chapter 9 - otherworldly

We took the cheap train out of Ollantaytambo, full of hostellers and hikers, lucky to get seats at all. A myriad of colourful backpacks lay in the overhead racks. As we rocked along, their black straps swung in a rhythmic ballet. The terrain changed dramatically as we followed the river down, dry rocky slopes covered with cacti becoming greener and more dense with tropical plants and ferns. The air became humid and thick, surrounded by mountains swathed in mist.

Aguas Calientes itself is a bizarre town, its shops, restaurants and hotels straddling the train tracks. Defined by tourism, Peruvians know Macchu Piccu as not only a spiritual place, but also a lucrative one. Unfortunately this has lead to the government getting in on the graft, allowing a TV commerical to be filmed here despite its Unesco world heritage site status, with the result that the necessary technological infrastructure took a chip out of the top of a stone, and damaged the only Incan sundial still in existence so that it no longer works as it did for the centuries before television was invented.

Despite this travesty, one can hardly deny Peru its financial gain. By North American standards it’s still a bargain. Queues for tickets, sixteen switchbacks up, past a parking lot and posh hotel at the top (thankfully hidden) and one enters another world, an ancient city on the top of a mountain. Serene. Peaceful. Hidden. Escaping the Spaniards only to be revealed by a Brit.

We sat on a wall, taking in breathtaking views. What was it like for the women who lived here, living their lives as chosen representatives of perfection until earthquakes or lightening dictated the need for a sacrifice, death their ultimate goal? We feel transported by the place - are we still in Peru? This could be anywhere in the world, and in any time - it is untouched by the national boundary inside which it exists, not of the modern world. It is unique in the true sense of the word. No other place is like it, similar to the Pyramids and Angkor Wat and the Great Wall - one does not need to know which country houses them. It is enough to know they exist as talismen of our earth to the past, to some other generation and some other civilization.

I had a strange and vaguely uncomfortable feeling sitting there, for the first time cognizent that all the years I've spent analyzing maps and cherishing their notations and lines were not really all that important or necessary to the world and anyone in it. It is the places within that create the boundaries, not the other way round. Mountains and plains and valleys and cities identifiy a place rather than the coasts and islands and wars and politics. Geography working from the inside out. The heart and not the skin.

By late afternoon, most of the tours had left to catch the train back to Cusco, and we reveled in the quiet, wandering at will. Occasionally we would run into a group of Peruvian schoolchildren or French tourists or New Age spiritualists perched on a ledge screaming. Places like this attract all kinds. They always have and they always will