Sitting on a ridge high above the Urubamba, Machu Picchu had been a tacit destination during my long adventure up the selfsame river. Visiting the ruins and walking out the long Urubamba Valley into the Inca heartland would also be a way to continue next to the river that I'd seen every inch of, from its mouth at Atalaya.
My walk started at "Hidro," a hydroelectric complex tucked into a rocky valley that reminded me of the Poudre Canyon above Ft. Collins, Colorado. The Urubamba here was wild. It leaped and dashed itself upon large boulders and shot down narrow sluices, entirely white. The train tracks followed placid curves cut into the rock above, through forest where the appearance of a pterodactyl wouldn't have been altogether surprising. During the course of the two-hour walk the forest thinned out, leaving the valley's towering rock formations exposed, and at one point allowing a glimpse, high above, of a corner of Machu Picchu's agricultural terracing.
Arriving at the guard house at the trailhead for the ruins, I discovered that Peru had not accounted for visitors coming in the back door, so to speak; I was forced to walk a mile further to Aguas Calientes to buy my overpriced admission ticket, and then walk back. At least the guard took care of my backpack.
The hike up the steep trail was exhilarating after spending so much time in the jungle bereft of exercise. The trail was beautiful and lonely, as all the tourists were bussing up. But once I got to the top I popped out into the thick of it: camera-slung Japanese tour groups, bunches of Germans sporting crisp new hiking gear, shorts-wearing American couples with pale, pudgy calves, and loud hordes of high school students from Lima. Surveying the ruins from the classic photo spot next to the guard house, I was struck not by the majesty of the ancient, exactingly constructed city, but by how the scene resembled a "Where's Waldo" drawing taking place on a Chutes & Ladders board: masses of diversely dressed people bumbling through a difficult-to-navigate setting.
If I'd gone early or late in the day I'm sure my experience would have been different, but at noontime Machu Picchu was a purely touristic phenomenon: I was looking at a destination, not at a place. All of the archaeological, cultural, historical, engineering, spiritual, and astronomical significance of the city was obscured behind a veil of people who had come to a sight worth seeing. All of these people seeing it reduced it to two dimensions. I felt like I was in photograph. There was no space for the ruins to expand into with their own presence. Later, I wished I'd had the idea of a Brit I met in Cusco: to hide in the ruins in the afternoon and spend the night there. I'm sure at night, especially with a moon, the stones would sing with a voice that was silent during the middle of the day.
Despite the flattening of this incredible place by the flood of tourists, two things blew my mind at Machu Picchu. One was a pair of the famously joined stones which had been pulled slightly apart. Closing one eye and peering through the gap, I could see that the sides of the stones were perfectly parallel all the way through and all the way up and down--about a square meter of perfect parallel planes. There was no bellying of the joint, as I've learned to do in woodwork. No cheating at all. Pure craftsmanlike perfection, all without metal tools. The other mind-blowing thing was booming my voice into the alcoves in one of the temples and listening to the flawless amplification produced by the tight stonework. I must have looked a goon, going from alcove to alcove and mooing.
After an hour and a half in the ruins I made my escape and walked out along the train tracks. The guard who looked after my backpack told me it was a six-hour walk, which sounds a lot shorter than 30 km. Tacked onto the 15 km I'd already done that day, this was too much: I was forced to spend the night with 12 km left to go. Miraculously I stumbled upon a little house in this nearly uninhabited valley where a lady made me dinner, and then slept with the rushing of the Urubamba for my lullaby.
The next day I made it to Cusco where I lanced the blister that 45 km in inadequate shoes (cheap replacements for my venerable Merrells, stolen) had given me, and commenced to rest up.
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