63. Macchu Picchu Park

63.

Macchu Picchu Park

The park is securely fenced and gated, of course, and there are the usual fees to pay and tour guides to avoid, but once in the park no one could fail to be impressed by this enchanted mountaintop.

They say that the master builders and inhabitants of Macchu Picchu were gone long before the Spanish arrived—and, except for these stone ruins, every trace of their civilization has vanished. There are garden terraces, gushing fountains of clear water, broad stone stairways, mysterious doorways and the great walls, whose colossal stones were cut to fit each other with such precision and so many angles that they have defied the destructive power of the frequent earthquakes of this region for centuries. In an upper clearing in the ruins, I see the extraordinary “sundial stone” whose peculiar angles have provoked thought and provided interesting puzzles for modern archeoastronomers.

These ruins, so alien and so unexpected in this remote setting of mists, wildflowers, tropical birds and butterflies, with the eternal thunder of the great Urubamba River echoing up from its twisting course a thousand feet below, impresses me more than any scene I have ever witnessed.

A few days later, I catch the early morning “Indian Train” back to Cuzco. The old coaches on this train offer an extreme contrast to the bright tourist train of the few days earlier. This train is chockfull of Indians with bags and bundles of merchandise for the Cuzco market and there are also a few penny-pinching backpackers like me. Naturally, there are no seats available, so I stand most of the way.

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62. Aguas Caliente

62

Aguas Caliente:

There is only one place for travelers to stay in this six-house village--an unsightly one-room concrete-block pension.

I rent one of the several empty cots. This will be my base camp for exploring the famous lost city, but first I want to sample the nearby natural hot spring baths I have been told of by other backpack travelers.

Up a faint footpath into a narrow defile behind the village I find the springs: clean concrete tubs with sandy bottoms filled with clear steaming water. No one is around. Off with the clothes and into the crystal pool! Oh, good! I float like a lemon slice in a bowl of hot punch feeling better and better and then dash over to the nearby tumbling mountain stream for a startling splash in the cool water, then back to the hot tubs! The only company I have during the entire lovely afternoon is a cloud of pretty butterflies.

Back in the village I buy and eat fried river fish, bananas and fresh baked bread. After nightfall a few little children come out to play in the little town square. There is no electricity in this tiny community so candles glow and fireflies wink in the darkness.

At sunrise I hike back up the tracks through the tunnels to the foot of the needlelike peak that is crowned by the "lost" city. Where the footpath up the mountain begins, I discover a bamboo shack which shelters seven or eight international backpackers, some of which have been living here for weeks or even months.

You can buy a meal here too, so I order coffee and a thick pancake from the native woman who runs the establishment, then set out on the strenuous two-hour climb to the ruins.

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61. Macchu Picchu Station

61

Macchu Picchu Station

As the train slows to a stop, cunning, better informed tourists stand and jam the train exits, then sprint for the four blue microbuses that will carry them up the hairpins of the paved road leading to the famous ruins.

The buses are filled in an instant and the first lucky passengers careen off toward the “lost city” barely visible on a pinnacle far above. Left below, the majority of the grumbling tourists must wait for the buses to return for another load.

I am in no hurry.

Perhaps a little smugly I leave the impatient throng of tourists and hike back down the train tracks. I have heard that if you walk back through the two dark train tunnels before the Macchu Picchu station you will find a tiny village called Aguas Caliente. That’s where I’m headed.

60 Tourist Train to Macchu Picchu

60.

Tourist Train to Macchu Picchu

From Cuzco I take the flashy, modern tourist train to Macchu Picchu Station. The train is filled with tourists—not the grubby off-the-beaten-path backpackers I have grown accustomed to, but well-dressed Japanese, Europeans and Americans.

The train makes two stops before arriving at Macchu Picchu and hundreds of camera lenses glitter in the morning sunshine as everyone hops off to take photographs of the handful of fruit and popcorn vendors and “professional natives” dressed in festive costume, who pose for photographs for a small fee.

The train follows a wide valley, then the rails curve entering a narrow gorge. Abandoned Inca terraced fields add interest to the lower slopes of both sides of the canyon.

