Perhaps the Incas planned it this way.
With each step away from the arid highlands of Peru's Andes into moist, forested Amazonia, a sense of times past, of spirituality, became stronger. On the edge of these two worlds, where lizards bask in the sun and orchids bloom in the jungle, they had perched their sacred town, hidden behind green-clothed monoliths.
As we walked the last downhill mile, the jungle and orchids grew more profuse, the road receded from view, and then we were there, at the classic overlook of the fabled "Lost City of the Incas," Machu Picchu.
Stretched out before us lay the most splendid integration of landscape and architecture I have ever seen. The site had clearly been selected to create a bold coherence between the intentional design of a stone city and the natural splendor of sheer rock walls rising out of the jungle.
At that moment, the intangible rewards of adventure travel became clearly defined. Virtually every culture breeds pilgrims who voluntarily leave the comforts of their normal routines to experience hardships without hope of material gain. Their intentions and rewards are personal - a heightened sense of joy and understanding of a chosen destination, nothing more.
But my exultation was tempered by something I'd seen on the approach to the city. At the Sun Gate of Intipunku, a notch floored by a walled plaza, painted white numbers glared from a nearby stone wall. The markings, obviously of this century and not of Inca origin, were vaguely disturbing and puzzling. The solution to this mystery would come later and fill me with dismay.
Machu Picchu is inaccessible by road. Visitors walk in or arrive by railroad from Cuzco, the old Inca capital. Many young travelers hike the trail on their own, but most hire porters, whether it be one extra person to share the weight or many for an organized group, where each trekker's gear is carried and all camps and meals are prepared. Our tour, booked months earlier in the United States, was in the latter category - 10 travelers plus porters - and we planned to return by train.
Inca village, Inca trail
Before setting off on the Inca Trail, we visited Inca ruins at Sacsayhuaman and Pisac and spent a night in Ollantaytambo, populated by Quechua Indians in colorful native dress, in the Urubamba Valley, the sacred valley of the Incas. Ollantaytambo, along the railroad to Machu
Picchu, is the closest modern counterpart of an Inca village, and most of our porters lived here or nearby with their families and herds of llamas.
It was a good thing that we did this, for there are no towns along the Inca Trail today where echoes of those ancient times are found. The trail, a mosaic of hand-carved granite blocks laid down more than 400 years ago, twists 32 miles through jungle and three mountain passes. It begins at 8,000 feet in the gorge of the Urubamba River and climbs rapidly upward out the moist forest into open grasslands at 13,500 feet at the first pass. From there on, secluded Inca ruins begin to appear in the high cloud forest between the passes.
Campsites are few, so several groups usually end up pitching their tents in close proximity.
On our fourth and final night on the trail, we were awakened by the sounds of whispers outside our tent. I unzipped the door and saw two dark silhouettes within arm's reach.
"Cafe con leche?" a voice asked.
Two of our porters were passing out mugs of coffee mixed with hot milk to wake us before sunrise.
As the eastern sky turned crimson behind icy peaks, the rest of our party emerged from surrounding tents to capture this last dawn before reaching Machu Picchu, where we would spend two nights in a hotel beside the ruins.
On a ridge above camp we were joined by Francisco, one of our porters, wearing a native Quechua poncho and earflapped woolen cap. The vivid reds in his ornate fabrics came alive when first light struck him standing on a ridge in front of the icy pyramid of 20,000-foot Salcantay. While Francisco played his Andean flute in the cloud forest beneath the peaks, I imagined his Inca ancestors standing on that spot, when the trail was the "royal highway" to the sacred town.
Discovery and re-discovery
Within an hour, breakfast was served on a clothed table. While we ate hot cakes, bowls of fruit and sipped a final cup of cafe con leche, the crew broke camp and prepared to hit the trail again.
The name of this last campsite is Puyupatamarca, Cloud-level Town, in the Quechua tongue of the ancient Incas and modern
Indians. It was coined by Hiram Bingham, an American amateur archaeologist who found the Inca Trail grown over and without modern residents after he visited Machu Picchu in 1911.
Bingham was braving the jungle in search of the lost city of Vilcabamba, the Incas' legendary last refuge from invading Spaniards. He was led to the partially exposed ruins of Machu Picchu by local peasants who were quite aware of its existence. In fact, 19th-century
Andean explorer Antonio Raim-ondi had drawn a map with the words "Machu Picchu" in the correct location.
Bingham made its existence known in the developed world.
Only in recent decades has it become clear that the true magnificence and importance of the city are due to its not being what Bingham thought he had found.
Instead of a town built hastily in an unlikely, well-hidden location by Incas fleeing the Spanish invasion of the 1530s, Machu Picchu is the finest surviving example of the late imperial Inca style of architecture untainted by European influences.
Much of the site's significance is based on its improbably fine construction and endurance over the centuries. The Inca stonework took decades to complete with a reverence for precision far beyond that of modern stonemasons. Blocks weighing many tons with up to 12 sides have been fitted together without mortar so perfectly that I could rarely fit so much as a knife blade between them.
Commercial exploitation
The walls of Machu Picchu have stood well against the forces of nature, but they are succumbing to the influence of Disneyland. Like the Spaniards on the track of the mythical gold of the Incas, the Peruvian tourist industry is seeking to maximize the extraction of its modern counterpart - foreign currency - from the lost city.
The mystery of the painted numbers on the stones of Intipunku was solved when I came across government workers in the process of rebuilding parts of the ruins. Using mud for mortar, they were fitting together an assemblage of stones beginning at ground level with numbered ones carefully removed from crumbling walls. So far, so good, but the tops were a fabrication of added stones from the surrounding area, completing what the original structure "might" have looked like.
