La Ciudad Perdida y La Ruta Maravillosa

It was more than a month ago that we three students returned weary and bitten and blistered in the night from the lost city of the Incas. I will start by saying what we kept saying to ourselves as we crossed the high mountain passes: that the vast and huge beauty cannot possibly be captured by a sentence or a camera, and like there are only ruins left of the great Incan city, there are only these words and pictures left of the trip.

We started our trek in the morning, picked up by van from our houses and taken with other travelers to the foggy top of a mountain. Cusco is dry and arid. Most of the plants that you will find here are cacti and if  they are not, they are dried out and crispy yellowed. But within ten minutes of driving up and up the curvy roads, the land changed completely. We could feel the fog with our hands like we were swimming, it was so thick. And suddenly everything was green with life. Below, we could see the path that we’d already traveled snaking its way back down to the depths of the Cusco valley. We hopped on some bikes with helmets and sun block and made our way down the mountain.

I drifted down easily without any effort and I thought about my family and how much I wished they could be there and how much Uncle Butch would love to be biking down this mountain. We had to dodge little clusters of sleeping butterflies that would flutter up into the air when we passed. But soon the pavement ended and we began mountain biking down the rocky road, passing tiny little pueblos and tiny little dogs running among the flowers. We stopped to eat lunch and I acquired most of the mosquito bites that I would get throughout the trip, including one just below my fingernail, and one in the very center of the palm of my hand. They were shameless scavengers hunting whatever piece of flesh they could find, whether their meal came with the promise of death or not.

We gave our chicken bones to the dogs and carried on. Simone fell off her bike because she was trying to pick a flower without stopping. Steffi’s left pedal kept falling off. Also, Simone’s breaks would only work when they were in the right mood, and I was crying from my right eye most of the way because of the tiny dust particles that were lodged in there after being passed by large dangerous cargo trucks. We made it to the small city of ruins called Santa Maria and the van that had followed us down the mountain took the bikes back to the city along with my book Exploring Cusco which I had forgotten to take out from under the seat when I grabbed my stuff.

The hostel that we stayed in was also home for that night to a great number of travelers like ourselves making their way down the beautiful path. Conversations started with “Hello, what country are you from?” I talked about Hayauasca and San Pedro (which are two popular psychedelic beverages made here from native plants) with a guy from England named Phil. He said he was on a five-year vacation exploring the world and finding new things. I couldn’t and still can’t even fathom how that is possible but I hope to one day figure it out. Later, Simone and I did Tae Kwon Do and Yoga respectively (because we wanted to stretch our tired muscles) in the darkness (because it was hot and we had the windows open, and if the light were on we would have been eaten by a curious swarm of screaming cicadas. They flapped their monstrous wings against the walls outside trying to get in. I don’t know why they didn’t try the windows).

In the morning we had a breakfast of tea and bananas in the sunlight, and once we’d finished we set out walking through the ruins of Santa Maria. Some years ago a raging flood had torn through the pueblo in the night destroying the mud brick houses and rail road tracks and everything while everyone was asleep, carrying it all downstream. Trees and plants grew right out of the walls and windows, for the bricks had been made of mud. And we passed walls with doorways that opened up to nothingness and the vast mountainside. When you look at things like that, you realize that we are not destroying the earth with pollution and greenhouse gases. We are only making it hard for ourselves. In our end, nature will have the upper hand. Lichens and moss will slowly devour our stone buildings, and the metal ones will dissolve in the rain.

Our team, (Simone, Steffi, Phil, two guys from the Czech Republic that didn’t talk a lot, the two guides Efraín and Gilmar Benjamin, and myself) carried on down the dust road along the river. An incredible roar of screeching cicadas rose up out of the mountains and permeated everything. It was hard to hear each other when we talked.

There were all sorts of strange and tropical plants and leaves and fruits with magical and medical powers. Gilmar and  Efraín showed us a prickly pod of seeds known as Achote that had been used as an orange dye for many years by the Incas and is still used today. We used it to paint our faces.  The road passed through fields of coca plants stripped of their leaves, and through thick banana jungles with huge poisonous spiders tangled together silently in intricate webs. Thirsty, hungry, and hot, we came upon a beautiful orange tree and shook down the fruit. We filled our pockets with the fallen oranges and then ripped into them, sucking their sour juice, not even bothering to peel them all the way.   

