3 days after my last beautiful experience, I did Machu Picchu and yes, it was beautiful, a perfect end to my hike. I did it slightly more unconventionally and had the place to myself. It was perfect. I dont know how to explain the experience, other than, imagine sitting totally alone on a mountain top surrounded by clound in the morning light, patches of distant hills appearing and dissappearing through the silent mist. It begins to rain and you wandered down 2000 steps to mingle with ancient stone walls and buildings, the edge of this world dropping hundreds of meters to cloud forest and a twisting river that encircles this peninsular. The first place you come to is a huge carved funeral rock, with a top flat surface that would have held the dead bodies of kings as they were mumified. A few meters more and an eerie sentinel house, the hut of the care taker of this rock, looms over the whole complex, narrow and tall, vague in the mist.
More wanderings amoungst the un-prepaired, cheap poncho clad tourists brings you to beautifully aranged buildings with intricate stone work, temples for wind and sun and moon and water. Perfect channels taking a trickle of water under, through, down and around rocks and paths and walls.
I exhausted the sights at mid day and headed back down the 400 meters of spets and paths to the river below, pack up my life again in to my backpack and set off walking down the train tracks to Cusco, to save me the insanely expensive train ride. The following day i complete the journey on buses and arrive at the belly button of the world, to stalk the fusion of inca and spanish streets, neetly cleaned and de-personed for the tourists.
Now I am on my 15 day excurtion to Santiago in Chile to meet up with a frind there for 2 and a half months, my route takes my to the Isla de la Sol on Lake Titicaca, down through the Bolivial Salt Flats, in to Argentina, desserts, mountains and wine growing country, before crossing west to Santiago. Hopefully all hitch hiking. A bit faster paced traveling now! x
Thursday 22 September 2011
Sunday 11 September 2011
Choquequerou to Machu Picchu
Im walking in the cool after-rain morning. The sun sieved through the after-rain clouds. The mountains he now rests on one of many green and laden in the unscorched hours, that dissapear in turn in to the distant blue haze, way down the valley.
The path Im on, a wet dirt road coils through the cloud forest, above a stoney maountain fed river. The tributarys, some rushing down from steep floow washed valleys, others tubmble in a tangle of branches and thankful plants through pools and waterfalls.
From the road margins spring grass and docks and weed plants, digesting the sun and road clearing brings to them, but just a meter in, the forst floors autumnal, homely in its brown leaf coating, tantalised by the smell of cooking fires and wet earth. From the lef mound shoot the lanks branches of coffee, sparingly adourned with leafs and closely held red and green berrys. The classic torn banana leafs thrust up above these, and draped with velvet purple fibonachi chandeliers. And just there, a quiet reminder that this is a jungle sit in their infinite wisdom, old growth canopy trees, protective and towering, hung with ferns and moss.
The air around always filled with the rivers flow, upstaged by the chirps from the undergrowth, chatter from the canopy and infected with shrill song from goodness knows where as parrots dart in florecent groups from tree to tree. A cockeral adds its odd announcement to the mix. And behind me my back pack creaks rhythmically as i search the skyline for The Lost City Of The Incas, after 2 1/2 months, now not half a day away.
The Eden Project in real. Small wooden houses peek from the shading and a motor bike putters past me, school uniformed girl on the back. No Smiles, too many tourists here, but I imagine at least the chickens are smiling as they scratch in the forests leafs. x
The path Im on, a wet dirt road coils through the cloud forest, above a stoney maountain fed river. The tributarys, some rushing down from steep floow washed valleys, others tubmble in a tangle of branches and thankful plants through pools and waterfalls.
From the road margins spring grass and docks and weed plants, digesting the sun and road clearing brings to them, but just a meter in, the forst floors autumnal, homely in its brown leaf coating, tantalised by the smell of cooking fires and wet earth. From the lef mound shoot the lanks branches of coffee, sparingly adourned with leafs and closely held red and green berrys. The classic torn banana leafs thrust up above these, and draped with velvet purple fibonachi chandeliers. And just there, a quiet reminder that this is a jungle sit in their infinite wisdom, old growth canopy trees, protective and towering, hung with ferns and moss.
The air around always filled with the rivers flow, upstaged by the chirps from the undergrowth, chatter from the canopy and infected with shrill song from goodness knows where as parrots dart in florecent groups from tree to tree. A cockeral adds its odd announcement to the mix. And behind me my back pack creaks rhythmically as i search the skyline for The Lost City Of The Incas, after 2 1/2 months, now not half a day away.
The Eden Project in real. Small wooden houses peek from the shading and a motor bike putters past me, school uniformed girl on the back. No Smiles, too many tourists here, but I imagine at least the chickens are smiling as they scratch in the forests leafs. x
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