Machu Picchu

When Julie sent out some photos of Peru from her iPhone, her best friend since childhood replied, "You've seen one picture of Machu Picchu, you've seen them all."

While that may be true, I have to say that being in Machu Picchu on a picture perfect day is not the same as seeing photos snapped by someone else.

I think even the llamas who roam among tourists at the remarkable archaeological site there would agree.





Our second floor room in Urubamba

Our morning began with a 4:30 AM wakeup call.  We needed to have our bags packed and outside our door by 5 AM, which is also when we were due back in the buffet room for breakfast so that we could depart at 5:30 AM for Ollantaytambo to catch the first train of the day to Machu Picchu. 

As a result, our tour companions who took the optional trip to Pisac had zero daylight time to appreciate the beautiful gardens and views of our hotel.  I think it is good to remember that rather than trying to do everything, we should always factor in a certain amount of down time to savor the experiences, including lovely accommodations.

     

Entering Machu Picchu

Hiking the Inca Trail may well be amazing, but most travelers take the scenic train from Ollantaytambo to Agua Calientes.  The hike up to the fortress from the last train stop would still be challenging and take several hours if not all day, so our Machu Picchu Express tour included a bus to the entry.  Our guide Adriel suggested making an initial ascent to the highest point we would be visiting and then gradually working our way down, which as the day warmed up definitely proved to be a great plan.



Wes in Agua Calientes by statue of Pachacutec

Hiram Bingham's explorations of Machu Picchu in the early twentieth century as chronicled in National Geographic took that magazine from being an obscure journal of interest exclusively to academics and wealthy patrons to a widespread readership. 

It also sparked interest among the general populace in adventure travel and more general tourism. 

I dare say we never would have had the Indiana Jones movies without Bingham's Peru expeditions, but he didn't so much discover Machu Picchu as focus attention that led to capital being invested to dig the ruins out from under centuries of jungle.

After all, farmers were still cultivating the terraces there, and a farmer, who was busy working other fields, sent his son to lead Bingham to the ruins with no apparent concern of the child's ability to find the ruins or make his way home.  Nonetheless, Bingham did an outstanding job popularizing the romance of re-discovering artifacts and architecture of ancient civilizations.  And Machu Picchu's magnificent ruins improbably sitting among dramatic mountain peaks and steep valleys may have remained overgrown for centuries more had Bingham's natural curiosity not been fed.  As we stood looking down at the structures, Adriel directed us to imagine what this place was like when it was new, when golden straw roofs provided shelter to the wise men and priests who advised the Incas, when the now gray-with-age granite walls were gleaming white, some possibly gilded in real gold, when the finest sculptures and paintings from throughout South America were on exhibit, and when the well-dressed inhabitants wearing the bright colored fabrics of their home regions walked the streets contemplating the great issues of their day. 

While no one knows for certain, Adriel surmised that Machu Picchu was essentially the brain trust of the Inca empire.  It could have also been a vacation home for royals, but we know it must have been the dominion of a privileged few and their servants.  Who else could afford to live in such a remote and spectacular place?

The agricultural terraces, while impressive, could not have produced enough food for the population of Machu Picchu according to Adriel, who as someone who worked his family's farm in the region seems a trusted source on the subject, and Adriel thought perhaps scientists experimented with crops found in newly conquered regions and with alternative agricultural techniques.  Perhaps it was sort of an organic garden for the royal chefs to use in preparing the finest meals.  I thought back to the garden tour at Getty Villa near our home in California, where we learned that in their country estates, Roman senators cultivated species of plants and trees from places they visited, as sort of living souvenirs, just as we today might collect artwork or t-shirts or post photos on facebook or Instagram as proof of our travels. 

Roman Senators would try to influence guests to support their political schemes in Rome by bringing them to their palatial country homes, impressing them with gardens filled with growing proof of their world travels (and presumed broadened points of view) among other status symbols, along with unrivaled hospitality.  I see so many similarities between the Inca and Roman Empires, I have no trouble believing that a similar trophy garden may indeed be the purpose of these terraces at Machu Picchu as it was in Italy's rural estates.  Just like the Romans, Pacachutec expanded his empire by conquering new lands and then letting the new subjects keep their local languages and cultures.  The Incas weren't interested in micromanaging their empire but rather only wanted to collect taxes, although they did institute some laws, structure and improvements.  Just as the official language for government in the Roman Empire was Latin, so did the Incas conduct business in their official language, Quecha.  Many locals of the Sacred Valley, including our guide Adriel, still speak Quecha in addition to or sometimes instead of Spanish.

