My Machu Picchu moment

A lifelong sense of childhood wonder cannot but become a raging obsession as you approach your dying-of-the-light autumnal years.

I can tell exactly when Machu Picchu entered my imagination, long before keeping bucket lists or places to see before you die became a growth industry. It wasn’t modern high-pressure tourism that drove me across the globe to Peru; it was a matter of turning juvenile dreams of adventure into belated reality.

I can remember exactly when I first read of the Incas and their mysterious civilization high up in the Andes mountains of South America. I was in grade school in Mindanao, a 10-year-old kid whose only refuge from rural boredom was a small parish library run by a portly Irish Jesuit priest from New York.

Fr. Joseph Reith was a jolly but domineering man with whom my dad had a love-hate relationship over many years. Dad was in his Masonic stage, an ardent Rectonian who was prickly about issues nationalistic and anti-imperialist. Fr. Reith was the American godfather of conservative Bukidnon Catholics who equated nationalism with communism and behaved in the holier-than-thou manner.

But Dad was the only real dentist within 100 kilometers radius (there were two quacks everybody avoided like the plague) and was never in want of patients. Between his lucrative livelihood and his passionate beliefs, he was practical enough not to open his mouth too often or too unwisely.

Because I loved to read and he wanted peace with Dad, Fr. Reith gave me free rein in his small kingdom of books and magazines. His library occupied the ground floor of the convent a block from our house. It was literally crammed from floor to ceiling with an incredible hoard of reading materials that kept being replenished by monthly shipments from the priest’s ardent benefactors halfway around the world.

Very few kids frequented the place because swimming in the Sawaga River or climbing fruit trees seemed more enjoyable.  Because I was born myopic, I took to wearing thick eyeglasses early and was clumsy at sports activities. One day at baseball I got hit smack in the face and my eyeglasses broke into pieces. The thought of being blinded for life made me decide that the less-hazardous library was where I really belonged after school hours and on weekends.

I loved history, biography, heroic tales and poetry. I was not attracted to fiction, science, or mystery books.  Apart from National Geographic, my favorite magazines were Life, Look and Saturday Evening Post. My view of the world was shaped by the great photos in those glossy magazines and by Hollywood movies which were always twin-billed in the town’s one and only nipa-thatched movie theater. We were in deep Cebuano-Visayan territory and Tagalog movies were seldom shown when I was growing up.

Looking back, Machu Picchu stood out because it represented  a “lost civilization” high up in the mountains, something like three kilometers up in the sky. Mindanao’s answer to Baguio, our pine-scented town of  Malaybalay, was only a third of that in altitude and it was already considered too cold and too high up in the mountains. But for a gold-rich civilization of stone houses to exist far higher  up than ours was a pretty dazzling idea. I looked at photos of the vertical cliffs of Machu Picchu set against the distant snow-capped Andes and wondered about what sort of people the Incas were all about.

Like the Incas, the Filipinos were conquered by the Spaniards and were reduced to vassalage and underdevelopment. Young as I was and influenced by my parents’ nationalist sensitivities I identified with the Incas as well as the other great Indian empires of the Americas that I got to know about in the same period—the Aztecs and Mayas of Mexico.

The idea of resisting conquest and of sticking to a way of life of your own always appealed to me. I always wondered about how the Spaniards and Europeans managed to subdue and even obliterate civilizations as advanced, if not more advanced than theirs. Perhaps it was a matter of weaponry, of guns and artillery over bows and arrows and catapults. Or perhaps fatal betrayals and poisonous divisions among the invaded people who were otherwise larger in number and on home grounds at that. Or perhaps that was simply the law of life—the inevitable rise and fall of empires.

If Rome could fall, why not all the other empires in history?

The story of the Incas actually introduced me to a whole range of lost civilizations and ancient cities, the  ruins of which in later centuries were unearthed from the jungle, desert  and other exotic locations. I went to Rome and saw  the Colosseum  when I was 23. A few years later I saw Stonehenge on the Salisbury Plains and the Viking diggings in York, England. Before I turned 30, I explored Teotihuacan of the Aztecs and Chichen-Itza, Uxmal and Palenque of the Mayas.  Then I moved on to the Great Pyramids of Giza, Angkor Wat, Ephesus, Pergamun, Xian and Borobudur.

