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January 22nd 2017

Published: January 23rd 2017

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Dr Jon

spiritual tourists

A sign in front of a Cusco hostel advertising ayhauasca trips.

Cusco

My dream: I asked to see information about Peru, but was presented with a series of marginally related images, such as things beginning with the letter A because A stands for Alcoa which makes aluminum foil, and aluminum is from Peru. (Is it?) I woke up to discover the true source of my frustration. I couldn't breathe. Cusco is over 11,000 feet. I'd been drinking tumblers of chlorophyll for weeks in preparation for the altitude. To no avail. Even the slightest exertion, lying in bed asleep for example, might cause my lungs to suddenly claw for air.

I was staying in a hostel in the Bohemian San Blas barrio of Cusco. It was the offseason, so I was the only guest. I was given the "penthouse," a charming room with a balcony that overlooked the city. From there I could see red rooftops pour down from the surrounding mountains like rivers of lava, joining the roofscape that sprawled before me. Enormous black storm clouds billowed overhead. Distant thunder rattled the windows. It was freezing. On a stool next to my bed my host had placed a thermos of hot water, a jar of coca leaves, and a cup.

Coca Matte

I found this waiting for me in my hostel.

"Coca matte," she said, "for the altitude," and left me to unpack. Instead, I drank several cups of the stuff but felt nothing.

San Blas is a magnet for young travelers seeking spiritual advancement. A sign in front of a nearby hostel read, "Genuine shaman on duty for consultations." Through the window a hippie couple sat at a travel agent's desk. A poster behind the agent read, "Ayahuasca tours with professional guide."

In the plaza in front of an old church two women wearing brightly colored sarapes and dark brimmed hats sat on the steps to pose for photographs. To complete their tableau they had a llama on a leash. I tried to give them some change but dropped a coin on the ground. When I bent to pick it up the llama tried to kick my head and narrowly missed. The crowd gasped.

Down the hill from San Blas is Plaza de Armas, Cusco's central square. This was a sacred area when Cusco was the Incan capital. It was also where Pizarro claimed the Incan empire for Spain. The reality of one civilization conquering another was palpable. For starters, everyone was Catholic and spoke Spanish, but

Cusco roofscape

I've become an appreciator of roofscapes. I would rank Cusco's in my top five. (Dubrovnik #1)

there were still plenty of remnants of the Incan imperial city. Ornate 16th-century cathedrals were literally built on top of Incan temples. Today the square is filled with touts hawking massages and selfie-sticks. I guessed there must be a lot of solo travelers here like me.

Manu National Park

My main purpose in coming to Peru was to explore the Amazon rainforest, which extends 3000 miles from the eastern slope of the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean. Unfortunately, I came too late in the season to find a sufficient number of people to make a long expedition worthwhile for my guide, Javier. But I managed to find a German father and his two grown daughters who would join me in a shorter expedition.

Worst Roads

I've often thought about making a list of the top ten worst roads I've ever been on. There was the road from Kathmandu to the Indian border, the road to a remote mission in Zimbabwe, the road to the Tassajara monastery in Big Sur, and the road from Tulum to a nature preserve in southern Mexico. I can now add to my list the road from Cusco to Manu National Park in the

On the Edge

I took this photo by simply holding my camera out the window of our van, pointing it straight down, and snapping. There's a faint silver line in the left-center of this photo. That's a huge river about 3000' down!

Amazon rainforest. Of course this road met the basic "worst road" requirements: unpaved, bumpy, narrow, and a deep gorge inches from the tires. There were the occasional cattle herds blocking the road; in one village men had set up a carpentry shop in the middle of the road that had to be dismantled so we could pass, and of course we shared the road with huge trucks going both directions. The road crossed many rapidly flowing streams. At one point we had to drive under a powerful waterfall. It was like being in a carwash. At another point the road was completely washed away. Apparently this was a common occurrence for this spot. So common that a bulldozer was permanently stationed there. When the number of vehicles on either side of the missing road reached a critical mass (this included an ambulance on the other side with siren whining), the bulldozer went into action. In the pounding rain Domingo, our cook, opened the back of our van and began preparing lunch. After lunch we watched the bulldozer in action, waiting to see if it would roll off the edge of the cliff. There was no room to turn around, so

On the Road 4

Bulldozer parked at the spot where the road has washed out. It happens so often that they probably just leave the bulldozer there.

turning back wasn't an option. We discussed the possibility of trading vehicles with someone on the other side. Javier said that this had been done in the past, but that it didn't look like it would be possible to cross the gap on foot. When at last the bulldozer had replaced the missing segment by filling it in with rocks from the landslide, we discussed who would be the first to cross the new road-- after the ambulance-- and if it would be better to let the lighter vehicles go before or after the heavier ones.

