Barcelona Besties and The Time We Found "the Lost City" of Machu Picchu: A Tale of Ancient Ruins, Badassery, Gringo Killers and Questionable Massages

Liz, my Barcelona Bestie, and I serendipitously met on our layover to Amsterdam, en route to our final destination, Barcelona, almost 13 years ago. I feel I am aging my 33-year-old self right now. When did I get to the point where I could age myself? Oyy. Anyway, Liz is likely the reason I did not beg the pilot, as we flew over the Atlantic, to turn the plane around and promptly drop me back on American soil. Riddled with anxiety over being away for four whole months, there was some semblance of stillness, or at least a temporary calming of nerves, when we started talking and decided immediately that we would be friends.

As it turned out, we became the inseparable kind. We ran all over Barcelona, much of Spain, and we attempted to take Dublin by storm, but we missed our RyanAir flight, actually had to stay at a four-star hotel in Girona as there were no more trains back to Barcelona, nor were any hostels open that night, and then had to dine at a fine restaurant, again, because that was our only option.

Liz and I have a knack for making the most of anything. Our latest adventure was in Peru and it began in a much more auspicious manner than the day we boarded the train for Dublin, and proved to be one of the trips of our lifetimes.

It has been just over a week since returning from Peru. I have stared at the photos an inordinate amount of times now. It is true that all we have is the present, but I have been allowing myself to relive those delicious moments of awe and grit and laughter and camaraderie. Where history mingled with the now, where the voices of the past seemed almost audible, and where Inkan spirits were nearly visible.

I think each moment does form some kind of intangible atom that adds itself to our being, changing us, while sometimes nearly invisibly, still, significantly. Machu Picchu was just one of those experiences that added many atoms I seem to feel vibrating within my body. It was a four day trek that I believe I will distinctly remember.

If I cannot, through the current of my touch, transfer the emotion and significance of what this trek was, how will I put it into words, so that I can share with you some semblance of the experience? So that you too can know something of the magic and the beauty of the scenery, and the endurance demanded of the trail. I think the photos will speak to you, and with some interludes, I will seek to add a bit of the humor, hardness and awe that we experienced on the 42 kilometers of Inka trail, from Ollantaytambo to Machu Picchu.

Our Peru Treks group of 16 trekkers, hailing from Britain, Canada, Ireland and the States. #bananasinpyjamas

In the weeks leading up to the trail, as I was reading Kim MacQuarrie's The Last Days of the Incas, gleaning all kinds of fascinating--and very violent--history, I wondered what the trek would be for me. Spiritual? ... Sacred? ... Profound? It was all of those things, in a sense, but the word that really surfaced as we connected, step by step, with the ancient Inkan-laid stones was mystical. It was four days of mystery, awe, fascination ... where the divine felt ever-present ...

Our wake-up call was usually 5 am, and this was the view by 7 am. 

Love from Pachamama, Quechua for Mother Earth, along the trail.

It is views like this that raise the hair on my arms as I am aware that all of the particles of my being are dancing.

As we used to say in the mountains, "Breath. Breath again. With every breath, you are alive." After all these years, this is still the best advice I can give you: Savior your existence. Live every moment. Do not waste a breath.
~Nando Parrado, Miracle in the Andes

In the evenings, when we would crawl into our tents around 8 pm, I cracked open the book I had bought at the airport on our short layover in Lima. Mark Adams' Turn Right At Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time was worth the $25 my Maracuyá Sour saturated brain decided to pay for it. While MacQuarrie has me wrapped up in names and events of the past, Adams had me chucking aloud as he recounts following the path of Hiram Bingham, the man who rediscovered Machu Pichhu (for the larger world) in 1911. I was a very eager school girl by day, nodding my head enthusiastically as the guides would stop us along the trail to give a lesson about the ruins or the Inkas that I had just read about. This was the most authentic historical learning I have engaged in and damn did it make the trek so cool. 

While Machu Picchu is the "lost city" (that actually isn't the lost city because the lost city, Vilcabamba, harboring the Inkan gold that was hidden from the Spaniards, is actually still lost) that was our Mecca, so to speak, on this particular trek, there are breathtaking ruins along the way, which is reason #37 why any able-bodied person should most definitely make the trek rather than take a bus to Machu Picchu City. You simply do not want to miss this ....

Huilla Raccay Ruins on Day 1

The world is your oyster and the ruins can be your playground.

Photo opp!

Each new ruins we came upon were new and exciting ... but from here on will remain nameless
because names are just not my superpower.

A window into the past.

Floating stairs, not featured at Machu Picchu. Make the trek.

The Vilcanota (sacred river) "is a reflection of the Milky Way galaxy, and temples were placed there in coordination with stars that exist along either side of our galactic plain." Author Graham Hancock coined the Vilcanota "Heaven's Mirror".

It was quite fortunate that we had new ruins to renew us each day; the trek was a good deal more difficult than I had thought. Thiiiis was in part due to being a terrible packer. Had you opened up my pack, you would have found high-healed sandals, a change of clothes for each day trekking, a pair of shorts, and then some other articles of clothing and chocolate that actually made sense to have along for the trail. I had packed everything for the entire Peru trip, including three nights combined in Cusco and Aguas Calientes, in my pack, and felt accomplished for it, until I took my 17th step on Day 1, with no fewer than 17 million to go, and felt the weight of that pack on my shoulders -- I had failed to actually try on the pack and it was now clear that it did not fit me right. But, suck it butter cup, and that I did.

