Machu Picchu Excites the Imagination

What do you do about a dream, about a desire that drifts back to you for decades?

I dreamed of climbing paths into the clouds at the ancient Inca fortress of Machu Picchu. I learned about this place when I was not much more than a decade old listening to a serial radio program called, "Jack Armstrong, the All-American boy." Jack had a new adventure each week at that faraway place. I thought, if only I could be there. Where was there? Somewhere in South America, I knew, "down" the earth from where I lived. Part of the appeal might have been the rhythmic name, Machu Picchu, besides Jack’s thrilling discoveries and danger throughout the Inca citadel.

Over time, I traveled to faraway places with family and friends, but not to Peru where this enchanting place existed.

And then, I heard of a group tour through GoAhead Tours to Peru and Machu Picchu led by Peruvians from my home town. They had space for one more. Fate saved that space for me.

We flew from San Francisco to Lima, Peru, also on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, but three hours east of San Francisco. In Lima, we were introduced to Spanish and Inca culture through magnificent Catholic cathedrals and churches, changing of the guard in the Plaza de Armas, the National Museum, which included pre-Colombian artifacts from nearby Inca ruins.

Cuzco

Two days later, we flew to the city of Cuzco -- altitude 11,200 feet. Moving from sea level to more than 2 miles up in rare air takes a day or so to adjust. We got advice from many sources: rest the first afternoon, eat lightly and walk slowly uphill to the town square for dinner. The hotel had hot coca tea available in the lobby at all hours. Hotels and restaurants have oxygen available at all times. (One of our group needed it at the restaurant.)

With another day to acclimate in Cuzco before hiking around Machu Picchu, we had a chance to take in the June festival of Corpus Christi. What a spectacular festival. Music filled Plaza de Armas, bands marched, costumed performers danced. Beautifully costumed effigies of larger-than-life saints were held high above the crowds in the plaza. One after the other passed by our restaurant balcony spot, a serendipitous experience. We saw saints known as Santa Barbara, San Pedro (which I mistook for the Pope), Virgen Natividad, 15 of them. Several men walked with each large box on which the statues sat.

Among the bands were those in the dress of the Andean heritage playing the pipes that we often heard echoing throughout villages and markets. The bearers of the saints marched with their heavy load up the stone steps and into the 16th century Cathedral, at the edge of the plaza.

Road to Machu Picchu

Early in the morning, we boarded the train for a three-hour ride to the village where we were to stay as we toured the World Heritage Site of Machu Picchu. The train climbed over a pass in the mountains and then followed the Urubamba River through its valley, past the ancient Inca terraces still standing beside the river. High mountains loomed to the sides, some covered with snow. We dropped more than 2,000 feet from Cuzco. The beauty surrounding the route is awesome.

The train stopped at Aguas Calientes, a small village/town built up the hillside with a small plaza below, tucked between mountain peaks. There are no motorized conveyances in this mountain town except the buses that park on the outskirts to take visitors to the World Heritage Site. Porters rolled our baggage from the train up the steep hill to the hotel in big wooden carts.

We checked into the hotel, walked uphill through corridors to our rooms, and then gathered for instruction in the small lobby. A few people in our group (the younger ones) took off for Machu Picchu immediately after checking into the hotel. Others, and I, ate and wandered up and down the steep hillside to see shops and the market. The three to four hour guided tour started at 1 p.m.

Exploring Machu Picchu

The shuttle bus to the Machu Picchu wound up a steep narrow road to the Inca ruins, past jungle-like trees and brush growing in the crevasses. It was better to look up to the mountains than down into canyons.

A local guide led our group of about 20. We gave our pre-arranged ticket to the gatekeeper (who stamped our passports at the end) and walked out into full view of the mountain peaks shaped like the mile-high ice-cream cones I ate as a kid. There was Macchu Picchu (Old Mountain) and Huayna Picchu, (Big Mountain), jutting above the flat platforms surrounded by rock terraces, rock stairs and drop-off canyons that seemed to have no bottom.

We had learned that the Inca people built this now-World Heritage Site in the 15th -century, abandoned it before Pisarro and the conquering Spaniards, who were in Cuzco, could find it. In 1911, a Yale professor discovered the site and the restoration began.

The guide led us through narrow passageways to the royal quarters, up steep rocky steps to the Temple of the Condor, the sacred bird of the Incas, and nearby burial caves beside the huge, many-ton rocks.

We crossed various levels of open plateaus edged by low rock walls. Our guide stood on one as he talked. I hoped he wouldn’t lean back and go into the canyon more than a thousand feet deep. He pointed to a small mountain peak at the end of the plateau we were on. "A hike up there can be part of the tour," he said. Not for me.

The site looks like the magazine pictures we see of Machu Picchu, but it doesn’t feel the same. I felt the vastness of the surrounding territory – the deep crevasses on the sides of the plateau, the high mountain peaks nearby and beyond. Big stones form the stairs we climbed (no handrails), almost too high for short legs to maneuver. The Incas built rock terraces alongside the stairs, wide enough for crops. Now, and maybe also centuries ago, llamas trim the grass that grows on the terraces. We heard about the Inca Trail and saw, several hundred feet above us, the watch tower where hikers come in from their four-day trek over a 15,000-foot mountain.

My time at the sacred/historic site, Machu Picchu, lasted for the afternoon but it’s with me forever. Only thing I regret -- I would have liked to join the few of our group who went back in the early morning to hike to the tower and the trail to the top before the afternoon train departed to take us back to Cuzco. But I still felt a part of the majestic mountains, the sharp peaks, the valleys hundreds of feet below, and the deep, rock steps I climbed. I traveled back in time several hundred years.