[Itinerary Page]The daily diary of a wandering restaurateur
November 1 - Machu Picchu
Happy Birthday to me! When my Dad turned 70, I asking him how it felt about it. He said that he really didn't feel that differently inside, but occasionally he would walk past a mirror, catch the reflection in the corner of his eye and wonder, "Who is that old fa*t and what's he doing in my house?"
OK, so there are another ten years to go before 70, and I don't yet think of myself as an old fa*t (although I am not sure that the average 20 year-old doesn't) but I will admit that 60 is an age that causes me to stop and think about deeper things. I must reluctantly acknowledge that there are likely more years behind me than lie ahead, although I feel like I am finally just starting to hit my stride.
In the US we have this thinking that you retire at 62 or 65 and then wait around to die, occupying your time by clogging traffic and getting meal discounts at family restaurants. Personally, I think that model is going away as more and more "senior citizens" discover that we are truly in the most productive years of our lives. I am fortunate in that I work for myself, so don't have to convince some "boss" that I still have something to offer or that my escalated salary would not be better spent on two younger workers who will hire on for less.
So where does Machu Picchu figure in to all this? In one sense it is coincidental -- you have to be somewhere on your birthday and this is as good a place as any. In other ways, it is the perfect place to be for this passage. The trip is a modern day adventure into a part of the world I have never seen before ... to see a part of the ancient world that was hidden for centuries. For whatever the rest of my life may hold, I hope it will always be filled with new adventures!
At the end of the day, I was a little surprised to see that I did not have 200 shots of the ruins, but the magic of Machu Picchu is less in what you can see and more in what the whole place speaks to you about. That an ancient civilization could construct stone buildings of such integrity on a site like this without the use of iron tools is dwarfed in my mind by what it must have taken just to prepare the site so that something COULD be built. We are talking about terracing the entire top of a mountain. How would you do that? Who would even suggest that this is the place where it should happen? Who were these people and what drove them? Huge questions.
To get here, you take a bus up from the village of Aguas Calientes. The road is an endless series of switchbacks, in itself a small feat of engineering. There is now a hotel at the base of the ruins -- the Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge -- owned or at least operated by Orient Express Hotels. The rates are astronomical and the idea is interesting, but given that the last bus down the mountain is at 5:30pm, I imagine you would feel rather isolated, albeit luxuriously so.
The idea is to get up to the sanctuary, as the area is called, before the train from Cuzco arrives with its hordes of day-trippers. We were blessed to have a sunny morning with several relatively uncrowded hours to climb around with our personal guide, Yenny (pronounced "Janey"). Her knowledge of the site and her obvious passion for it made the tour much more meaningful. I didn't realize until later that day just how sunburned I got! Who cares?
By noon, the place was overrun with day-trippers and school groups (November 1 is a national holiday), so we had a marvelous buffet lunch in the Lodge and called it quits. But for the solar load, I could have been very happy just to sit on the grass of one of the terraces and stare into the green of the valley below for hours.
Machu Picchu really did feel spiritual to me ... and what better place to celebrate a significant passage of my life? I wish all of you the same opportunity when your important times come.
Margene had discovered the medicine needed to put her system back on track and was finally eating again, so for my birthday dinner we went to the Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel -- the prime lodging property in town. We were pleased that our guide Yenny agreed to join us. She is four months pregnant and her husband works as a guide on the ancient Inca Trail, once the only way to get to Machu Picchu.It is an arduous 4-day trek up from the Sacred Valley. We thoroughly enjoy her company and we thought that a dinner out might be more enjoyable than being home alone. I hope we were right.
For the first time on the trip, it poured rain all afternoon and into the evening, a reminder that we are just about to the rainy season. The hotel is built up the side of the mountain, so it took some climbing up the stone steps with water pouring down them to reach the dining room. As we scrambled into the hotel lobby, we were greeted by a roaring fireplace, a perfect welcome on a rainy night. Yenny made it in a few minutes later and we laughed and talked our way through a wonderful evening with exquisite food. All in all, it couldn't have been a better day!
© 2004 Restaurant Doctor