In the Light - Zeppelin

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Agua Caliente - 6-10-07

´Take me with you . .´  That´s the idiotic commercial that´s been buzzing about my head since I started planning this trip. The Land Rover pulls up in front of the bar and the huge bouncer jumps to his knees in front of them, ´Take me with you´he pleads,´¨l want to trek to the Andes and climb the forbidden Machu Pichu´´. Remember?  Well, as goofy as that is it was the first time I ever heard of Machu Pichu and I actually looked it up. I was ashamed I had never heard or remembered from school such an amazing monument.  It´s been stuck in my mind as a must see ever since. I cut Brazil from the world tour, just for Machu Pichu. Was it worth it? Oh yeah.

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You start the trek either two ways - a four day hike, at elevation, across the tops of mountains to the site via the famous Inca Trail.  It´s a brutal hike but with the weight loss and 10 months tobacco free I was willing to give it a go. Think again. Seems you need to reserve a spot on the trail months in advance these days. Oops. If this was the first month of my world tour I would have known that. On month six I research as I go. I was a bit bummed (and relieved to be honest) but luckily there´s an easy way to get there as well. Train and bus. I´m in. So I spend the afternoon and evening in the lovely valley below and bus up to the site just in time for sunrise. Yep, another purposeful sunrise awakening for me. That´s about the tenth time in six months. I know, it´ll never happen again after this trip so stop being smug. So I watch the sun beam over the Andes onto this incredible ancient city built onto a mountain-top plateau. Unreal. The ruins are interesting but after Rome, Egypt and China what´s another set of thousand year old rocks right?  Wrong. The setting makes it just one of the most amazing things you´ve ever seen. Here at 2750 meters, on the very peaks of the Andes, the Incas built not just a temple but a CITY. Definitely a wonder of the world.

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Like I said the setting makes the place and that includes the two peaks behind the city (the scene in all the postcards and my pics as well). The big peak is called Wayna Pichu and to look up at it is something and some people actually climb the thing. At nearly 8000 feet at its base, yeah right I said. Well. I saw the folks heading up and my pride got the better of me. Yep, 90 minutes and nearly three coronaries later I made it to the top. Sure it had beautiful view and the Incas had some ruins up there too, but all that pales in comparison to my being able to look at any picture of Machu Pichu and thinking, ´yeah, I climbed that.´´. It´s a great feeling.  Kind of makes up for missing out on the Ayers Rock climb. So I missed the Inca Trail but climbed a peak much steeper and higher than anything on the 4 day hike.  I´m covered.  Next please.

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Bill

PS - Sorry about the portrait shots but no luck being able to clean pics in internet cafes yet.