                  

The path was carpeted in carcasses of cicadas and we learned that just before they die, the cicadas sing with all of the energy they have and with everything their body can sustain.  They sing themselves to death until their lungs explode.  Many of the carcasses were missing ends because they’d been blown off in the blast.  I don’t know for sure why they do this, but I think they sing for love. 

We continued on through the forests of coffee and chocolate until we came to the modest house of a woman selling chicha morada (corn juice that is dark and purple and sweet).  She had all kinds of strange animals: a dog that could fit in your shoe, a cat that was even smaller, and a strange gigantic rodent-like thing that drank chicha from a Gatorade bottle and giggled when it was tickled.  She also had a pet monkey.  Yes, I played with her monkey and it was the first time I had actually seen one in real life, not in a zoo or anything. I thought about how most of the people here have never seen snow.  

The woman of the house had a table set up with all sorts of strange types of food.  I tried some chocolate that she had made and it actually tasted like burned dirt.  This was not because she did not know how to make chocolate.  Instead, it was because all of the good product from the chocolate trees gets sold to large companies in the United States and Europe.  And what is left for the farmers and the people that have lived with the cocoa plants all their lives is the stuff that didn’t pass inspection and the stuff that wasn’t accepted.  It is the same with coffee.  I have not had a really “good” cup of coffee since I’ve been here and I miss it, but at the same time, it makes me feel weird that I used to drink this great coffee like water in Marquette, and here they don’t know what it is. 

Nevertheless, we rested our weary bones in the hammocks that the woman had set up in the shade, and we looked out over the valley listening to the birds.  My feet were dirty, and had gotten dirtier with every step that I took down every path that we walked.  I didn’t wash them but cooled my head instead in the sweet little pool that was set up for just that purpose.  Someone picked up an old guitar that was lying around, missing a few strings, and played a quiet tune.  However, we had to be at the hot springs by nightfall.  And so, we carried on wet-headed and dirty-footed. 

We hiked up the ancient Incan passes that curved around the mountains, barely wide enough for one person.  Off the trail was pure abyss, hundreds of feet down to the blue green river that opened up to the huge and expansive valley and sky.  It was way too much to take in.  We knew that the greatness of it could never be captured by a camera and we were okay with that.  We did try though.  I made a sacrificed to the Pachamama in a small cave where other travelers had left their coca leaves of respect.  On a trail like this you feel a kind of respect and reverence for the earth, and you feel how big it is and how small you are and how close you are to death.  Had I missed one step, or tripped over a rock, I would have fallen straight down to the bottom of a mountain.  We felt respect and not fear because, had we fallen, it would have been a death more beautiful than one could ask for.  We climbed out onto an outcropping of rock burning hot in the sun and overlooking the river. And we spread our arms out to the wind and it felt like we were flying because there was no ground below us. 

Soon we reached a house in the jungle of avocado and banana trees where we had our lunch.  Quinoa soup and the freshest avocado.  We played a small game of football (soccer) in the courtyard and rested in hammocks talking about where we’d come from and where we’ve been.  The journey continued and we crossed long bridges suspended over canyons and short little interludes of swampy greenness where the river had made a small and lazy detour.  We passed rock walls painted with minerals of all sorts of colors that swirled in and out of little niches and alcoves.  

As the nighttime came upon us, we arrived dirty and tired to the hot springs of Santa Teresa. I took off my sandals and realized the incredible amount of dirt and dust that had collected on my feet.  But I shook off the dust and jumped in.  And oh, it felt good.  We drifted along in the hot water, weighing nothing, watching the sun go down and the moon come up through the mountains.  I left my bathing suit in the taxi that took us up the mountain to our hostel—another sacrifice to the Pachamama.  After dinner we walked around trying to find something to do but in the end just sat in the main plaza under the bug-swarmed light singing Coldplay songs and dancing Cumbia.  Simone fell in love with a cicada and Efraín told us about his ex-girlfriend, Alicia Keys.  That night, as we lie in our beds in the dark, we listened to the songs “skinny love” and “nantes” on Simone’s little music player. They made the night taste sweet. 

Early in the morning we followed the river.  And soon it led us to a giant hole in the side of the mountain from which erupted a waterfall of incredible force.  It shot out of the mountain from hidden caves and secret subterranean passages that no one has ever seen.  And we marveled at this as we walked along the path, under which rumbled the tunnel of water. 

