Wonders of the World - March 28, 2008

Mi Dios.

Well we just dragged ourselves back into Cusco after many days of 5 am wake-ups and cardboard box train rides, so forgive my lack of verbal clarity or temporal conscience. Of course, the reason outweighed the ransom, and we spent yesterday exploring what is truly one of the most incredible sights of the planet, Machu Picchu.

Most say the same thing, that while the city is itself incredible, it is where the city is sited that takes your breath away. We arose ridiculously early in the morning for the first buses that leave Aquas Caliente for the summit, and in doing so were attempting, as with the hundreds of other caffeine depreived backpackers, a glimpse of the sun rising over the mountains and painting the stone walls of the Incan ghost city.

Of course, we got this:

The truth however, is that the fog and mist was a gift I never would have thought to ask for. The mist drifted slowly over the andean peaks, so unlike our own Rockies, these more ancient monoliths that carry a velvet blanket of jungle, emerging and disappearing at their whim into the entrancing fog. It was as dreams, where reality bubbles and explains nothing, that we came to find this place hidden. The mist slowly began to simmer off however, and the city unveiled itself.

I could not have wished for more.

We took a quick tour in the morning to be able to appreciate what exactly we were experiencing, and then became some of the lucky few to challenge Waynapicchu, which is that big mother mountain in the background of all Machu Picchu photos.

The hike was fairly vertical, the smallest and most ludicrous of incan steps trickled up the mountain´s face, a path that in absolutely no way would be open for the public in North America. Wire ropes dotted only the most lethal passages, and seemed curiously absent in the only semi-lethal sections. After about an hour we crested the summit, cliff after terraced cliff looking out over Machu Picchu, the Incan trail which connects it to Cosco, and the incredible power of the sorrounding mountains. I cannot compare the Andes to anything I have experienced before in my life, there stood among the rest one peak which I swear was the roof of the world, so massively did it appear to support the heavens. To walk Incan stairs, in an ancient city, with the weight of the skies resting upon the mountains sorrounding, is a moment without kin.

After the summit Jess and I took the backside of the mountain down, a rather lucky decision as we did not see another person for several hours, a miracle in itself. In that fashion we hiked through pure Peruvian jungle for kilometres, up and down Incan stairways and temples, crossing massive millipedes and jumping spiders, finally collapsing back at the entrance having experienced one of the most glorious and yet heavily visited sites in the world completely alone.

In a few hours we are taking a bus to La Paz. I cannot express how excited we are to finally reach Bolivia, although right now all we crave is sleep in the plaza del armas. Oodles of postcards and photos soon, as well, I have seven thousand photos of Incan ruins for those who need help sleeping, for now, the rest one needs when the heart is full.

Adios

Ñ