I must first apologize for the length of today's postcard.   Instead of the usual short note, I decided to post the writings from my journal.   I felt a short note would not do justice to the experience.  As to our journals and the website , many of you have pointed out the the website has not been updated since we left.  The transcription of the journals, which is the major content of the website, has not progressed as planned.  There has just not been enough time.   We are planning to catch up in LaPaz where we will have a few days rest.  I will let everyone know when the update has taken place.

Friday, August 16, 1997, Cuzco to Machu Picchu, Peru, Day 12
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Cuzco
It is a miserable morning. We are up a 4:30am.  Sherry and I have been up all night.   Sherry vomiting last night’s fish dinner and me restless from all of the caffeine that is in my migraine medicine.  We are exhausted.  The kids are barely awake and none of us is moving too fast towards our 5:30am train departure.   We have a quick breakfast in the dining room and off we go.  It is amazing how crowded the train station is at this time in the morning.  The street merchants are out in force hawking their wares to our passing van.

The electric train with no locomotive, like those in Europe, pulls out of the station but then stops a short distance away and begins to back up.  I’m thinking that maybe we are hooking up some other cars.  But after backing up a short distance, we pull forward again.  We repeat this process about ten times and I realize that we are climbing the mountain by making a series of switchbacks.  Back and forth and up we go.

We ride at the bottom of a deep river gorge alongside an ever faster running river.   At times it seems that there is barely enough space for both the tracks and the river.  I imagine how treacherous this must be when the river is running high.   We've crested now and are slowly descending.  Every once in a while there is a small adobe home with a thatched roof.  There is a cow, a horse and about 1,000 square feet of plowed fields.

The river and the valley now widen. There is a person on the side of the road holding a green flag and waving to the conductor - obviously signaling that the train need not stop.   Seeing no buildings, I wonder if it ever stops here.  There’s what looks like a school.  It is plastered and has three doors that are evenly spaced.   Yes, it must be because a little further along I see school children in their traditional uniforms of black pants, white shirt and black sweater.  There are no cars.  To these people this train is their lifeblood.  To these people it is their car, bus, and pickup truck.

We round a bend on the valley floor and I see the rising peak of a snow-covered mountain, its top shrouded in clouds.  This is the first snow that we have seen.

The valley now splits and we head off into another narrow gorge. There are high 1,000-ft cliffs on both sides.  Our guides Carmen and Darwin tell us that we have another hour and a half to go and that at the end of the train we well have to transfer to a bus for the final ascent to Machu Picchu.

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The Final Ascent
The train stops in what is little more than a widening in the gorge. High mountains surround us.  We transfer to buses.  I can see no Machu Picchu and there is no indication of how we are going to get out of this valley.  There are no intersecting valleys or obvious passes.  The mystery is quickly answered as we begin an ascent up a 70-degree slope through a treacherous series of about fifteen switchbacks.  The road is only narrow enough for one bus with sheer cliffs and no guardrails. However, none of this deters the driver from making his run to the top.  We come around a corner just as another bus appears from the other direction.  Brakes are pushed and through some silent language a decision is made as to who will yield.  The chosen one backs down to a widening in the road and the process begins again.  I wonder why when in the towns of Peru the car horns are used very liberally (I think they have a horn pedal where the brake pedal usually is), they cannot also be used to warn other buses of our approach.  This game of chicken
continues until we reach the top.

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Machu Picchu

I remember when I first saw Machu Picchu, or at least a picture of it. It was a big poster photo that hung in my friend’s dorm room at U.C. Berkeley.  I was fascinate with this magical place from that moment on and always dreamed of going there some day.   Today was the day and I was not to be disappointed.

Walking along the mountain path, I catch a glimpse of the lower part of the terraced city.   The city is atop a steep mountain facing east overlooking a deep valley with the river flowing at the bottom.  Three sheer peaks dominate the panorama.  To the East, facing the city is Yanantin a giant mountain peak rising in the far off horizon.   To the North, or right, is Machu Picchu peak.  To the south, or left, is Huayna Picchu peak.  It is this peak that I remember so well from that poster.   It rises in sheer majesty that defines the sky.  The valley and river bends around its base wrapping the city with water on three sides.

I unconsciously notice that these three peaks are almost perfectly pyramidal.  From this angle they appear to be almost perfect conical peaks.  We continue walking along the mountain trail and then the city opens up to our left.  Perfectly set blocks define 4 ft to 6-ft walls that terrace up the mountain for about 600 feet.  The terraces are about 1,500 feet in length.  The city is divided vertically almost in half. The left terraces are open and were used for farming.  On the right terraces, stone houses and other structures are built.