We bought candy from a little tienda and washed our heads in a much smaller waterfall.   Little by little the mountains got greener as we made our way down the trail, so that what once was desert rock and sunburned grass gave way to moss and shrubs that covered the mountains like blankets.  We could look up and see the back side of Machu Picchu hidden quietly among the peaks.  And the incredible view of the Inca trail cutting through the sheer rock face made us truly appreciate how many hands had put so much work into this thing that was much bigger and older than us and our journey.We came across a papaya tree in the road, and this one—unlike all the others—had one bright yellow-ripe fruit hanging from its apex surrounded by green ones.  We wanted that papaya and were going to have it no matter what, so we threw rocks which just knocked down the green ones.  We threw the green ones because they were bigger but that amarillo papaya held fast to the tree.  After ten minutes Phil climbed monkeylike halfway up the tree and shook it will all of his weight.  And finally the papaya made it’s glorious descent to the ground and we shouted with joy and excitement.  Steffi picked it up and realized that the juicy yellow fruit had been completely emptied by parrots.  And they laughed at us from the trees.  However, for our valiant efforts, we named ourselves Team Papaya.  “Papaya” in Peru is slang for something like “Piece of cake.”  

The trail brought us to a small open restaurant overgrown with flowers and coffee plants and pepper vines.  While I was peeing I found a ridiculously beautiful flower—a tiny salmonpink hibiscus with curling frills and feathering flourishes.  And below it sat a black and white cat curiously nibbling at a caterpillar.   A woman picked for us a fresh papaya from a tree with the ease of a professional and it tasted incredibly sweet.  As we ate lunch in the shade, a cat of striking majestic beauty came to beg for food and ate some pasta off of my plate.  We had to wait for the train to pass so we had an hour of resting to do, and so I laid myself down on the benches and talked with Efraín for an hour about books and people and life and music, all in Castellano.  

 

The train came rumbling past and we awoke from our tropical papaya slumbers.  We followed the tracks through the jungle encountering quiet gentlemen picking leaves methodically from little coca fields, and toucans, and orchids growing wild along the path.  If you have never looked closely at an orchid, you should.  In it you can usually find the secrets of the universe dressed in fringed and looping colorful petals.  There are thousands of different types that look like spiders and dogs and shoes; some that smell like chocolate and bananas and rotting flesh; and some like this one that look like a cross with an inverted heart. 

The trail was speckled with little rivers and pools in which we cooled our heads and feet.  My feet were gathering less dirt than the day before but instead formed blisters beneath the straps of my sandals.  I found a cotton plant and stopped the friction with the fluffy poofs. 

Befored we realized it, we were crossing a bridge and approaching the small town of Aguas Calientes as the sun went down.  

We had to wake up the next morning at 3:30.  Because of this, we went to bed pretty early that night after eating dinner and looking at the tourist souvenirs that were at least four times more expensive than those of Cusco.  And as I went to bed that night,  I thought about our journey and the steps that we had taken and the amazing things that we had seen.  I wondered if I actually needed to see Machu Picchu or if the journey so far was enough.  I imagined a mad Japanese poet climbing a huge mountain for a week in the cold with very little food or water.  I imagined him climbing nearly to the top, but then just before, I imagined him sitting on a rock and looking down at the world below and the path that he’d taken and smiling to himself up there in the cold before heading slowly back down, not needing to conquer the mountain—traveling just to travel.

And so, the next morning we woke up at half past three in the darkness of morning. We were supposed to leave our heavy luggage with the woman at the front desk.  However, it was half past three and she was still sleeping.  The front lounge was dark and the door was locked.  We had to break out of our hotel that morning and run to the plaza to meet out teammates who had slept in another hostel.  Already late and confused, we had to run to the other hostel to leave our bags there.  We returned to the plaza and started walking and everything was fine and cool.  We didn’t talk much, mainly because we were half-asleep somnambulists.  It was a strange eerie calming feeling to have nothing to look at but darkness and have nothing to do but walk.

We crossed a bridge and I remembered that my ticket to enter the lost city of Machu Picchu was tucked cozily between the pages of my journal which was in my backpack, which was in the hostel.  I swore a lot at that moment.  Phil and Gilmar and the girls went on ahead but Efraín and I had to backtrack across the bridge for a half hour to get the ticket and then another half hour back.  I have not mentioned this yet but the reason that we were hiking at 3:30 in the morning was that they only allow 400 people to climb Huayna Picchu, the steep verdant mountain jutting up out of the valley and looming over the ruins.  There is a group of 200 that climbs at 7:30 and a group that climbs at 11.  It is first come, first serve and if you don’t get there early, you will not get a ticket.  Also, I had to be in the group that went at 7:30 because my train left at 2:30 to take me back to Cusco and there would have been no time. As we walked back, we no doubt passed more than 200 tired people heading toward the summit. 