What is most phenomenal about the Incas is that they basically emerged prominently from regional players to conquerors around the thirteenth century, becoming a dominant military powerhouse and uniting lands from Central Chile to Columbia under Inca rule, only to be utterly destroyed by Spanish Conquistadors in 1572. 

By definition, Inca actually means the main leader of the empire, but historians have labeled the entire empire Incas for simplicity's sake.  To give you an idea of the brief, meteoric rise and fall of the Incas, Pachacutec, their greatest leader, was only the ninth Inca.  He expanded the empire through most of modern day Peru, and then turned over rule to his son Topa.  The empire expanded into Bolivia, Argentina and Ecuador, making it the largest native American empire at the time of the arrival of Columbus far to the north in 1492.

By that time, the Inca Empire was interlaced with a complex highway system through valleys, mountains and jungles, with extensive trade throughout.  We'll never know the exact history of the Incas, because their official records, which had been kept with a series of knots in colored strings called Quipu, were destroyed by the Spanish.  In 1493, Topa's son Huayna Capac, became the last indisputable Inca.  It should be noted that the tall mountain seen towering behind the famous ruins in most photos is Huayna Picchu.  The Incas considered mountains to also be apus, or spirits of ancestors, but I digress.  From the first landing of Columbus in the New World, Spanish military technology including fine swords of Toledo steel, primitive muskets, cannons and strategy soon overwhelmed native Americans everywhere they were encountered.

The primary objectives were to save the souls of "savages" with Catholiciscm and plunder gold and silver for the Spanish government and the Conquistadors themselves.  Francisco Pizarro tried twice unsuccessfully to bring men down from Panama along the West Coast to find treasures in South America.  On the second trip in 1527, Pizarro left two sailors ashore, presumably because one or both were stricken with smallpox or some other deadly Old World disease for which Incas had neither developed immunity nor knowledge for treating.

It seems an unlikely coincidence that Huayna  Capac died unexpectedly that same year.  The transition of Inca leaders had traditionally been quite systematic and smooth, with a council of royal advisors selecting the most competent of the Inca's legitimate sons to take his father's place.  The Inca emperor could have as many wives or concubines as he wanted, and he could have children with all of them, so at the time of Huayna's death, he had 500 sons.  Huayna's favorite son, Atahualpa, was a great general in Ecuador, commanding 40,000 troops, but his half-brother Huascar, who was better known personally in the capital of Cusco, parlayed better political connections into power.

   

According to some sources, Huascar was sort of a playboy in the city, but Adriel disputed this, saying the royal council would never have selected someone less than admirable.  Regardless of Huascar's virtues, Atahualpa decided to claim the title of Inca.  In a move not unlike Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon with his army to claim to Rome in 49 BC, Atahualpa declared war on his brother's forces, and at the conclusion of bloody civil war, capturing and executing him before marching into Cusco to claim his throne.

The Incas picked a bad time to have a civil war, because Pizarro would soon return a third time with 177 Conquistadors destined to overturn their empire.  Fleet-footed Inca messengers brought word to Atahualpa of Pizarro's approach, but the spy reports underestimated the Spanish, claiming the swords were mostly decorative and the guns simply thunderbolts that worked only twice.  They thought the 67 cavalry troops and their horses were useless when the riders dismounted.  They would allow these fools to march to their doom rather than waste manpower bringing them back into as prisoners.   

When the Conquistadors would eventually arrive, Atahualpa planned to make them eunuchs to serve as slaves to their Inca masters, learning about their strange domesticated livestock (including those horses and chickens) just as they had captured that of native Americans.  When the Conquistadors finally settled into Tumbes, an Inca city surrounded by three walls, they requested a parley with the Inca leader, who arrived in the city unarmed as requested. 

Perhaps Atahualpa assumed his overwhelming advantage in sheer number of troops (40,000 to 177) would protect him against the armed Spaniards, but Pizarro, knowing of a similar gambit in 1519 by countryman Hernando Cortes against Montezuma in his conquest of the Mayans of Mexico, took advantage of the situation to kidnap Atahualpa, pulling him from his golden carriage and slaughtering would-be defenders.

The Incas considered their leader a demigod, so they were willing to pay any price to free him.  Eventually they promised Pizarro one room full of gold and two rooms full of silver in exchange for the freedom of Atahualpa, and they fanned out through the kingdom to gather the ransom.  Most likely, they came to Machu Picchu, which in its almost insurmountable mountain location surrounded by a river would have been a perfect place to hide treasures due to being both hidden and strategically defendable high ground. 

Nonetheless, there seemed no limit Pizarro's treachery.  After receiving the ransom, he still executed Atahualpa, garroting him for "crimes against the Spanish state."

