From the Heights of Machu Picchu…

I have nothing against the other wonders of the world, but if they don't involve an exhausting, stunning, rainy, and breathtaking (watch that altitute!) hike to reach 'em, then forget it: I prefer Machu Picchu.  Nothing felt so deserved as the glorious, sunshine day my sister and I walked onto the grounds of the mysterious ex-city, perched between river and railroad, high in the jungles of Peru.

The trail itself is rather straightforward: you follow the path set by tourists and then by the old Incan cobblestones themselves, created carefully for the running chasquis--messengers of the Inca Empire.  Our trip took three walking days, to arrive at dawn on the fourth. Everything is really damn gorgeous.  Mountains fold in front of one another like shifting sets in a play; the clouds slip between them as easily as passing birds.  Our third day (following the coldest night of all time, frozen underneath a beautiful full moon), we climbed from the valley where we were camped up to "Dead Woman's Pass," where the shape of the mountain peak profiles a sleeping woman.  Cairns of stone, built by travelers in thanks to the Pachmama (Mother Earth) skyscape each little undulation.  We passed lagoons of collected rainwater, hiked past orchids, wild strawberries, and cacti. And, God forbid I ever forget it, we ate a lot of soups.  It gets really cold; it gets really hot. 

I'm including a few photos--one in which I'm standing in front of a tumble of stones.  Without the four day hike, it's hard to explain the significance of this rather magnificent city in the middle of (basically) nowhere. The stones are the quarry from which the city was built.  To cut stones, the Incans would push wood into the stones, wet it, and over the next six or so months, the stone would crack. The estimated time it took to construct the city, the trail, and many of the other neighboring sites is about 75 years.