One more dream realized

We arrived home from our Inca Trail trip. 4 days and 3 nights travelling on foot through the jungle of Peru, making our way down an ancient path to the great and mysterious - some say mystical - Machu Picchu. Our guides informed us that this stone cobbled trail is only one small section of a trail that stretched throughout the whole of the Inca empire from Ecuador all the way down to Argentina. This trail was mostly destroyed by the colonizers as a tactic to break up the strength and unity of this great race. As it turns out, it was a very successful tactic.

We began the first day on what our guides called a "camino tranquilo" - a relaxed walk - through the jungle. This day turned out to be a giant wake up call concerning my general physical state. As I was walking down this plano (flat) path I was huffing and heaving as though I had already climbed up the mountain of 4500 meters scheduled for the next day. With 6 kilos on my back and no experience hiking through a jungle, I'd say the day went pretty well.

I discovered that the trail is littered with Inca ruins that were not originally discovered by the Spaniards during colonization, so in contrast to the structures found in Cuzco, we were able to see entire buildings, cities, and even streets that these ancient people had built and lived in such and incredibly long time ago. It is indescribable the experience of simply touching a stone you know was placed in the wall by powerful and faithful hands thousands of years ago. Each day rewarded us with a new discovery of a village or a fort or a temple or - like Machu Picchu - an entire sacred city full of mystery and all I could think was: "if only walls could talk."

One thing that was extremely lucky for us was the weather. Regrettably, we were only able to schedule this life-list dream-come-true during the rainy season of the region. It rained every night, though thankfully not until we had all gone to our tents. The days while climbing or descending these great mountains were cloudy and cool... resulting in the perfect level of comfort aside from being dirty, sweaty, and every muscle aching with every following stair. Oh, the stairs.... Mel had a dream the first night about our major ascent to the highest peak on the trail and described it as the never-ending stairway to heaven only with stairs that were so huge that it took all her strength just to step up. She collapsed within the first few attempted steps. Not surprisingly, this was much like some of the stairways we encountered... though thankfully they did eventually end.

The destination was the highlight of the feat. We woke up at 4am the last day and rushed through the pouring rain to "La Puerta del Sol" - the sun gate. The lucky few who had made it to the sun gate in time for the sunrise were able to see their first glimpse of Machu Picchu clinging to the ridge of one of the many enormous mountains surrounding the place. Unfortunately because of the time of year, we saw nothing but black mass through the thickest fog I had ever seen ... Mel said she caught a better glimpse as she had arrived 5 or 10 minutes before I did (I had an incident falling down the side of the stupid mountain, but was promptly saved by the presence of a tiny little tree). I was saved and pulled up by a new friend I had met on the trail as the guide sort of gaped on as though he were watching T.V. There were better guides than he on the trip, but I was lucky enough to fall down a mountain while they were attending to those farther behind.

We did reach Machu Picchu and the weather was kind enough to even allow sunshine through the clouds in order for us to practice our Tai Chi more comfortably... We met the most beautifully eccentric Mexican woman on the trip and every time we acheived some great feat we would relax with a round of Tai Chi which she taught most willingly to anyone who wanted to learn. We were then left to explore this huge abandoned city and again another indescribable experience. I opted to walk the streets without shoes and accompanied the Mexican woman and another very sweet Chilean girl. There is something incredible about these ruins and something - yes - mystical about their being only so recently discovered. We climbed to the house on the highest point of the city to take photos and seeing the whole thing from that point was overwhelming.

We left the place and quite honestly, even after such a difficult journey and so much stress from the trials... I left with an eerie sense of equilibrium - as the Mexican woman described it perfectly.