Night on a Coca Plantation

Because of the delay we didn't make it to the river by nightfall. Instead, we stayed in thatched huts on a coca plantation. The next day we wandered through the fields. Javier explained that the farmer could legally sell his leaves—which are used for chewing and making tea—for 30 cents per kilogram, or he could sell them illegally to cocaine labs hidden in the jungle for 10 dollars per kilogram. Like everyone else in the business of growing or drying coca leaves, the farmer chooses the latter market. (On our way out of the jungle we would be

Coca Plantation

Me standing in a field of coca plants. We slept in those thatched huts in the background.

stopped at a police checkpoint and have our vehicle searched for bales of coca leaves. Several large bales of confiscated leaves were stacked alongside the road. The police weren't interested in small amounts of coca leaves, which is legal to possess. Curiously, Javier said that they also weren't interested in cocaine. Arresting people for possession of cocaine was the sole responsibility of an elite police force miles from the checkpoint!)

The Mother of God River

Our road ended at Rio Madre de Dios. We traded our shoes for rubber boots and boarded a motorized canoe. A large sign warned us that if we encountered any indigenous people we should not interact with them lest we give them diseases; and that we should not try to take their photo lest they think our cameras weapons and fill us with arrows. Javier said there were two instances of this last year. Several years earlier several more people were killed during a raid on a remote supply depot. (According to one NGO there are an estimated 15 "uncontacted tribes" inhabiting the jungles of southern Peru.)

Several hours downstream our canoe pulled up to a tree with a red rag tied to

Good to know

A sign at the end of the road warning us not to try to photograph uncontacted people we may encounter in the jungle. They might perceive it as a threat and respond with an arrow.

one of its branches. From there a barely-visible trail led through the jungle to our camp, which consisted of some sort of workshop, a kitchen and two dormitories.

After dinner Javier led us on a night hike through the jungle. I was afraid to steady myself on a tree because my hand might land in the middle of a nest of army ants or on top of a poison dart frog. In the darkness my nonvisual senses came alive. I heard the distant rushing river, mud sucking my boots, mosquitos buzzing, exotic bird calls, and monkeys thrashing above me; I smelled mosquito repellant, monkey musk, rotting vegetation; I felt sweat dripping into my eyes and my clothes sticking to my body; and I thought about Darwin, chaos theory, and the possibility that I was too old to be doing this.

After a steep climb we reached a wobbly tower that rose 100 feet above the treetops. At the top of the tower we could see the jungle stretching for miles underneath a full moon.

Machu Picchu

There are several ways to get to Machu Picchu from Cusco. Those with more time and stamina than I, walk. The

Machu Picchu 4

Our hero posed in front of Machu Picchu, in desperate need of coffee.

Incans ran. I hired a taxi to drive me to the charming town of Ollantaytambo, which has been inhabited since the 13^th century. From there I traveled by train through scenery that rivaled the Swiss Alps to Agua Caliente, a town that exists solely to exploit tourists on their way to Machu Picchu. I spent the night in a hostel near the train station.

At 7 PM I went downstairs to the lobby to meet with Hector, the guide I had hired for the next day's excursion. But when I reached the lobby I discovered that the hostel was closed, the owner was gone, and I was locked in. Hector and I discussed details about the next day through the glass door. (Eventually the manager showed up. I complained about being locked in, but apparently he spoke no known language.)

The next morning Hector showed up a 5 AM. We walked to the bus station where minivans take tourists up the mountain to the ruin for $24. The queue was about 400 yards long. People near the end of the line would have to wait more than 90 minutes for a ride. I admit that I was a

where Urubamba the sacred river ran,

through caverns immeasureless to man.

bit uncertain about spending $40 to hire a private guide, but it was well worth it. Hector had arranged for someone at the front of the line to hold a place for us, and we were in the first busload to the ruin. I saw the sunrise over an empty, fog-free Machu Picchu.

No one is quite sure what went on at Machu Picchu. The city was built by the Incans in the 15^th century and may have been some sort of learning center for astronomers, architects, engineers, and priests. Those professions would have overlapped significantly for the Incans. Of course everything lines up with the rising sun on solstices and equinoxes, and no one has the slightest idea how engineers managed to transport, cut, and place the huge blocks of granite so precisely. Machu Picchu is a computer implemented in stone. If the Amazon is chaos theory, then Machu Picchu is the music of spheres.

But it was the Wagnerian location of Machu Picchu that took my breath away. I couldn't stop humming Ride of the Valkyries as I watched wisps of fog wrapping around giant granite fingers rising up from a raging river thousands of feet

Gotterdammerung

You can almost hear strains of Wagner looking over the chasm surrounding Machu Picchu.

below. Machu Picchu perches on top of one of those fingers. It seemed to tilt into the abyss creating the illusion that the laws of gravity had been violated; as if it would only take a slight lean to send me into the void.

After Hector abandoned me (he had another client for the afternoon) I discovered a restaurant at the site's entrance. The music system was playing surprisingly good jazz. I sat at a table overlooking the chasm, sipped a cappuccino, and meditated on the progression of civilizations. The Incans were imperialists like the Spanish. The greatness of their civilization, the engineering, astronomy, textiles, etc. were mostly cherry-picked from conquered peoples. (Peru has a surprisingly rich history of civilizations dating back to the Caral civilization that thrived 5000 years ago.) I wondered how to compare 15^th century Machu Picchu with a 15^th century cathedral in Europe or a 15^th century temple complex in Asia. And I wondered why the Spanish conquered the Incans and not the other way around. Guns, germs, and steel, I suppose.

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