Travel
Machu Picchu
by Sam Sanders
On April 30, 2000, thirteen of us boarded a bus in Bristol, Vermont, took an overnight plane from Boston to Lima, Peru, and landed on the 1st of May in Cuzco. We were 9 women and 4 men, ranging in age from mid-20s to late 60s. There were three lesbians and two gay men. All of us were members of a meditation group that meets regularly in Bristol. We had already spent some time together preparing for this trip: making lists of clothing and gear we would need for the Inca Trail, discussing practical details, and setting intention.
During the few weeks before the trip I experienced lots of fear. My fantasy was that somewhere along the Inca Trail I was going to have to jump off the edge of a cliff. I understood that this was a metaphor for some major letting go that I would be called upon to do. It turned out that all of us were fearful, and our preparatory meetings were helpful in calming us and making us ready for what we expected to be a significant spiritual journey.
We were not disappointed. In the two weeks we were in Peru, all of us received a constant barrage of life lessons – as though all of life were being compressed into 14 days. I think that none of us had had the experience before of living so much in the moment for so long a stretch of time. Most intense were the five days on the trail – starting from a point about two hours by train from Cuzco and ending in Machu Picchu.
By the end of the 14 days, we generally felt that there would be no way we could talk about this experience except with each other. No one who hadn’t been there could have any idea of what it had been like.
Well, since I have been back in Vermont I have talked about my experience in Peru with everybody I know.
The best I can do to convey an impression of what it was like for me is to quote from the journal that I kept sporadically during the trip.
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May 1, 2000
It’s now 9:30am, and we are flying over the Andes. The Andes are stark: unlike any mountains I’ve seen before: bare (or so it seems from the air), jagged, narrow valleys with a stream.
Anyhow, I can easily imagine freaking out walking on the edge of one of those canyons, or switch-backing up the face of a mountain. It is also very exciting; and day after tomorrow we’ll be walking there.
We just flew past a snow-covered peak that looks as though it should be surrounded by the word PARAMOUNT. Then a verdant plateau. Then Cuzco. It’s big.
The next journal entry was in the form of a letter to my friend and ex-lover Joe, with whom I normally take vacations.
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May 1, 2000
Dear Joe:
I think you’d like this place. It’s more beautiful than I was expecting. I guess mainly it’s the hills surrounding the city – and maybe the clean air – and maybe the altitude (over 11,000 ft.). But I have burst into tears twice. And I have that feeling that it is too much and that I can’t look at it for too long. And this is just the city of Cuzco. I can’t even imagine the Inca Trail.
The hotel we are staying in – Los Marcheses – is a cross between a faded glory West Indian hotel and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The rooms are a bit run down and are interestingly appointed (Don’s room has an old four-poster bed with an elaborate canopy); there is an elegance about the place, lots of art (mainly Roman Catholic), and two courtyards with flowers. Red tiled roofs. Actually, the whole city has red tile roofs. Even very modest houses seem to have courtyards and gardens. There are two plazas within a few blocks of the hotel. The larger of them is fronted by two enormous, impressive Catholic churches.
The people are very short and very Indian-looking. Everyone is fit (i.e., poor and hard-working). They also seem very sweet. Lots of kids are selling stuff in the street – especially in the main plaza: chewing gum, post-cards. They are pretty tenacious. You want at the same time to stop them and to hug them.
I instantly missed your not being here. I kept wanting to nudge you and say, “Look at that!”
Love, Sam
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May 2, 2000
The highlight was the session with Puma’s grandfather, a shaman. A wonderful man who is fully himself. He greeted everybody warmly and elaborately with words we could not understand. The teachings Puma translated from Quechuan to English. I am not sure that now, 12 hours later, I remember….
Grandfather told us always to ask permission of the Apus, the spirits of the mountains, to approach the sacred places – and also to ask the Apus’ permission to go “beyond the gate”: to learn more.
He told us to remember to offer some of everything to the Earth, and to make offerings to the Apus. And to make the offerings be for everyone. Or maybe it was to dedicate all we receive to the betterment of the world. I have lost it already. I am hoping I will re-capture it on the trail.
On May 3, after two days in Cuzco to explore and to get used to the altitude, we took the train up out of Cuzco and then along the Urubamba River, the sacred river of the Incas, toward Machu Picchu. None of us sat still for very long. We exchanged seats constantly, to make touch with each other; and we took turns sticking our heads out the windows to get the most immediate experience of how the Sacred Valley looked and felt. Cameras clicked. There was lots of laughter.