A supervisor had a schematic of numbered rocks as they had been taken down. It ended with the incomplete jagged outline of a typical ruin, but the reconstructed wall concluded with a perfect turret of unnumbered rocks several feet higher than what Bingham had uncovered. Behind that turret was another rebuilt turret, and another and another.
The workers were building a virtual Machu Picchu. When I asked the supervisor why, he gestured toward hundreds of people coming into the ruins who had just arrived on the morning train and said, "turismo."
The Peruvian government, its economy still reeling from civil unrest, is mimicking the success of orderly American theme parks and reforging Machu Picchu into a caricature of its former glory. Last year, about 200,000 people visited the ruined Inca fortress.
When it came time to leave, I felt I'd had too much of hotels and crowds, but not enough of the Inca Trail. After learning that our train would not depart from Machu Picchu until 3 p.m. the next day, I decided to start out at dawn and run the trail in reverse. Being an experienced mountain runner, I was confident I could complete the 32 miles and 9,000 feet of elevation gain, but less sure about reaching the train on time.
As I ran past the far smaller, but unretouched Inca ruins that rise out of the jungle beside the Inca Trail, they took on a new significance. Like photographs in a scrapbook, they represented visions out of the past that could be trusted. Machu Picchu, however, is becoming more like one of those digitally manipulated advertising images in which every reality is suspect.
On a misty morning ideal for running, I reached the railroad with hours to spare. A Quechua family invited me into their hut for a cup of tea and a bowl of fruit. Their simple life and carefree happiness made me feel lucky to have experienced the Inca Trail before it, too, becomes more contrived for tourism.
An Ideal Day
5 a.m.: Wake in Cuzco and head to Aguas Calientes to catch the 6 a.m. bus to Machu Picchu.
6 a.m.: Arrive at bus and prepare for a short, exciting ride up the scenic mountainside.
7 a.m.: Atop the mountain find a good place to perch and view the ancient ruins from above.
9 a.m.: Listen to the guides tell the stories and history behind Machu Picchu and learn why it is known as "The Lost City of the Incas."
11 a.m.: Pick up lunch at Machu Picchu Ruinas Hotel before journeying through the ruins.
Noon: After lunch, head into the ruins. You have until 5 p.m. when the park closes, so take your time.
4 p.m.: If you feel you have gotten your fill, or maybe you are just exhausted, catch the last bus down the mountain into Aguas Calientes. The mountain trail can be walked, but it is steep and can be strenuous.
5 p.m.: After returning to Aguas Calientes, find a good place to relax and have dinner. But, be sure to get to bed early in order to get up before dawn, in time to see a sunrise over the ruins.
Galen Rowell is a photojournalist whose work appears frequently in Life and National Geographic magazines.
Pub Date: 10/25/98
Getting there: If you are traveling independent of a tour operator, the easiest way to get to Machu Picchu is with United Airlines, which flies from Washington International to Lima and .. then to Cuzco. Walk or take the train from there. Cost for round-trip flights begins at $889, but look for sale fares.
Tips:
* Be sure to pack a wide-brimmed sun hat and sunscreen, because the sun is much stronger at these high altitudes. Also, bring a sweater or fleece jacket for chilly nights and a rain jacket with hood for rainy days. Since a lot of the travel will be done at high altitudes, a prescription of Diamox (Acetazolomide) may be needed to help settle altitude unease.
* Only drink purified or bottled water.
Where to stay: Tour operators will most likely take care of your hotel and/or camping accommodations. Otherwise, there are few hotels and eateries in Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of the mountain on which Machu Picchu sits.
Weather: Heavy rains douse Cuzco and Machu Picchu during Peru's rainy season, which lasts from November through May. The upside of going during the rainy season: Valleys are green and tourists are few. The downside is the mud. Temperatures during this season can drop below freezing at high altitudes, and hail or snow is possible. February and March are the wettest of the rainy-season months. June through October are dry and cool, the valleys tend to turn brown, and frost is likely in the evening.
Outfitters: A sampling of outfitters running trips to Machu Picchu:
* Geographic Expeditions, 2627 Lombard St., San Francisco, Calif. 94123; 800-777-8183 or 415-922-0448; for an eight-day trip to Lima, Cuzco, Urubamba and Machu Picchu, cost is $1,995, and for a 16-day trip to Lima, Cuzco, Urubamba and trekking to Machu Picchu, cost is $2,595; airfare not included.
* Mountain Travel Sobek, 6420 Fairmount Ave., El Cerrito, Calif. 94530; 510-527-8100; tours up to 12 days start at $2,195, not including airfare.
* Overseas Adventure Travel, 625 Mount Auburn St., Cambridge, Mass. 02138; 800-873-5628; all tours include round-trip airfare from Miami. A nine-day excursion, including an overnight stay in Machu Picchu, a rafting trip down the Urubamba River and visits to Cuzco and Chinchero, starts at $1,690. Also offered is a 17-day trip including an overnight stay in Machu Picchu, a three-day cruise through the Galapagos Islands and a journey up an Amazon River tributary. Costs start at $3,790. Call 800-873-5628.
* Wilderness Travel, 1102 Ninth Street, Berkeley, Calif. 94710; 800-368-2794; for 1998 a 12-day excursion runs $2,195, and starting in 1999 an 11-day trip will cost $2,295; neither includes airfare.
Information: For general information about Machu Picchu, suggestions on what to bring or travel tips, tour operators are helpful. For other information, call the Peru Consulate in New York at 212-481-7410.
Randi Kest