Until May 2013, Machu Picchu, the first  doomed civilization that got me all fired up with curiosity, counted as the most unreachable of the must-see destinations I had set for myself many years ago.

Well, South America  has always been very out of the way for Asians and Filipinos. Europe and North America have always been more accessible. Even the Middle East where  stopovers had to be made  between Asia, Europe and Africa. Not even Australia seemed more out of range than the vast and violent continent of  Bolivar, San Martin and Sucre.

If you’re coming from Asia, practical considerations like extra expense and flying hours present daunting obstacles. You first have to go to America, Europe or Australia, and from there take another flight just as long and exhausting to South America. Think of your roundtrip Manila-Lima economy ticket at $2,500 minimum. Some two days going and two days coming back on the plane, even if you’re on business class, would reduce you to a zombie or nervous wreck.

Remember, too, that  the present Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile — once the core of the Incan  empire — rank among the highest countries in the world with Tibet and Nepal. Altitude sickness is bound to hit you at some point and the lack of oxygen could be life-threatening or, at the very least, a vacation-spoiler. You’ll be gasping for breath and can’t move too fast without tripping over.

The ultimate test, of course, and the main reason you go through this grand aggravation of a vacation is to behold Machu Picchu (“Old Mountain”). You submit to the weird arrangements and pay through the nose or just stay home and save yourself a lot of expense and grief.

You may fly straight to Cusco, the city with an airport closest to Machu Picchu, from some cities in Chile, Brazil or Argentina. But the preferred way is through the Peruvian capital of Lima on the South Pacific Coast.

Once the seat of a fabulously rich and powerful Spanish viceroyalty second only to Mexico, Lima is a lovely metropolis that was built on the ruins of an Incan city just like modern Mexico City today sits on the ruins of Montezuma’s capital.

Set on a cliff a few-kilometers east of the Pacific, Lima harks back to a 16th century colonial capital city whose western extensions (Miraflores, San Isidro, Barranco) closer to the water are showcases of Latin modernity and sophistication. Glitzy condominium high-rises and suburban villas evoking Miami and the South of  France hardly give hints of Inca civilization. But pride in the nation’s past is reflected in avant-garde design, furniture and cuisine. Cosmopolitan pleasures make Lima a great watering hole for foreign visitors before or after obligatory  pilgrimages to the highlands in the south and closer to the Andes.

Going to Machu Picchu is not cheap. The hour-long Lima-Cusco flight is $260 roundtrip or you twiddle your thumbs on a 24-hour bus trip through countless ravines and endless wastelands.

Cusco was the old capital of the Inca empire over which the Spanish conquerors built another 16th-century city like Lima but with a decidedly more Incan character. It is hilly unlike Lima which is flat; its red tile roofs give you the feel of old Castille or Andalusia. The Incan character is in the people, the vast majority being natives with sharp noses and brown complexion. Mestizos or half-castes are few and full-blooded whites even rarer. It’s no surprise that Peru’s recent political leaders have either been brown-skinned or even Japanese like the now-disgraced and imprisoned President Fujimori.

Like the Cambodians who revere Angkor Wat, the Peruvians regard Machu Picchu as a national treasure and prime foreign-exchange earner and, therefore, to be protected from crass commercialism, vandalism and exploitation.

There are only two ways to get to the great ruins from Cusco: on a four-hour lumberingly slow railroad or a hectic four-day trek on the Inca Trail high up in the mountains. Both culminate at Aguas Calientes, a small town at the base of the high cliffs where Machu Picchu is located.

Roundtrip train tickets go for $150  or all the way up to $500 for the fancy train with overnight stay at a pricey inn right outside the ruins. The price is justified by the fact that German engineers in the 1920s created a single track through a series of canyons; on one side a rampaging river and on the other 45-degree cliffs shrouded in lush vegetation.

The overland trek costs $400 per person but porters carry baggage, tents and food supplies; all you need is to walk and meditate as you wend up and down the old  highway in the sky that used to connect the empire from Ecuador down to Bolivia and Chile. On your last day, your arrival is timed just before sunrise so you can behold the lost city as it emerges from the mist and gets kissed by the sun.

