March 28,1996

The first night from Cusco, the feed company calendar peeled off my notebook, ending contact with the days of the month. So, all I recorded was two days of January which were spent traveling up to the ruins of Machu Picchu, the highlight of most trips to Peru.

On one of those days, we walked through the old Inca town of Ollantaytambo. Hogs, chickens, goats and Indians all live together. Mountain water flowed down the same trenches the Incas used to supply their houses. Unshelled yellow corn stood in piles right inside the doorways; potatoes, dehydrated by being frozen underground in the winter, hung in sacks out of reach of the animals. The aura is of an ancient village excavated from under volcanic ash, inhabited once again by people willing to live under aboriginal circumstances.

Track conditions prohibited looking off into the houses. Cobblestone streets used as pig runs, goat trails and chicken promenades require constant vigilance to engage the traction of rubber soled shoes, not to mention the obvious indelicacy of the residue of the town's menagerie. On one turn, a long-nosed sow trailing her pigs seized the right of way. A lady, who had demanded to see inside one of the houses and been refused, inhaled loud enough to be heard above the pigs squealing and the sow grunting as they charged underfoot. We might have not been toe dancers, but we sure did a close copy of one, rising and pressing our bodies against the walls.

It isn't known why the Spanish discovered Ollantaytambo but failed to find the city of Machu Picchu some 65 miles away. A flagstone highway wound along the Sierras from Ollantaytambo to Machu Picchu. Many of the Inca captives defected to save their lives, yet did not reveal the whereabouts of the place. Augustine monks wrote of a land area called "piccho." Yet, the steep-walled canyons of raging Urubamba River and the 8000 foot altitude of the saddle the ruins rest in must have protected the secret from the conquistadors. It was to be an American, Hiram Bingham, who found Machu Picchu in 1911. He is the one who opened the place to the world.

All I can contribute is that as a visit unfolds to the magnificent ruins, surrounded by peaks reaching 20,000 feet in height, Machu Picchu becomes an illusion — the illusion once projected by a Jungle Jim in a Saturday matinee, hacking his way out into a forbidden city of treasures.

And into a layman's mind comes these thoughts: "Sure, this was the temple and this was the altar and this is an Andean condor carved in the face of a gray stone. No doubt a stubby rock arc placed alone on a pedestal of stone, aligns the rays of the June solstice in a stunning feat of astronomy that scholars say is within two degrees of being perfect."

And the guide adds: "800 to 1000 people populated the city for 80 years. Special people," she intones, "Inca priests and perhaps virgins to be sacrificed to the gods."

One thing for sure, a day trip to Machu Picchu means an eight-hour roundtrip train ride from Cusco, plus a 7000-foot ascent on a slick dirt road by bus to where the avalanche blocks the road, and then a 1000-foot climb up to the hotel and the gate to the ruins. Day visitors spend one hour and a half touring the ruins. The rest of their time is lunch under a big tin-roofed buffet and the descent by foot and bus back to the train.

I took the other choice and stayed at the one hotel. At the rockslide, I declined 14 offers by Indian kids to carry my pack on up to the top. Portage is negotiable and competition keen; however, my back has been strong since I came under Medicare. I hated packing the extra weight, but despise arguing with a pint-sized kid in my language and on his wage scale about a two or three-dollar deal.

The common excuse for not hiring the people is it spoils them to have money. Meaning, I suppose, they are happier foraging for grubworms and wild berries than they are eating meat and potatoes. The truth is, tourists are spoiled, and later on people dealing in tourism become soured and misbehave as badly as the tourists. Once I reached the hotel's porch, I shed the pack and sat drinking a Coke at ringside. The little boys shouted, "Ten dollars, lady; 20 dollars, mister!" The loudest exchange was by a boy waving a dollar bill and a coin, all but screaming his displeasure at carrying an 80-pound suitcase and 20 pounds of cosmetic bag for a buck twenty-five. His client whirled and told the Spanish speaking security guard in English: "Daddy taught me one dollar and twenty five cents was the proper tip for the dray, or a porter." The guard agreed: he ordered the boy to take his money and go home.

By two p.m., the day people were gone. Just a few of us wandered about the ruins. Rains drove me under a thatched shelter. Water gurgled off the aqueduct. On the floor of the hut, prints of so many feet had stirred up flecks of ashes from another time.