Just in case you were worried.

I´m back in Cusco, taking care of details and planning to get enough sleep tonight because tomorrow involves rafting. :0)

Machu Picchu was of course wonderful. I have a longer description of the climate zones we went through on the way, which I´ll post-date or something so you can see it in the proper order. For now, I´ll just describe the arrival itself:


We spent the night camped in tents around a way-station (running water, cold beer, and warm showers stretch the definition of backpacking a little, but then, so do porters. I ended up hiring a porter to carry my heavy clothing and sleepìng bag during the day, so I could enjoy the hike uninterrupted by thoughts of heavy straps. The porters are amazing, by the way -- they tell me it was a porter who won the challenge race, doing the trail that took all the strength we could muster for three days, in just under three hours at a run. They suspect the chaskis, the Inca´s runners, may have been even faster.)

In the morning, we woke around 4 am for an earlybreakfast of tea and bread. Then we queued up with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of others from all nations on the trail -- passage allowed beginning at 5:30 am. We were in line just behind a Spanish group that contained Leonardo, an archaeologist from Seville who I had had several conversations with during the earlier days on the trail.

Once the trail opened, we trod along in the dark, one after another, like cattle at first and then spreading out. I got somewhat annoyed at the steps -- the INca trail is something like the rough stone steps in front of an old cathedral or library, except it goes up for 5,000 feet instead of 15. So I liked to sort of skitter down them, which I felt was easier on my knees than plodding. And when they went up, I got annoyed and tended to push harder to get them over with. So when stairs were concerned, I was fairly fast, if you don´t count the porters.

I didn´t have a flashlight -- having left mine in Cusco with some extra luggage -- but hardly needed one with so many on the trail. And then the sky began to lighten, and I pushed harder to arrive before the sun. Leonardo and I talked, a little in Spanish and mostly in English, of other sites that might conceivably be worth getting up before dawn to experience.

We arrived at the Gate of the Sun under a cloudy dawn. The valley was huge below us, and shafts of light trickled through the clouds, dappling the hills behind the famous site but stubbornly refusing to bathe it in the anticipated glow. I lay a piece of cloth out on a high rock and lay gazing down like a puma until I had my fill of waiting.

Eventually, we just went ahead down. Our guide, Angel, showed us temples and tiny hidden spots with great views, his favorite rock (a puma from one angle, a guinea pig or ¨cuy¨ from the other), and the ¨classico¨ things. I loved the temple of the condor, but have not yet been able to find or take a complete picture of it. Two wings of raw rock sweep up above a carved smooth stone on the ground, and into them are built walls and caves.

I´ll write more, of course, luego.

p.s. I´m enjoying my new alpaca sweater in this chill mountain evening.