ON THE TRAIL OF THE INCAS
But then in my calmer and more collected moments I did have to remind myself that if anything happened to Myrtle, I would not have my best friend and my all-time-favorite traveling companion, maddening as she is. Who else could spout off all those fascinating facts about the places we were seeing, so that little old me would never have to bother reading a guidebook? Who else could be crazy enough to actually have fun or put some zing and magic into the experiences we were having?
Who else would have stood with me on a section of the Inca Trail at dawn one day stretching our arms out wide as we whistled the refrain from El Condor Pasa?
Our whistles were a bit thin and wobbly and off key, to tell you the truth, and for sure our fellow hikers were giving us some odd looks, but at that moment that whistling was more beautiful to me than any pan flute I have ever heard.
The sun was cresting the mountain like the powerful god it is, shearing off the filmy tails of the clouds that were swirling around Machu Picchu below us and inviting the ruins to appear and disappear in the mists.
And then when that condor flew over, high, high up above us and I shivered as its shadow fell on us, well, I had an out-of-body experience even without falling down the mountain!
Unfortunately, my Myrtle did have to interrupt my state of rapture and bring me back down to earth with more of her arcane facts. “Did you know that the Condor’s wingspan can be 12 feet and it is the only bird in the world that flies to 25,000 feet other than a hummingbird?”
At this point I did come up with what I considered a good bon mot (now isn’t THAT a classy phrase!} and I asked, “So the hummingbird rode on the Condor’s wings? Tee Hee.”
Myrtle ignored me of course. “And they found a female mummy in the room of the Altar of the Condor, where the high priest made sacrifices so that the Condor could carry souls to heaven. I bet that mummy was the last sacrifice. You know that Machu Picchu was the most important spiritual center in the Inca Empire, and that virgins were brought here from all over the Empire. Some believe that this spiritual center became a ‘house of chosen women’ who dedicated themselves to the Sun God. 75% of the skeletons found here were women. But the women did have short lives. They all died by the age of 46.”
Me – “Hmm, so the Sun God was not exactly impressive as a mate and they all just died of boredom? Tee Hee.”
Myrtle was not to be deterred. “Not likely. We know that there was a lot of incest to preserve the royal bloodline, and that there were small rooms in Machu Picchu that were the living areas of dwarf women. Researchers found a royal tomb with a tiny, very well embalmed and preserved woman.
We also know that because twins were considered unlucky, one of the twins would be sacrificed.
We know that the Incas practiced Capacocha, or the ritual sacrifice of humans, mostly children, at important events or in times of famine.
We know that a llama was sacrificed each year to ensure that the agricultural season would be fruitful, and that if the llama did not have a strongly beating heart, a teenage virgin would be sacrificed.”
And she giggled a bit as she commented, “I would imagine there was a lot of trepidation in the hearts of young girls every year when that llama was sacrificed.”
Frankly, my dears, my day would not have been significantly ruined without all this gruesome trivia. However, before I could come up with another apt bon mot, we noticed a procession coming down the trail toward us.
Two tired-looking natives were carrying a sagging stretcher between them, and three other people were slowly following.
Myrtle and I quickly got off the trail a bit to let them pass, and we learned from the two young men and one young woman following the stretcher that the body weighing it down was their hiking companion who had become stricken with severe altitude sickness two days prior, following four days of hiking. The porters had been carrying her, plus her backpack and their own, for two full days. Wow! From what I could see, she was bigger than either of them.
Then a middle-aged couple came down the trail, sort of dazed and staggering. The woman passed right by us and kept doggedly putting one foot in front of the other. The man stopped to chat a bit and said they were both 69 years old and were totally exhausted. He shook his head soberly as he said, “Don’t EVER try to hike the Inca Trail in the rainy season.”
So, as you probably guessed, Myrtle and I quietly turned around.
Not that we are wimps or anything. I choose to believe our maturity has brought us wisdom, which, by the way, is the function of the third part of the Inca Trinity, the snake, the other two being the Condor representing Spirit and the Puma representing Power.
I gloated a bit as I recounted this bit of trivia for Myrtle, but it didn’t impress her.
She only started looking down at her feet a lot and hurrying down the trail as I tried to remember if poisonous snakes can live at this altitude. The answer, of course, is that they can if there is enough moisture in the environment.
As usual Myrtle was a step ahead of me and called back, “Watch where you put your feet. Snakes like humid environments.”
I was glad she did not have snakes on the brain the day our guide took us to the famous Sacsayhuaman fortress ruins near Cusco because it looked to me like that place was a perfect environment for them.
Our guide told us it would be easy to remember the name of this holy site. All we had to do was remember Sexy Woman. OK then – Sexy Woman for a holy site? Hmmm. Works for me! I knew Myrtle would not let that one alone.
We dutifully smiled and followed our guide through the ruins, learning a lot of stuff that I knew I would never remember because all the while we walked around, I was wondering what Myrtle was hatching in that little brain of hers.
Anyway, for those of you who really want to know, this Sacsayhuaman fortress is at an elevation of 11,600 feet going up to 12,000 feet, and I do not recommend it for anyone with legs shorter than four feet because the steps are at least a foot high.
Test question for those of you who are excellent students (you know who you are!) How did those Incas, who were, if I was informed correctly, a bit height-challenged, manage those high steps?
Unfortunately, you are on your own here, dear reader, because I do not know the answer – SORRY!
We learned that Sacsayhuaman was never a fortress but was an important spiritual center for the Incas, that the name Sacsayhuaman means “satisfied hawk”, that the structure is unique in the world, that it is thought to have the world’s heaviest stone, estimated at 361 tons, and the world’s tallest stone, that the main door is 15-20 feet tall, and that the Spaniards killed the Inca engineers who had built it because they thought the engineers had to be demons. Well, so much for excellence on the job, right?!
I guess the Spaniards were convinced that it was impossible for mere humans to build something like Sacsayhuaman Fortress.
But that did not seem to deter them from plundering its stones to build their churches. That unfortunate practice continued until the 1930s, and today less than 30% of the original structure of Sacsayhuaman is left. I could see Myrtle puffing up about that one, and I pretended to trip to try to distract her.
We also learned that the zig-zag exterior of the structure
represents the teeth of the puma, that in 1934 the first excavation was done, that in 1979 the site received UNESCO status, and that during excavation a few years ago they found 14 bodies at Sacsayhuaman.
What impressed me the most about the whole day, however, was the Inca laws. There were only three: Don’t steal, Don’t lie, Don’t be lazy. How simple is THAT?! Life must have been so uncomplicated! If you were caught doing any of those three things, you were just tossed off the highest mountain like a bucket of slop.
I started to wonder just who got to decide if a person was being lazy, but before I got very far down that road, I was interrupted by some loud singing, by guess who?
“Sexy Woman, you are so complete,
Sexy Woman, I truly love your feet,
Sexy Woman, you do amaaaaaaze me,
Your size and godlike strength do craaaaze me,
There is absolutely no one just like you-ou-ou-ou-ou.
Ta da da da da da da da.”
Of course she started all this as we walked behind our Favorite Travel Companion (Not), who soon turned around and snarled, “For Christ’s sake, you old bat! Shut up!”
And he walked off in a huff. Well, just between you and me, dear reader, he’s just a grumpy old fart. But he did buy me and Myrtle several really good Pisco Sours the other night, so I guess he’s not all bad.
I personally enjoyed Myrtle’s impromptu concert, at least until our guide put a stop to it. Then I wondered if our guide would now have to find a new mnemonic to help her charges remember how to pronounce Sacsayhuaman.
But at least it took Myrtle’s mind off having to go potty.
To be continued…