There is something truly magical about this place.  It is beautiful in its simple forms and seems like it belongs here.  When atop the city looking down into the valley, the question I had asked myself hundreds of times while staring at that poster in Berkeley, “Why would anyone build a city in such an inaccessible place” seemed absurd in its single dimensionality.  I of course, in my Occidental manner of thinking, concluded that it was a mountain fortress - one of the Inca’s last strongholds against the advancing Spaniards who were literally wiping them out.   There is some truth to this, the Spaniards arrived about the 15th century and during the next few hundred years, systematically plundered, killed and completely obliterated the Inca civilization.  Unfortunately for the Inca’s they mined and valued gold.  They had lots of it and it was the ultimate booty for the colonialist Spaniards.  The Inca’s were driven further and further into the mountain jungles.  Machu Picchu was in fact built towards the latter part of the Inca period. Its isolation was undoubtedly in part due to their retreat from the Spaniards, who by that time had already driven them out of Cuzco.  But this was only part of the reason.

As I gazed at the three majestically peaks, the real reason for this particular location became obvious.  This place is at one with nature and its surroundings.  There is a peace and serenity here that I have never felt anywhere and never on anything approaching this scale.  There is a sacred feeling all around – much stronger than in any cathedral or place of worship that I have ever been in.  God is all around.  It feels like the center.  There is energy here.

As we wondered around, I realized that none of this sacred feeling was accidental.   This is exactly why Machu Picchu was build at this site and why it could be no where else.  The Incas worshiped the celestial gods – the sun, moon and stars.   Just as Christians developed printing to spread the word of the bible, the Incas developed astronomy to track and predict their gods.  On each June 21st, the day of the summer solstice when the sun is highest in the sky, the sun begins its heavenly climb directly behind Huayna Mountain, the one far off and directly in front.  As the sun rises, with the city still in the shadow of Huayna Mountain, the sun’s side beams illuminate Huayna Picchu peak to the left and Machu Picchu peak to the right.  Then when the first beam peaks over the top of Huayna Mountain into the city itself, that beam goes directly trough a small opening in a temple and alights itself on a special altar to the sun god.  This event occurs once every year at precisely the same time.
It was as if by precisely predicting the movement of the sun and stars, they could somehow achieve harmony with them.  So unlike the ancients, to whom celestial movements were for the most part unfathomable, the Incas understood, and through understanding came a certain predictability and order.  I liken it to our current very active quest for an understanding of the origin of the universe.  We have just taken it much farther than the Incas.  By our knowing the origin of the universe we answer the ultimate question of where we came from and where we are going.  The Incas took a very large first step along that same path.

But the Incas used that knowledge in ways that we don’t.  They shaped their lives around that knowledge and bathed themselves in its revelations.  They integrated that knowledge in their daily lives and tried to become one with them.


The sun is now setting behind the city.  Sherry, the kids and I all sit overlooking the entire city with the valley below.  First the shadows darken the valley floor in subtle shades of grays and dark greens.  Then for a brief moment, only the upper portions of the city and the three
surrounding peaks are bathed in the warm orange light of the retreating sun god.   Then the city surrenders its light to the gods of the night.  The pace slows.   The shadows inch up the three surrounding monoliths and one by one each proud peak takes its turn relinquishing its spotlight.

Machu Picchu is truly a magical place.

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Auga Caliente

We arrived just after sunset, about 6:00pm.  The bus dropped us off at a railroad crossing.  We piled off and found ourselves at the end of a dirt street that was just slightly wider than the railroad tracks that ran down its middle.  The tracks were lined with outdoor restaurants and open market stalls.  Street lights lighted the scene and Peruvian music poured from some of the restaurants.  There was an overall festive quality to the scene.  But also something very strange about a town crowded around a railroad track.  The whole town looked to be about half a block long so we began walking down the middle of the street (or tracks), carefully stepping over the railroad ties, looking for our hotel.   We were somewhat self-conscious because we definitely looked out of place, with our luggage (fortunately we left most of it back in Cuzco and only brought our backpacks and fanny packs), and tourist dress.  We arrive at the end of the street and did not see our hotel.  A little panic sets in as it occurs to us that we may have gotten off in the wrong town.  A quick question verifies that we are in Auga Caliente, we retrace our steps and find a little hostel tucked among the shops.  The hostel is simple and the rooms small but everything is clean.  We all freshened up then venture out to find a place to eat.  Everything is open air so we just amble slowly down the street looking at the menus.  Then an amazing thing happens.  A train comes down the middle of the street.  The people and dogs scatter with bored unconcern, as if they wish this train would go away so they can continue with their business.  In spite of the tracks and the oddity of this whole scene, it never occurred to me earlier that these tracks could still be in use.   I had just assumed that they were abandoned.  But everyone seemed to accept the fact that the whole town had to scatter every hour or so when the train rumbled through.

We settled on a nice little restaurant right next door to the hostel. It had a big round earthen pizza oven. I stuck with my usual rice and beans, Sherry ordered a cheese pizza and Skyler first ordered his usual cheeseburger.  Somehow he hasn’t quite figured out that a hamburger in the jungles of Peru is just not going to be the same as a Big Mac back home. He had to settle on a chocolate pancake.

After dinner we showered.  I am thankful that they have hot water.  We try to go to sleep but the problem is that we are on the second floor overlooking the street and the music and activity below is loud and constant.  It’s 2:00am before we finally get to sleep.  Everyone but Skyler that is, he can sleep literally through a passing freight train.

It has been a long and satisfying day.

- Ken, Sherry, Piper and Skyler

              
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