Dateline: Machu Picchu, Peru
January 2008
appeared in a variety of newspapers
Awesome, deep, orgasmic—these are a few of the words I or others have used to describe Machu Picchu. All are inadequate.
The gateway to Machu Picchu is Cuzco, Peru, a beautiful city in the heart of the Inca Empire. The city boasts a graceful colonial main square, uniquely open and without trees but with a two-story fountain in the middle, surrounded by a cathedral and a church on two sides, and colonial buildings with restaurants and balconies overlooking.
The encircling businesses of course are geared towards the tourists—gift shops, tours, and the now-ubiquitous internet cafes, where one can email to all of your home-bound friends while watching the rain hammer down into the square on a Saturday afternoon, the hills surrounding the city shrouded in mist. Wandering beyond the main square reveals centuries old residencies, churches, stables and workshops churning out metals and fine woodwork, mixed in with artist galleries and local eateries where the food is as scrumptious at a third of the price of the more touristy fare.
My hotel is up the hill from the main plaza, under the watchful eye of a statute of the Madonna with her arms spread wide, a lovely place of white stucco and red-tiled roofs, terraced up the hillside in four levels. There are two patios to sit on, and my room is in reality two, a small bedroom accompanied by a sitting room with rattan furniture, a tiny fireplace, and a commanding vista overlooking Cuzco below and the surrounding valley.
After unpacking I walk down into town, and instantly realize I had under-budgeted my time for this spot, and immediately pushed back my departure flight at one of the numerous travel agencies surrounding the plaza. Who would really miss me? And in the long run, four more days would be better spent here than in the normal workaday world back home.
The next morning the tour guide collected me at 5 a.m. and whisked me off to the train station. Everyone goes to Machu Picchu in one of three ways—the intrepid hike the Inca Trail for four days (an option precluded to me by inclement weather, the less active or time pressed ride by train, or for the rich, by helicopter. The first half hour of the train journey is switchbacks up the mountain behind Cuzco, affording another commanding view, then it’s off through the Peruvian countryside, fertile valleys stuffed with farms growing corn and potatoes and every other vegetable imaginable, and then some. (There are fourteen varieties of potato grown in the Andes.) In the middle of the rainy season the countryside is a verdant green blanket contrasting with rich red-brown stretches of soil. High clouds dotted a blue sky that hurt to gaze at.
After an hour, the tracks ventured upon the Rio Urubamba and the landscape grew dramatic, the river gorged with rain water, overflowing the banks at points, coursing past boulders and villages. Sinkholes formed in the river that could swallow whole houses. Run-off creeks coursed down steep muddy hillsides that threatened to slide and obliterate the railroad at any moment. The altitude dropped as we progressed, and rocky highland converted to jungle vegetation, incredibly lush and promising to recapture the train tracks left after the potential mudslides. The last hour of the ride the train plunged into canyons with rocky cliffs towering above us. All of this was but preparation for the splendor of Machu Picchu itself.
The train ride ends in Aguas Caliente, a town out of the American Wild West. Mud streets lined with ramshackle eating establishments, bed and breakfasts, and thinly disguised flophouses were there was more for sale than just the bed. Crowded narrow lanes featured stalls displaying the inevitable Latin American informal economy, the one designed by the neo-liberal economic reformers to make vendors out of everyone. Disembarking from the train we were assaulted by a gauntlet of neo-capitalists, pushing tee-shirts and weavings and trinkets, exhorting us to come back down the mountain and buy from them for a very good price after we’d viewed the historic ruins above.
My first impression of Machu Picchu itself is not so much of the Inca village itself, but where they decided to build it. The majesty of the place begins to hit you as the shuttle bus from the train station winds up something like 89 switchbacks, regal rock formations sprouting around to reach towards the sun peeping through the overcast above. Machu Picchu perches on the very top of a mountain ridge, ringed by mountains, with the river deep in its canyon below encircling the ruins in a 270 degree arc. The two days I was there the surrounding mountain tops always wore a crown of mist of clouds, adding to the deep mystery of the place. And this is not a rounded hill—steep slopes require you go up three feet for every corresponding foot of territory gained.
Viewing the ruins filled me with an awe of the human spirit, the sense of dedication (or was it chutzpah?) it must have taken to build Machu Picchu. Granted, much of it was built with slave labor. But to have the vision of what was to be requires an intelligence far too often denied even the enviable Inca mind. It took will to build on top of this mountain—for practical defense, for spirit, to be closer to the sun as a vision of god and life essence.
It’s all built of stone—stairways, walls, homes, terraces, palaces, temples. The terraces are packed with earth hauled up bit by bit in reed baskets on the backers of those slave laborers from the riverbed 500 meters below, as were the stones themselves.
The terraces are fantastic, spreading up and down the hill, knitted together by steep Incan stairways perfectly designed for easy climbing. The stone work reflects the importance of the buildings—the temples are built with no mortar between the rocks, the craftsmanship so the stone blocks, often measuring three feet by three feet and sometimes even larger, lay flat against each other, with no gaps, no place even for a weed to grow. Many of the stones are perfectly square, fitted with notches and fancy corners. Everything is trapezoidal, earthquake protection so walls and doorways begin to fall in onto themselves and so hold each other up when the earth moves.
All of this done of course with no modern tools, no iron, nothing to cut with. Just rock pounding against rock, sanding and polishing to create perfect forms. Massive rocks are put in place by rolling them over other stones used as a crude form of ball-bearings, pushed and pulled by ropes and human sweat. The houses and common buildings are less exact, with mud mortar in between, but none the less remarkable for such a flaw.
Machu Picchu was built in just over 100 years, and abandoned unfinished, one slab destined for the temple of the sun left on its rollers just in front of the altar. No one really knows why the Incas abandoned the place. One theory has an earthquake damaging the temple of the sun, and such an omen pushed the architects to leave things as they were. Other theories speak of civil war fought between two brothers, one of Quitos and one of Cuzco. The men of Machu Picchu left to fight, and the women moved to friendly habitation. Or maybe it was disease, smallpox or influenza brought to Cuzco by the newly arrived Spanish conquistadors spreading to the city of the sun.
Regardless, the Incas left, the city undiscovered by the invading Spanish, and the jungle reclaimed the site. It was more than 400 years before Hiram Bingham, an archeologist from Yale University, persuaded local Indian farmers who knew of the ruins to take him there in 1911.
Late in the afternoon after most of the tourists had returned to the sins of Agua Caliente, I wandered the empty ruins imagining what it must have been like to live there, to gaze out a window at the river, watching the rain clouds close in. A light rain formed, while brilliant sunshine still shone through holes in the overcast sky.
A rainbow began forming, coming straight out of the rapids of the river far below, arching up slowly. A small group formed and stood watching, with each minute the rainbow extending over our heads, our hushed voices exclaiming ‘Look at that’ with awe. The rainbow grew, arching over the top of the mountain just opposite the ruins, and came back down to hit the river where it curved around to the opposite side of the mountain. The brightest, most perfect rainbow I’ve ever seen. Then the second rainbow appeared, above it and fainter, but stretching from river to river as did the first.
In the hush of sunset, a local tour guide turned to the group assembled for this display of nature’s glory and proclaimed we were all blessed with the best of luck for the coming year. I thought I was blessed with the best of luck for that very moment.
As I left the grounds, the last to leave for the evening, I looked back at a cloud of mist flowing up the hillside from the river, covering the ruins like a blanket for the night. I came to Machu Picchu hoping and expecting some sort of spiritual enlightenment.
I found humility.
