Peru - Machu Picchu

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   A Trip to Peru...... August 2007  (Part 3)  

by Leonard Babin                   

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Climb To Machu Picchu

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My Thoughts On

 

 

Climb to Machu Picchu.....

    I'm sure that I've expressed this thought many times. I'll do it again because it is so important to meaningful travel. "Some places must be visited on foot. Some should be visited by bicycle. Some by car and some are best traveled across by airplane." The difference is that the slower methods of travel provide for more intimacy with the place being visited.

    The ancient Incas walked the Inca Trail yearly from Cusco, their capital, to their winter home at Machu Picchu.  The Incas thought that the whole earth was sacred and believed that every mountain and feature had a spirit of its own. Having walked four days of the Inca Trail it became easy to accept the
concept.

    During the first several hours out of kilometer 82 we kept looking back over our right shoulders at a dramatic glacier-covered peak called Veronica. She watched us walk over the rugged trail climbing out of the valley to the highest passes as she has watched others do for a thousand years.  If you took he train to Machu Picchu you would see Veronica. You would be impressed and could take beautiful photographs of her. But you wouldn't know Veronica. You wouldn't  experience the intimacy with her that hikers do. 
You wouldn't feel her spirit as we did.

     It's the kind of experience that made our group of eight chose to take the four-day hike to Machu Picchu.  It wasn't an easy hike.  We started at about 9,000 feet elevation and went over passes at 12,000 feet and over 14,000 feet. The air is pretty thin at those elevations. We dealt with that by taking short baby-steps, pacing ourselves slowly and stopping sometimes after each step to catch our breath.

    The Inca Trail was engineered nearly a thousand years ago and was constructed with cut stones. Most of the climbing and descending is done on stone steps. The difficulty is that the steps are not set according to any standard height and spacing.  So you have to constantly be alert to where to place your next step. It's impossible to build up a comfortable cadence. It's a lot like spending four days on an erratic step machine in the gym. It's a tough hike. But, it was worth it.

    We took the challenge and completed it. We saw how people are living today by doing subsistence farming in the valleys and on terraces on the rugged Andes Mountains. We walked the dry, arid, regions punctuated with little more than sisal plants and dry grasses. We walked the alpine areas well above the altitude where anything can grow.  We climbed the high passes; struggling, to keep ahead of the mists that chased us up the valleys. We experienced the early-morning rains. We saw the clouds from below and from above. We admired, touched, and smelled the flowers. We experienced scenery incomparable anywhere else on earth. And, finally, through the dense green mountain jungle decorated with orchids of every color and size, we achieved the place called Machu Picchu.

It's easy to see why it's called one of the seven wonders of the modern world; why Unesco has established it as a world heritage site; and, why it's become one of the most visited places on earth.  There is so much information easily available on it that I won't try to describe it. I'll just report that Judi and I sat for nearly four hours one morning on a perch much like the Inca royalty did.  We watched, fascinated, as the scenery before us constantly changed as the mists moved, up, down, over, across and around the incredibly rugged peaks that surround the site.  The spirits of the mountains and the mists and the sun and the sky were all in evidence.  Even people who arrived by train could sense them.  But, those of us who had walked here already knew them; and were intimate with them.

My Thoughts On.....

The Inca Trail:

    I wrote the previous episode on the train on the way back to Cusco from Machu Picchu; filled with excitement from the accomplishment and many rich experiences.  There is a bit more information that potential Inca Trail hikers might appreciate knowing in advance.

    The Inca Trail is being spoiled by its success. During the high season, a maximum of four hundred people are allowed to depart daily on the four day trek. That means that there are 1,600 people spread over the twenty-six and a half mile track. There are a few permanent latrine sites on the trail and tour operators are obliged to set up portable potties in the evenings and carry out the waste. But, it's obvious that a great percentage of the average 1,600 defecations and 8,000 urinations per day get deposited along
the route by the trekkers. The track is dotted with toilet paper and the faint smell of human feces is in the air around every bush or rock that a person could crouch behind.

    I credit this unsanitary condition as the cause for severe bloody diarrhea and vomiting that I experienced on the second night on the trail and that persisted for two days. Fortunately, three of the ladies in our group were nurses and carried nearly every medicine known to prevent and cure every
disease. I was lucky enough to survive not only the disease, but, also the numerous side effects of the medications.

Peru:

    Peru is definitely worth a visit. It was the victim of a Spanish gold rush and a Catholic conquest of souls. Cities like Lima and Cusco have magnificent cathedrals, churches and monasteries that were built before the pilgrims settled in Massachusetts. The artwork and riches of these establishments rival any in Europe. But, little of this era carried over to today. The easy gold ran out, and the conversion of souls was incomplete. The economy today is mainly agricultural subsistence farming. Nominally Roman Catholic, the indigenous people hedge their bets by decorating their roof tops with crosses and symbols of the Inca gods to ward away evil spirits.  There is a tradition to recite a toast and spill a bit of a drink on the earth or blow the foam off of a beer as a thank offering to Pachamama, the "mother earth" god.
 


Peruvian Cuisine:

    Having a long seacoast and 21,000 foot mountains, Peru has a great variety of eco-systems that produce a tremendous variety of foods.  The Incas already had three hundred species of corn and a thousand species of potatoes before Europeans began arriving.  Then, the Spanish brought in sheep and
hogs.  Africans slaves brought  in Arabic style cooking.  Chinese workers brought their dishes.  French, German, and Japanese followed, each adding to the rich Peruvian cuisine.  Peruvian cuisine today is one of the most varied and interesting in the world.

    I was continually taken by the wonderful aromas of food cooking in restaurants and home kitchens. I tried to imagine how they were cooking the food and what spices they were using. I tried menu items in restaurants that had names that meant nothing to me and couldn't be found in my Spanish-English dictionary. Everything was aromatic, flavorful, and so delicious. I bought two English-language cookbooks when I returned to Lima. One is devoted to Peruvian Cooking - Basic Recipes, and the other focuses totally on Ceviche - marinated raw seafood. I can't wait to try every dish.

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