Those who arrive at the base camp by train at noon have no energy to go up after lunch when it gets depressingly cloudy or rains hard. They invariably opt to acclimatize to the thin air and prepare for the assault up the cliff the next morning when the sun comes up. Dining options are rather limited with ticky-tacky restaurants offering exactly the same meat or fish set menus pegged at $6. Hotels and lodging houses, nothing fancy, start at $30 for the night.

Going up to the ruins sets you back $18.50 roundtrip on the bus monopoly. Again, you can try to save money and walk up the one-lane road with hairpin turns every 10 meters. Less than a thousand meters ascent from top to bottom could take 30 minutes on that roller-coaster bus or four hours uphill climb on foot. Take your choice.

One-time entrance fee up there is $44 with 50percent off for students with valid IDs. If you exit or come back, you pay again. You must buy the ticket in Cusco or Lima because you will be refused at the site without one. There is only one toilet facility in the whole complex as you enter the gate and it cost 38 cents. Those who later feel the call of nature will just have to look for some hidden wall or crevice because there are no hedges and no trees to provide you any cover.

Machu Picchu is multi-level, terraced and surrounded by a formidable gathering of mountain peaks alternately touched by moody clouds, dark shadows and sudden bursts of  sunlight. You are forever going up and down parapets and walkways. The views get better as you go up and as you turn all around you in sense-surround  fashion. There are few shaded resting places with benches and these are always preempted by seniors trying to catch their breath or rest their weary limbs.

I asked an ecstatic Japanese couple in their 70s if the view they were seeing was worth the herculean effort and prohibitive expense. “It is very, very beautiful,” they chorus. “There is nothing in the world that can compare to this wonderful thing.”

A fortyish  American guy with a bemused look in his face was more reflective. “Those Incas were lunatics,” he says. “Why would they build a city so high up in the sky? Why bring all those big  stones up here when they could have lived more conveniently close to the river down below?”

All his French companion could say was: “Vive la difference! The Incas obviously had a different  way of thinking and logic from ours and it worked splendidly until the Spaniards pulled the rug from under them.”

Of Hiram Bingham, the famous Yale professor who “discovered” the ruins in 1911, our Peruvian guide was not too. “Machu Picchu was never lost,” he says somewhat disparagingly. “There were people living and planting crops here when Bingham came. He talked to people who lived down in the valley who told him that there were ruins up here and people still lived here. Of course, the Americans made a big deal of this so-called discovery, raised tons of money, cleared up the vegetation and restored some buildings and walls to give it the polished look it has today. They also carted away a lot of artifacts and relics and they got into trouble with the government in Lima.”

In fact, Bingham only made two more trips to the location between 1911 and 1915 and was eventually banned from the country. Only a few years ago did Yale University reluctantly agree to surrender some of the “stolen” artifacts to Peru.

The legend of the vanished Inca empire, however, endures to this day and has grown with each excited retelling and fresh invasion of tourists and curiosity-seekers. The trade slowed down in the 1970s and 1980s when Maoist rebels of the Sendero Luminoso group all but terrorized the country. But Fujimori wiped out this menace, the national economy revived and tourism has surged back with a vengeance.

If not for Bingham’s fanciful account and the still-arduous task  of getting up to Machu Picchu, I am told by other borncynics, these  ruins would not have made it to the very top of today’s bucket list of bucket lists. Forbidding location and sadomasochistic thrills count for much in any adventure or deal, one advantage Machu Picchu can always boast of.

No wonder on the day I made my once-in-a-lifetime visit, we seniors accounted for some 70 percent of the crowd—thrilled to the gills that we were able to make it to a commanding view of the ruins and live to tell the tale. Only conquering Mt. Everest could top that heady feeling; but that’s pure septuagenarian fantasy.

Think of the folks green with envy back home, says my newfound friend from Australia, as he sent instant photos of his toothy glorious self amid the mountainous splendor of it all on his Samsung smart phone. The naughty message — “Wish you were here!” — was calculated to send the poor guys in Melbourne rushing to the nearest travel agent to book the next flight to Peru.

I had the same cruel idea as I clicked my own vanity shots to dear friends in Makati, New York and Washington, DC. Within minutes, they answered in varying tones of awe and admiration that carried the grudging subtext of “There he goes again!”