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59. Sajsayhuaman

59.

Sajsayhuaman.

Next day I hike up the hillside blooming with wildflowers above Cuzco to the ruins of the great Inca city, Sajsayhuaman.

I sit on a large square stone at the top of the heap of ruined stonework.

Below me is a broad green vale where llamas graze. Flanking the valley are terrace-walls made of the famous colossal stones changing color as steamy clouds pour overhead filtering the sunlight.

It IS tempting to call these amazing ruined walls “architecture of the Gods”. They are so strange!

On a hilltop toward Cuzco a big white statue of Jesus spreads stiff arms. Two lovers stroll by below me. I place myself in the center of a ring of huge stones––perhaps the foundation stones of an adobe tower or observatory—and turn my face toward the setting sun.

This ancient acropolis, now covered with grass, wildflowers and little tourist paths, is a good-vibe place for me. The inheritors of this vanished magnificence live in little mud huts near the stream that flows down the valley. You can hear their dogs, chickens and transistor radios.

They say Pizarro destroyed Sajsayhuaman four hundred years ago. Could such a city and such a civilization utterly disappear in such a short time?

Or is the wisdom and skill which built this vanished civilization still available to those who seek it?

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58. Borrowed Illusions

58.


Borrowed Illusions

Just what is going on in this old Cuzco church?

Well, it looks to me like the military conquerors and colonists from Spain used the psychological warfare techniques developed by Rome to control their European minions--based on the always-powerful pre-Christian God-man myth plus a heavy fear-trip as perpetrated by the Spanish Inquisition--to subdue the South American human beings. But it is also clear that these present-day totally subdued and entirely brainwashed “natives” love living in their borrowed illusion and would not willingly give up any of it.

Perhaps we are all most content living in our own favorite, familiar and comfortable daydream and, since there is security and power in numbers, we like it when multitudes share our fantasy to some extent. Maybe this is why missionaries and military expeditions still exist today—to make the world safe for someone’s favorite illusions.

I flow out in the evening to watch the Good Friday parade.

The military might of Peru is represented by plenty of snappy troops formed up in front of the old cathedral. Political bosses wearing black suits with red sashes lead the parade as it leaves the cathedral. Men carrying statues of various saints flickering with battery-powered psychedelic colored electric lights follow them.

In effigy, "the late J.C." (Jesus Christ) is there in a spiffy new coffin. The pyramid lady herself, His statuary mother, dressed in a starry dark blue robe, is quietly strobbing along behind Him.

It is wonderfully colorful street theater. The streets are jam-packed crowded and everyone is deadly serious. There are no “unbelievers” here and no one smiles.

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57. Cuzco, Peru

57.

Cuzco, Peru: Great luxury! I get a room with a hot shower! What wonderful pleasure: my first hot bath since I left Mexico. I lather up my hair and the beard I have allowed to grow and just soak up that fine, wet heat!

Civilization is a hot bath!

Cuzco is such a high city that when I walk I seem to float, but I tire easily.

Today is the Christian holy day, “Good Friday” and the worshipers are out in fervent mobs.

I enter one church where the people have lined up to kiss the painted bloody toe of a realistic Jesus corpse statue. Mothers lift tots into kissing range for the gruesome rite. A priest in the pulpit is exhorting his serious congregation—my Spanish is not good enough to follow his argument, but the cadence is familiar. A priest learns the traditional formula and repeats the words verbatim to his mesmerized flock— fellow dreamers in the Ancient Illusion—the Grand Conspiracy; which can make the unreal, real, or the lie, truth.

But for almost all of us, redundant falsehood, repeated from childhood, IS truth.

The “priesthood”, whether religious or political--which maintains the patent on the formulaic words from generation to generation--thus holds the veritable keys to “truth”. We poor fools never know the difference between this mumbo-jumbo and the real truth, which benefits no bureaucracy.

Real truth, that is, “reality”, is useless as propaganda; meanwhile, we are born into falsehood, live in deceit and die in deception.

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