We grabbed my ticked from the hostel but it was too late.  Given this setback, I would not be able to get a ticket in time.  However, I thought what I had been thinking earlier, that nothing was more excellent or marvelous than right now.   Everything was fine and real.

Before I left for Peru, Brianna made me a book of quotes and poems and salamanders and letters and life and the fizz into particulars.  Into my mind came a quote from this book, which has as of late become one of my favorite books in the world.  The quote goes:

Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire.  The reality of your own nature should determine the speed.  If you become restless, speed up.  If you become winded, slow down.  You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion.  Then, when you’re no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn’t just a means to an end but a unique event in itself.  This leaf has jagged edges.  This  rock looks loose.  From this place the snow is less visible, even though closer.  These are things you should notice anyway.  To live only for some future goal is shallow.  It’s the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top.  Here’s where things grow.   

-Brianna quoting Robert Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. 

I thought about this and how beautiful everything was: every step in the cool heavy blackness, every bird that woke up, and the exact place in the world where everyone was and exactly what every one was doing at that moment.  Efraín and I had become friends through the trip singing “green eyes” by Coldplay and teaching each other our separate languages.  And I though how damn good it was to be walking up ancient stairways in the liquid-blue dawn with my friend talking in Spanish about bananas and things.  It got lighter and lighter as we climbed and we stopped to share a banana that I had with me.  I shared with him another passage from Brianna’s book. 

The story of this quote is that, in a book about the senses, there was the story of a woman who one day lost her senses of taste and smell.  Food was texture and nothing but necessity, stripped of its pleasures.  And after some time, five years or so, her senses were miraculously regained.  In an interview she said “The taste of a banana once made me cry.”  I told him this as we ate, and no other banana in my life tasted so good.  

The sun crept over the mountains and slid through the clouds as we finally arrived at the gate sweating garlic from the last night’s dinner.  As I entered the landing, Gilmar leapt out of the crowd of waiting people like a mad lemur and snatched my ticket out of my hand, and then dashed away.  I had no time to even wonder what he was doing and he returned with a stamp for the first group to climb Huayna Picchu.  I couldn’t  believe how damn lucky I was. 

I entered the hidden city and they told me to run.  I had to cross the ruins to be at the gate for the young peak (huayna = young, picchu = peak) in ten minutes.  But I had just entered one of the seven modern wonders of the world.  And you don’t just run through that.  Everyone else had done what they should and had gone to the gate.  And so I was left alone in the ruins with the sunrise.    There are thousands of pictures just like this one on postcards, in magazines, on cereal boxes and storefronts.  But when you stand there and look out over everything, you realize that those photos are nothing.  They are like a close-up photo of sand trying to tell you that there is a whole wide expansive ocean opening up before you.  You don’t realize from the photo that on one side of a wall is what used to be a house, and on the other is a profound abyss. I was damn lazy about getting to that gate and it felt good.  

When I did arrive at the gate I waited in line in front of a pessimistic couple who were debating whether or not to climb the mountain.  “I mean, it’s just a giant stair stepper.  The lady told us we could get the ticket stamp here but I guess she didn’t know what the hell she was talking about.  She screwed us over and all we can do is just act like we got screwed over.”  “Or you could just jump off of the edge. That would work too.”  I wondered how it was possible that they were not happy just to be there on that mountain in the blue Peruvian morning.  A vicious dog could have been bighting my fingers off and I would have been distracted from that by this view… 

They let us through and we climbed.  Sparrows were swooning and diving all around us, through the leaves of the mountainside.  The steps were incredibly small and steep, no bigger than a shoe turned to the side.  And dizzying was the valley below.  So we clung to life on the side of the mountain grabbing tree roots and cracks in the rock.  Sometimes, when the path got steep and almost inverted, we were lucky enough to have a steel cable nailed to the rock here or there on which to hold.  

Can you see the tiny colored specks on the left side of this mountain? Those are people.

 

Up, up, and up we climbed reveling in the view.  You could only dare to look when you were firmly grasping some tree or cable and were not moving.  When climbing, the only thing you could look at were the narrow stairs ahead.  The sun was hot as we got higher, our feet were blistered, and our muscles were sore and shaky from the climb.  But eventually we approached the top of the world.  