The Urubamba is a fast river. As we watched it from the train, I remembered my intense fear of heights, and especially of bridges – and especially of bridges high above torrential rivers. I remembered the childhood experience that was the prototype of my fear, and I talked about it with my friends on the train.
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May 3, 2000
We took the train from Cuzco across the valley to I know not what place, to start the hike. Some of us walked up to a sacred spot that is right there, and there was a peaceful energy place, with an entrance directly facing the local Apu, whose name Chidakash, our tour guide, does not know. My first Apu. I did not know what to do to honor him. I put my hands together in a gesture of respect. I touched my head to the ground. Finally, I asked permission and then held three coca leaves and blew into them, as is the Andean custom. I thought, “I will undoubtedly meet dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Apus in the next five days – but I won’t forget you.”
I have been trying to remember the Grandfather’s words and to honor the Apus and Pachamama, Mother Earth, and to ask permission, and to give offerings.
Almost immediately, we were to cross a raging river on a shaky wood plank bridge. And to make our offering and ask permission halfway across. And to give to the river what we no longer need; and then, facing the river coming at us, to ask for what we want to receive.
I needed to tell everyone how frightened I was and to ask for support. I went first. Don promised to back me up. With the aid of all the preparations that have gone on over the last year – and, I feel especially, with the aid of the Apu whom I lately honored and whom I promised not to forget – and who knows with what support from what Guides, I stepped onto the bridge. I felt fear, but I did not feel as though I were about to have a psychotic episode. Grounding myself as much as possible, I went halfway across the bridge, faced downstream, and did the ceremony with three coca leaves. Then I turned to face the oncoming torrent. I forgot to ask permission, or to ask for anything, or to set intention. I felt only gratitude, which I expressed both to the river and to the Apu. After I was across, I remembered to ask for permission to make this journey; and I asked for help in remembering always my commitment to service; and I asked for help in remembering always to honor Mother Earth. And I wept a little and I thanked the river and the Apu and the other Apus and the Guides again.
Namaste.
That was my first moment on the Inca Trail. During the next five days we hiked – in groups, in pairs, alone – through some of the most beautiful country I’ve ever seen. There were dry stretches, with cactus and century plants; farms with llamas grazing; cloud forests; lush green places with bamboo and copper-colored moss a foot thick (good for a facial). Everywhere, always, were steep valleys and jagged peaks, some snow-covered.
There were many ruins – or sacred places, as we preferred to call them – which we explored with such disregard for the passage of time that our tour guides were at their wits’ end to get us to each campsite before nightfall.
Porters carried the tents and our heavy gear and scurried past us on the trail each day to set up camp for the following night. The porters were angels. Their strength and stamina were phenomenal, and they were unfailingly good-humored. Some of us surely could not have made the trip without them.
The trail is mostly steep. Much of it consists of stone steps. But I think the major factor was the altitude. Even carrying very little extra weight, and despite the wads of coca leaves constantly in our cheeks, we all found it a challenging trek. Perhaps the most difficult stretch was the climb to Dead Woman’s Pass, at 14,000 feet. I was the last to reach the top and was welcomed by the most love-filled group hug of my life.
Then comes the downhill – or downstairs – part, in which you learn everything you ever wanted to know about your knees.
But the mist is gathering – and then clearing; and Humberto or Puma is playing the Andean flute; and the echo is bouncing off the hills; and all around are the Apus, looking down and blessing our every step and receiving our constant honoring of them. Apu Wakkaywillka. Apu Salkkantay.
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May I don’t know, 2000
There has been zero time.
We arrived in Machu Picchu this morning. The place is tremendously impressive: you need 3-D and 360 degrees. I am sitting in the sun in a grassy place, meditating and dozing.
It was a thrill to arrive at the Sun Gate this morning: the recognition that we all had made it. Lots of hugging. The Hokey-Pokey. A little ceremony….
The views here, as everywhere along the trail, are spectacular beyond description. No photographs have a chance of capturing them….
Two of the women in our group got married in Machu Picchu. That evening, in Aguas Calientes – the village a short bus ride from Machu Picchu – at tables outside of Inka’s Pizza (we’re back in civilization now), we toasted them with Champagne. A band of musicians in the square saw us, came to the table, and started playing and singing Happy Birthday. Our laughter only encouraged them to sing more and more choruses – in English, in Spanish, slow, fast. There was no way we could explain to them, through our tears of laughter, that it was nobody’s birthday: that two women who love each other had gotten married that morning in Machu Picchu.