes the entrance to Machu Picchu. For the sake of being classy I leaned against a post whose enscription matched the slogan of my t-shirt. I stretched on the ¨Peace on Earth¨ post until 5 minutes later I saw Eli emerging through the trees. Eli arose from the brush at the same pace he entered and as we attached our souls in reciprocal smiles, he emanated the strength, wisdom, and patience of the surrounding trees. Old souls existing firm and constant, giving creatures of life.
Grasping hands Eli and I climbed the stairwell up to the office to buy our entrance tickets. The stalwart South American tour experience, of course, wouldn´t be justly titled as such if it lacked in confusion and necessary information. The entrance of Machu Picchu, like so many ¨organized´ South American tours, was more or less a ¨choose your own adventure¨ saga of asking others, poking our heads in offices, etc. until we uncovered the proper steps to gain entry. Oh, and for future visitors to Machu Picchu, exact change is preferred. Thankfully for Eli and I the ticket-seller was gracious enough to let us in $0.30 Soles short since she did not have 5 soles change for our 10 sole bill.
With a handful of unpredictable (mis)adventures already under our belt, Eli, I and our tour group passed go and entered Machu Picchu at 6:45am-ish. At the last instant Eli and I switched from an English-speaking guide to a Spanish-speaking guide due to the lack of tact and care displayed by the English-speaking guide. Despite shaking Eli´s hand only 8 hours before, that morning at 6:45am the guide blew right past us, responding to Eli´s ¨hola¨ with a baffled look of, ¨who the hell are you?¨. Eli´s impression the night before was less than favorable as well so we opted for the ultimately more educational option of the Spanish-speaking guide. Won´t say it was the wrong choice, but certainly can´t say it was the right choice. Our guide seemed the better choice until she spoke. While I can´t complain about her knowledge of Machu Picchu, her screeching delivery was as terrifying to me as the enthusiastic delivery by Pat Robertson of blatant untruths to a susceptible evangelical public. Shocking in different ways, but equally terrifying. Or perhaps a more immediate and more universally recognizeable analogy is better; she was, more or less, the Peruvian conterpart of Frau Farbissina of Austin Powers.
Amogst the mystic mountains of the surrounding Cordillera and the remarkably enigmatic masonry of Machu Picchu ruins, however,our guide was easy to listen to selectively. After the entrance a 10 minute walk up path lead us to a grass lawn on the terraces earth with our first even non-photographed view of Machu Picchu. Looking down on the ruins made me feel like I was looking down on a field sprinkled by a vast sea of dead butterflies. The astounding and eloquent beauty that physically remains is so damn vivid it seems impossible the life is truly gone. I stood in contemplation haunted by the notion there is something more that remains, something more to be uncovered and understood. And like the many mummies Eli and I saw crouched in fetal position with their original hair and fingernails, the ruins of Machu Picchu seemed at any moment capable of stirring to life and reawakening their beauty.
posted by Jojo at 3:25 PM
0 comments
