“This guy said he’d give us a liter for 10 soles and we’d get free nachos,” we hollered to my other two friends 15 feet down the side street of Aguascalientes.
“This guy said he’d give us the same thing!” replied my friends with an air of bemusement. “Wait, he says he’ll give us 5 sole mixed drinks AND free nachos,” they added to the open air exchange. We began to move toward the most recent offer, literally and metaphorically, enticed by the absurdly cheap drinks. Upon witnessing this communication between our group and the perceptible change in our body language, the one restaurant worker with whom I was speaking skulked off, shoulders bowed in defeat. The battle was won. Cheap mixed drinks trumped beer. Just as my coordinator had told me before I headed off to Peru, everything is negotiable. Even supposedly fixed restaurant prices. Just mere kilometers from one of the 7 wonders of the world, we took advantage of the happy hour specials and the Peruvian entrepreneurial spirit before our 2 hour train ride back to Cusco.
We were celebrating. We had just completed a 4 day hike to Machu Picchu. And what a hike it was. After four days of trekking along the Incan trail with our sleeping bags, mattress pads (a generous estimate would put them at an inch thick), and our backpacks full with bare essentials, we reached the top of Machu Picchu at last.
We covered ground. A lot of it. A late start in the mornings had us waking up at 530 am, opening the flap of our tent just to see first rays of light poking out from the heavy cloud cover like a flashlight shined through a piece of thin cloth. The entire Incan trail seemed to be enshrouded in a perpetual fog. The sun broke through at times, beating down upon us from its place high above the jagged, steep, green mountains which surrounded us on all sides.
We sweat, we shivered, we struggled. The climate had the disposition of a violently bipolar patient who hasn’t been medicated in decades. Because it was the rainy season, light rains were frequent, night rains were constant, and the sun migrated in and out of the clouds. At times, it would be 40 degrees as we set off up the mountains in the morning. Yet we almost always found ourselves sweating from the exertion of the climb. Off with the jackets and pants. We would stop, and partially disrobe, exhausted from lugging our weight – and what seemed to be the weight of an invisible stranger on our back- up the brutal inclines.
However, when we stopped, the chilly wind whipped across the trail, making the feel of the sweaty, grimy shirts against our backs a most unwelcome feeling, as though someone were draping a wet towel around us after we emerged from a cold pool. Then the sun would come out. Usually after we had already changed back into a jacket and warmer clothing. The presence of the sun meant that the temperature would go up at least 10 degrees instantly. It made sweating profusely an inevitable and generally unpleasant experience.
Four days, 3 nights, 4 friends, 45 km, multiple mountain peaks, 3 campsites, 2 rolls of toilet paper stolen from our hotel, over 10 holes in the ground (read: toilets), a seemingly infinite number of steps, hundreds of pictures, lots of laughs, a few tears (from laughter) and absolutely no showers. It was incredible. We amused ourselves with conversation, we honed our Spanish skills by talking with the other couples on the walk (one Spanish, one Brazilian – both awesome), and we pushed ourselves up the steps and toward our destination. One step at a time. Literally.
There were times where I seriously questioned whether I could lift my leg up the next step. Now, you won’t see me in the gym everyday on the Stairmaster but I run almost every day and consider myself to be in decent enough shape. That being said, I hated these steps. These weren’t your normal, run-of-the-mill steps either. These were adversarial, malicious 1 1/2-2 ft steps made from pointed rocks. Steps on steroids, if you will. The sizing of the steps seemed particularly curious as the Incans were known to be rather squat in stature, a civilization of 5 ft, pint-sized warriors with a physical propensity for work which seemed all but unparalleled.
The second day was particularly brutal. We climbed steps, 10 km of them for 5 or 6 hours until we reached the summit of a mountain peak that was 4,215 meters above sea level. Nearly 3 miles. Or slightly below cruising altitude for a plane. Pick whatever imagery you would prefer. We were high. Surrounded only by fellow hikers, porters, guides, and the clouds.
During the ascent, the altitude robbed my lungs of the plentiful supply of air to which it was accustomed in the low altitude city of Buenos Aires. In return, it left me with a rather low-key, consistent headache pulsating behind my eyes which spoke of a persistent state of dehydration. The headache would flare at times with peaks of pain. Generally, as I climbing it would worsen. I would find myself dizzy and slightly disoriented. But we trekked on, helping each other with occasional words of encouragement or conversation.
During that second day, however, the walk was so arduous that we scarcely spoke. Instead, we exchanged one-to-two sentence banter and said nothing during the most trying parts. We couldn’t. Oxygen, our most precious commodity, just couldn’t be wasted on something as trivial as speech. I scarcely had time to enjoy the sights around me, although I did my best to do so. One time, however, as I looked up, I nearly lost my balance and fell backward as I saw stars, giving my friend the not-so -misinformed impression that I was about to pass out. For some reason, we thought that the last hour of that day’s hike would be the easiest part. It was not.
The staircase seemed to go on ad infinitum as it curled around the mountain. I lied to myself, convinced myself that each peak was the true summit, that once we reached that point, we were done. After about 4 iterations of this purposeful self-deception, it was finally true. We had reached a summit. Not the summit. Not Machu Picchu. We still had 2 days and 20 or so kilometers ahead of us at that point.
On the last day, we woke at 330 am and set off to Machu Picchu, entering the park at last at 530
am. We hiked around the fabled city. It really appeared to be the lost Incan city of lore as the chilly morning fog left even the largest of mountains and edifices nearly indiscernible in the immense whiteness. At first, we caught only glimpses of the city. Piece by piece, as the sun won out in an epic battle over the clouds, more of the city emerged before our eyes.
By midday, after we had been awake for an absurd 9 hours, the vastness and splendor of Machu Picchu unveiled itself fully. The Incan stronghold stood before us, its stone structures carved into the sloping, verdant mountainside engendered a sense of wonder and an appreciative nostalgia for the civilizations of old. Here, the Incans toiled, frolicked, prayed, ate, drank, socialized, loved, suffered, and lived.
It was hard not to feel a certain kinship with the Incas, a newfound appreciation and respect for their culture after we had spent the last days trekking through their mountain capital. Our footsteps surely retraced someone’s footsteps from years and years ago, a shared piece of history between us and the Incas. Machu Picchu, our final destination, speaks for itself. The journey to Machu Picchu was the integral component of the visit. It heightened the anticipation and amplified the appreciation, and transformed a passive act into an active exploration. Machu Picchu was not just another sight seen, but an experience lived.
