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Published: February 4th 2007
Sacred Jamming in Cuzco
Gordo and Graham held a concert in the main plaza to a crowd of 3: a mother and her daughter from Mendoza, and a little dirty boy who tried to break Gordos guitar.We arrived in Cuzco, Peru, what some call "The Rome of the Americas," and hit up the town immediately - going to museums, churches of gold, parks, plazas, ruins, bars, drag-costume parties, clubs, eating and drinking local delicacies, and shopping at the black market where you can buy name brand camping equipment directly out of fellow travellers' stolen backpacks for $5.
Then we split off and the girls scammed their way into the Sacred Valley to look at Inca stuff, and the boys went rafting down the class 3+ Urubamba River where Gordo fell out twice but swam well. All was fun and grand and we all met back up.
On the 31st we embarked on what we all have agreed to this point (for the 6th time) is our favorite part of the trip: A four day hike up the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. For those (all) of you who dont know about Machu Picchu, here is a breifito history lesson: The Inca Empire ruled South America from the 1200's to 1600's, extending from Southern Colombia to Northern Chile and Argentina. Then the Spanish came from Europe and pretty much conquered the entire continent (excluding Brazil). They overtook the
Pisac Market
Scene of a massive shopping spree committed by Emma and Elise Inca Empire and the entire population died out soon. Machu Picchu, however, is a sacred villiage built by the Incas in order to worship the Sun in peace and excape the Spanish conquistadors. Because of its impenetrable location, the Spaniards never found the city. It was only discovered within the past century.
Anyways, to get there without cheating we had to trek 4 days through the tropical highlands of the Peruvian Andes. "Space forbids any attempt to describe in detail the beauty; the rank tropical foilage, countless terraces, towering cliffs, glaciers peeping out between the clouds" (Hiram Bingham, who discovered the ancient city in 1911. We followed his footsteps like the Goonies followed Chester Copperpot.) A group of 24 of us were aided up the mountains by 23 porters who sprinted the jungled hills wearing rubber sandles and babbling curse words in their native Quechua language with 60 pound packs on their backs.
The first day was easy - 7 miles not too steep. The second day about got the best of us, having to ascend 5,000 feet up in four hours then another few miles. The third day was about a 8 hour wonder-hike through the heartland of temperate
Llama Mama
A llama overlooks the valley, on top of an unruined ruin. jungle, at about the 10,000 ft. asl mark. Throughout the trip we ate "very rico" food (in Elises words), slept in spacy tents, talked to people from all over the world, and hiked and climbed and tumbled. The fourth day we woke up at 4 am to walk two hours through the cold, dark, pouring down rain in order to beat the tourists from Tokyo and Florida to catch the sunrise over the Sacred Valley. They say people sometimes "find themsleves" upon arriving through the Sun Gate to Machu Picchu. It was beautifully incredibly wonderful, but no one was "found". The search shall continue. We toured the city all day, learned Inca stuff, and Graham got a sacred mullet haircut on a sacred hilltop. Then we retreated by train back to Cuzco. The Inca Trail was not only the pinnacle in our journey so far, it is the pinnacle of "travel" in the most general sense. Tomorrow we depart for Lima, en route to the Amazon.
For more info on Machu Picchu: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machu_picchu
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Esteban
non-member comment
Just Awesome!!!
I trekked to Machu Picchu 8 years ago...Nor did I find myself, but what a special place...Peru definitely has some mullets to compete with, but you need to send that photo to www.mulletsgalore.com...Thanks again for the blog! We are living vicarously through y'all!!! Keep on trekkin!