Holy Machu Picchu

I woke up before dawn to catch the bus up into the mountains. Machu Picchu. My group entered with our guide Miguel, the sun not yet having risen into the mountains, the moon still visible in the blue. As the sun crested over the peaks and into Machu Picchu, the once bustling city came alive. The mist covering the mountains clearing, shadows cast through the windows of houses, magical.

Machu Picchu remains a mystery in part to us even at present day. When Pisarro invaded Perú, the inhabitants evacuated Machu Picchu so that the Spanish would never find it. And it worked. A US professor uncovered the lost city only in the 1920s. While those in the area knew of its history, it remained unknown to the rest of the world. Thus even still, the names of buildings, the significance of certain parts of the city remain a mystery.

While most of us know of Machu Picchu as the lost city of the Incas, the Incas did not reside at Machu Picchu full-time. On special occasions they visited and stayed in a part of the village designated for royalty, separate from the day-to-day population. A once self-sufficient village, 700 of the Quechua people lived on, ate from and farmed the land. They believed that anything necessary in life came from the earth and was sacred. They were, therefore, mostly a vegetarian culture, sacrificing one llama a year to the gods. Just as the Quechua viewed the earth as sacred, so too did the village live and breathe. They built structures for living, for study, to bury the dead, for monitoring the stars, planets, seasons, to plant crops and medicinal plants. Parts of the story of the village are only speculated about by archaelogists and scientists. They marvel at the construction of the buildings, all built on small foundations with interlocking rocks. In the event of an earthquake, the structures roll across the earth in unison, rather than splitting and severing. The Quechua still inhabit a large part of Perú, still speaking Quechua as well. The language is onomatopaeic, the words based upon the sound associated with an object, idea or action. The word for chicha, for example, the fermented corn elixir, is aah in Quechua because when seomeone drinks it, that's the response it invokes...aaah. It makes me wonder if any words in English make that kind of sense.

At the end of the guided tour, I chewed coca leaves. They are used to produce cocaine & are actually in Coca Cola too. From what the guide said, they aren't addictive. It seems to be viewed more like chewing tobacco without the nicotine. The people have chewed it for energy for centuries, and hey, climbing up all those stairs, not to mention mountains, you'd need it. I hiked up to Waynapicchu with a mouthful myself. It's the peak you see in most of the photos of Machu Picchu (and at right), the mountain actually named Machu Picchu to the back of the city, not as frequently photographed. The climb is uphill and steep, holding onto a rope for a lot of it. I had to crawl through a cave to get to the summit. How worth it. You just feel high, not only up in the mountains, but also on life. There is a story of a Japanese couple who made the climb years ago, only the woman fell to her death. They say that he husband returns every year with flowers on the anniversary of her death. Some of the people say the flowers are to mourn her loss. Others say he is thanking the Incas for freeing him from her. A romantic, I prefer the former. I almost fell myself climbing down Waynapicchu. You can just feel it. The energy. The power. The electricity.