The Inca Trail and Machu Picchu!

Puma, our leader and guide for the Inca Trail and surrounding areas of Cusco is a traditional healer, trained by his grandfather as a shaman.  I dont know what you think of when I say Shaman but I think of someone who is pensive, quiet, intunned... although Puma embodies these specifics, he also has an incredible audacity, one that latches on to America slang ("tots", "besty", awesome") in the valley girl twang we all love to impersonate.  He quickly turned into our best friend, and spiritual guide.  Day one we were in Cusco, the hub of the Inca Empire, he welcomed us into his family¨s home to show us the traditional style of spinning wool, dying it, and weaving.  He inspired us to know more about the Incan symobolism, above us lives the Condor, on this human planet is the Puma and in the underworld is the Serpant.  This three fold stair step is mirrored by the Suns evolution between night and dark and this pyramid figure is then reflected by the balance between female and male.  As he introduces us to his wife in traditional dress with a red skirt to her knees, embroidered top and a lofty hat he says "this is my princess, although I must remember just like everything in this world, she is not mine, nothing is yours, but everything is made for you".  In preparing for the Inca Trail he took what I have known from the History lectures I have given and shaped them into a new conversation, the Inca Trail is a spirititual pilgramage, we never do it for ourselves, we always do it for someone else.

On the Inca Trail there were more people than I had expected, dotted with several skin tones and various languages, the Incan ruins stood tall and impenetrable.  Here for hundreds of years, they insist of proclaiming thier tribute to the sun "Inti", the Incan god.  Despite the destruction by the Spanish in the 16th century, the stones placed strategically for the historic messengers of the Incan Empire suite more than 500 hikers a day, including porters.  As our group climbed Dead Womans Pass slowly slowly, hundreds of porters carrying loads three times my backpack with tire shoes on their feet passed us constantly.  In a group now of thirty due to the parents presence, we assumed some thirty porters, equalling sixty all together.  Every stop there was a tent big enough for a circus filled with fruit, veggies, hot drink, silverware, multiple courses, chairs, salt, pepper and dessert.  The "spiritual journey" was naturally indundated by the social inequiaty felt in this circumstance.  How to let in a form of servitude when you are taught to be self sufficient and able?  When do you accept the reality of income inequality to take over and "give" to others who are working.  Simply put - they are earning their share to feed thier wives and children back home.  Why is it like this? Is it fair, even though it feels most unfair?  How do you cope when you are yearning to bridge the gap, and you feel overwhelmed by a past wraught in colonialism, imperialism, industrailization, servitude.  At a point we have to give in, and where we can share a smile and work to engage in conversation, wondering where our thirty plus supporters came from, their names and their aspirations.

As we leave our more than helpful suppoters we wake at three in the morning to rush the Sun Gate of Machu Picchu. The journey was one I held seperate to the famous Machu Picchu, until I reached the apex of the climb, hearing the screams and laughter of our group and those we had been leap frogging at the top.  This was it, we had reached our goal.  I ran with my pack through the ruins and there, peaking through the escaping clouds stood the sight, the one we look at in all those coffee table books, the mountain, the ruins, the perfect photo.  My heart leaped, and as I looked down there was the swich back path of the buses coming to meet the scene.  As we had trecked through storms, sweat and a spiritual jounrey, there was the "disneyland" we heard whsipers of.  Despite this feeling of world expanision into what was once a sacred and un-touched temple of the Incan Emporer Pachacuti,  walking into the ruins was unlike the pictures and the idea.  Machu Picchu is unlike any other.  It is among the gods, it exists on the top of unreachable mountains, the sacredness is ubiquitous, despite the people, despite the feelings of globalization, I felt still, in love with people and their ability to build what is true to them.  If we believe in something, we can build it.

Although life is unfair, and there are imbalances, I think as we hold them close, there is an amount we must let lay.  Work for equality and connectedness, but when we sink into the darkness we perpetuate guilt.  Continue to reach out, to be real and kind and open. Seek the spirit, Embrace the wilderness though at times it may not be the "untouched" it once was.