Smiles before the reality of 35 pounds set in (and a mere 30 pounds after consuming some of those chocolate bars).

I had a few moments of dread that first day when I felt the bruises already forming on my collar bone, but in the end, the extra weight contributed to feeling even more like a bad-ass lady when we played a game called "Guess the weight of Jamie's pack" and everyone gave it a lift ... with both hands.

There was reason enough, aside from a big bag, to feel like we had engaged in some real badassery on the trail. For one, on Day 2 you haul your booty up to 4,200 meters, or 13,799 feet, gaining 1,200 meters, or nearly 4,000 feet, in five hours. The following is what we saw for those long hours ... 

And so we felt a bit like ...

And then we would be nearing a bend, all hopeful hearts, until ...

More. Stairs.

But finally ...

Batwomen...

become bigger badasses.

And you better get your game face on for Day 3. Because Day 3 is all down hill. And this sounds like a dream, exactly like the one you had on Night 2, but, in fact, it's not. No, Day 3 is a Gringo Killer. Better yet, say the 6,000 year old stairs, 3,000 Gringo Killers. 

Yes, yes this is my I'm stepping varsity today game face. How do you like me now, stairs?

The answer to that audacious question? Something like ...

Another gringa bites the dust.

Until the cry came from my BB: Never. Give. Up! No, never give up. Because the finish for Day 3 is sexy.

This sexy. JT would be impressed.

So, the upside is that our third day had this really lovely, magical finish with that rainbow over the valley, and the downside is that because of Day 3 my knee replacement surgery just got 10 years closer, which means I'll be going under the knife like next week, but there are always trade-offs, aren't there?

I think we slept for about two hours this third night. It was the combined effects of a hard ground and anticipation of arrival to the sacred site, so when the cheery porters shook our tent at 3 am, their sweet buenos días was met with a couple of groans. The grumpiness did not last long, though, as Machu Picchu was now a mere five kilometers away. Within two hours, something began to materialize ...

Squint a bit and you will see ...

this pilgrimage had a priceless payoff.

And when we had officially arrived, my jaw did drop ...

In the variety of its charms and the power of its spell,
I know of no other place in the world which can compare with it.
~ rediscoverer Hiram Bingham

We had several hours to traipse our tired but enthralled selves through the ruins of Machu Picchu City. Here is just a sampling of what we stumbled into ...

Lounging llamas. The desire to spoon with them was ultimately overpowered by the charm of...

the city itself.

This is a very large sundial.

This is the Tomb of the Condor and a rock that seems to defy gravity.

And this is Wuaynu Picchu, which you can scale for another aerial vista of Machu Picchu City, but we opted to admire the mountain from this vantage point and call it a day. A super duper grand day.

As Liz and I planned our South American adventure, we decided to stay a night in Aguas Calientes, the town that "lies in a deep gorge below the ruins." It sounds refreshing, especially after four days of sweaty hiking without a shower, but I would not recommend it to a fellow traveler. Aguas Calientes is home to hot springs ... that house the grime of thousands of other dirty trekkers. The pueblo also boasts dozens and dozens of sketchy places to get a massage. We did enter one of those suspicious looking abodes to try to soothe our aching muscles, and indeed questionable massages are part of the title to this post, but it is nearing that bewitching hour, where if I do not fall asleep soon, there will be no sleep to be had, and you have been reading along for a good while now. So all that I will mention is that you shall enter the massage parlors with caution. You will likely end up in a couple's massage with your bestie, lying on a makeshift massage table, in a room with ratty curtains that do not cover the open-air window, where construction workers are within an arm's reach, and, rather than listen to the zen music, you will hear the beating pop/hip hop mash-up blending with the voices blaring into a megaphone. It will not be relaxing, but ... but your calves will be back in working condition upon your exit. And they will agree to walk you to Indio Feliz where you will dine on the best fare of the trip.

As I close tonight, I did think that after a week of reflection and looking over photos I would be able to articulate the impact that the trek had on me -- how it is exactly that everything in me feels so awake. My heart, my brain, my soul ... it is like a fire has been stoked inside. But something is still percolating. I cannot quite name why the Inka Trail was what it was. But whether I can define it or not, the awakening exists. Sometimes we just have that sense that we were precisely where we were supposed to be. The connecting to nature and disconnecting from other distractions, experiencing the hardness and the humor with one of my soulies, the sense of ancient souls around me, it must have been just what I needed in that time and space. 

Mark Adams has written it quite articulately: For the first time since dropping out of graduate school, I remembered an unpleasant weekend spent struggling to comprehend the philosopher Immanuel Kant's explanation of the difference between calling something beautiful and calling it sublime. Nowadays, we throw around the word 'sublime' to describe gooey desserts or overpriced handbags. In Kant's epistemology it meant something limitless, an aesthetically pleasing entity so huge that it made the perceiver's head hurt. Machu Picchu isn't just beautiful, it's sublime.