For some reason, I thought there would be a landing at the top, or maybe some temple overlooking the rest of the world below.  However, this was not the case.  We shimmied over rockfaces and squirmed through caves made by strangely situated boulders.  Now that I think of it, all of the boulders were well-rounded as if polished by a river.  I wonder how they came to be so smooth so high up on the top of a mountain.  They were the infiniteness of time. 

It was really an intense moment when we sat down on that rock and looked out over the valley.  There was a great silence because the rest of the world was so far away from where we were.  I had brought a stick of incense and some matches on this journey with me.  I would light it when I reached the top of Huayna Picchu and we would sit and smile and stare at the beauty of life.  And when we were really finally there, I pulled it out of my pocket and then realized that my small Hawaiian box of matches had fallen out of my pocket somewhere along the way, possibly because it was in the chapstick change pocket and the motion of climbing stairs coaxed it gently and silently out.  It was all good though.  Actually, it could not have been more perfect; the air was already sweet and clear.  I sacrificed the incense and a small beautiful rock from Marquette to the Pachamama, putting them in a tiny little hollow below our boulder.  

We just sat there and looked at the world and cried because everything was way too beautiful.  I thought about how incredibly fortunate I was to be looking at this and how lucky I was to be sitting in this sunshine on this rock with this hummingbird eating nectar from this flower and this lizard clinging to this branch.

 

 

 

I thought about my family and my friends that I would not be able to see for a long time and who I love and I thought of how much I wish they could see what I was seeing and feel what I was feeling at that moment, which was complete and genuine happiness.  And this happiness was not because I had finally made it to see the real thing behind the postcard.  It was the beauty of the landscape but more so the beauty of life—that I had gone places and that I had people to miss, and right at that moment those people were going about their lives, working or waking up or watching TV or typing on a computer or maybe flushing a toilet.  I felt completely thankful and completely in love.  Had a stranger asked me to marry them at that moment, I would have no doubt said yes to whomever it was.  Every step and blister and dollar spent and essay written and mile traveled and phone call made and every word that was said, I suddenly realized, was all for love. 

This is why the cicada sings.  And this is why we are not disappointed when the papaya has been eaten, and this is why we travel, and why we tell stories, and why we hug, and why we sometimes feel embarrassed or don’t know what to say.  This is why we live and die. 

People began to arrive and the top of the mountain began to get crowded.  It was someone else’s turn to sit on that rock and think about how they’d gotten to be there.  So we made our way back down the narrow stairways, using other muscles, and all the time quivering on the edge of nothingness.  Once we’d made it back to the lost city, we were well tired and weary.  Gilmar Benjamine gave us a tour of the ruins pointing out interesting crevices and carvings in the rocks.  He told us myths and legends of sacrifice and farming.  In Machu Picchu there exists four different types of stonework, which means that every successive Inca king had a hand in making the sacred city of worship.  There were reflecting pools used to look at solar eclipses, and condors imagined into the rock.  Do you see it?

They made rivers into Milky Way mirrors and sturdy stone constructions were made with astronomical precision.  When the tour had finished, we had to eat or we would have passed out among the stones.  We had burgers for S/40. at the ridiculously overpriced restaurant while a German guy at our table sang opera. I had an hour and a half until I had to be at the train station to take me back to Cusco.  Phil and I decided that this time would be best spent running to the Sun Gate, a small portal of the sunrise on the far opposite of the city to Huayna Picchu.  We had no time to spare so we leapt over large ancient stairs, passing people and chapels. When we arrived, I found a dark cave hidden among some leaves.  Of course I went in and climbed up the rocky wall.  It came out on the very top of the mountain, overlooking the valley from the other side.  There, I was alone.  I could not see any people in the Sun Gate, and the tourists milling among the stone walls of the city were invisible ants.  I said hello to the Pachamama. 

We hurried on down to the train and hopped on, sitting and relaxing in the comfy chairs and watching the sunset and the mountain and an amazing adventure pass down the railroad tracks. 

 

We made it back to the city at 6:30 in the evening and I slept without dreaming because that day had been beautiful enough. 

Some bittersweet news though.  I was just robbed while walking to class.  The good news was that they did not take anything worth any type of money.  The bad news is that it was by little book of one-liner poems that found me in my life.  I am pissed.  This was personal.  However,  now that my little book is in the long-fingered hands of a poetry thief, it is just starting its long adventure out in the wide world.  And I guess I am okay with that.