To give some air of legitimacy, Pizarro installed Manco II as his puppet Inca leader.  You may recall Manco II, having escaped captivity under the auspices of retrieving more treasure for his masters, led his people to their only victory over the Spanish at Ollantaytambo, but the Spanish wave could not be turned back.

The Inca people retreated far from the Conquistadors into distant Amazon jungles where they survived another forty years as what came to be referred by historians as Neo-Incas.  Three sons of Manco II ruled in succession in exile.  The first son was poisoned by his own people, and the second died of a disease possibly brought by a missionary, who was subsequently killed.  After a brave stand against insurmountable odds, the third of his generation to rule, Tupac Amura, and his bravest generals were captured from their last stronghold in Vilcabamba and brought to Cuzco in chains.

The beheading of Tupac Amura in 1572 ended not only the Inca struggle against Spanish rule but the Inca Empire itself.  To this day, however, there are descendants of native tribes in the Sacred Valley.  Our guide Adriel, for example, proclaims his family roots in the area extend far before the Incas, and as such philosophically accepts that the Incas were a blip in history, a conqueror supplanted by a stronger military power.  Whether we like it or not, that is the nature of history and evolution: survival of the fittest, or perhaps we should say militarily and technologically superior.

We can and should honor the past, appreciating the accomplishments of humanity that played their parts well in their time upon the stage.  Thanks, Mr. Bingham, for bringing us here.

Someone said that you cannot see Machu Picchu on your own in two days, but with a good guide, you can do it justice in two hours.  Because we hadn't seen any mention of a guide in our Gate 1 tour description, we assumed we might need to hire one as we entered, but we were pleasantly surprised to learn that Adriel and his assistant John Claude would lead us on our tour, and they did an excellent job. 

By lunch time, we were ready to go back down the mountain to Agua Calientes.  Still full from our breakfast at the hotel in conjunction with reduced appetite caused by the elevation, we broke off from the group, which proceeded to an optional lunch with our guides, and bought a Diet Coke to have with some snack food Julie had stashed in her purse.  We ate on a bench next to the statue of Pachacutec, while nearby Andean minstrels played traditional music.

After lunch, we took the train back to Ollantaytambo, where we walked around the town a bit before boarding the bus for Cusco. 

We took a couple of breaks en route. 

We had a scheduled stop at a chicha factory, where we learned how the low alcohol "beer" is made from purple corn and then sampled this favorite brew of local farmers.  Chicha has the texture of an unrefrigerated pina collada with none of the sweetness.  I wouldn't recommend it as an alternative Pisco Sours or Inka Colas.

As those who wished to participate drank our shot glass sized portions, Adriel took a pint in both hands, and following tradition of spilling a bit on the floor for the Pachimama (earth god) while reciting the proper Quecha phrase, proceeded to down the entire glass.  He encouraged John Claude to do the same.

Behind the tasting room was a barn of sorts, where guinea pigs were kept.  Grilled guinea pig, or cuy as they call it, is a delicacy in Peru.  Having owned them as pets as a child, I know guinea pigs multiply very quickly, so raising them for food certainly makes sense economically.  We didn't try any cuy on our trip, but it supposedly tastes like rabbit (not that I've ever eaten a bunny either).

Adriel said local farmers drink chicha after a long day in the field and then play the toad game, which is similar to darts but with disks thrown at a table with the "bullseye" of a metal frog in the middle surrounded by trap doors of different scoring values, with the loser buying the next round.  Adriel said the bar owner would often give the first round for free, and that, as an skilled toad game player, he (Adriel) often drank the entire evening without paying. 

Many of us gave the game a try.  John Claude did a good job with the game, but after a short ride on the bus, he had to get off to purge the chicha from his system, so I'd guess his system isn't as accustomed to it as Adriel's.

At an unscheduled stop, Adriel jumped off the bus and returned with a white beetle in his hand.  He asked if anyone knew what it was before crushing the bug, producing a bright red beetle juice.  Not that it made much of a difference to the beetle at that point, but it is not beetle blood, which would be clear.  Beetle juice has been used as the basis for red lipstick for 3,000 years, and it continues to be used in cosmetics today.
 

By the time we reached Cusco, it was dark.  The hotel again turned out to be a modern 4 star property.  Adriel recommended Valentina, the restaurant immediately across the street, for dinner, and now being hungry after having a light lunch, Julie and I followed his advice.  The waiter brought us small Pisco Sours, which are similar to Margaritas, as complimentary welcome drinks.  My Trout Pisco from the Urubamba River was excellent, as was the Cusquena Negra cerveza.  A band dressed in traditional clothing played local music for us while we dined, and it proved to be a lovely way to cap off a very full day in Peru.