Machupicchu; panting through history

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Hiram Bingham must have crapped himself when he stumbled upon Machupicchu. (Though it´s easy to crap ones self at the slightest provocation when eating the local cuisine). The sheer size of the place is staggering. Eighty thousand acres! But I get ahead of myself.

In order to do a day trip to the sacred city, you have to leave Cusco on the 6:50 train. This is no relaxing, clickety-commuter train either. It starts out by doing a seemingly endless series of switchbacks through the upper neighborhoods (slums) of Cusco in order to climb out of the valley. Then it´s a lurching, rockin´and rollin´carnival ride through the Andes. Pity anyone with a quesy stomach because the ride is around 4 hours. Then, once you arrive at Aguas Calientes trainstation in Machu Picchu town, you board a bus that, for 20 minutes, takes you up yet another series of switchbacks to finally reach the archeological site itself. It´s no wonder the Spanish Conquistadores never found the place.

There are approximately 3000 steps in the sacred city because the slope that it´s built on is quite steep. I think I climbed all 3000 of them, panting all the way since the city sits at just over 7000 feet. Thankfully, it was a rain-free day which is unusual for this time of year. And not to many tourists, only about 2,000 for the day, as our guide mentioned. This is nothing compared to the the high season during which they have, in his words, on a daily basis, "one thousand Peruvian students, four thousand tourists and 5 million mosquitos". The Peruvian government is working with Unesco to begin imposing limits in order to preserve the site. Also, an interesting fact that I didn´t know, only 70% of the city has been uncovered. There is another 30% still hiding under 400 years of jungle growth that has never been touched by anyone. What treasures will they find?

I did (Kathi) find a quiet place and meditate on a rock. I was joined by a couple of wild Chincillas and a few tiny woodpeckers. I felt like fuckin´Mary Poppins.

I leave Cusco tomorrow to go spend some time by the ocean in Lima. There is a part of me that has grown guite fond of this ancient, stinky, mysterious, greedy, conflicted yet intriguing place.

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Comments

[jasonandkim]

Mary effin' Poppins?!
You felt like fucking Mary Poppins?! You must be light-headed!...oh...OH!!! I get it - you felt like Mary-fuckin'-Poppins.... Glad to hear that you're having sketchy train rides too!!!