I’d trained for months and I couldn’t climb the stairs without getting winded. They led up to the terrace of the ancient fortress high up on the mountains overlooking the city, and as my heart thump thumped I rested against the gray stone walls, each one chiseled neatly into the next, mortarless and smooth.
Down below, past the row of pine trees, lay the orange tiled roofs of Cusco backlit by the Andes, the open square of the Plaza de Armas the only missing puzzle-piece in the jigsaw of the city. That’s where I’d walked up from, navigating the winding streets with a folded up map and help from friendly locals. The entrance to the fortress was up a hill, but it had been too steep so I had had to rest halfway up, buying an Inca Cola from a street vendor and sitting in a green plastic lawn chair on the shoulder watching as cars zip past the retaining wall plastered in smiling faces of people running for office in the upcoming election.
Machu Picchu was lower, I told myself, over 3,000 feet lower than Cusco. It would be easier to breathe. I watched the people walking through the Plaza de Armas and my breathing became heavier again as I thought about the hiking map. No, it wasn’t the highest. I should stop lying to myself. Dead Woman’s Pass was higher. The map, peaked like the profile of a face, had one sharp climb upward to the nose, then down again to the lower twin peaks of the lips. They were all higher than Cusco.
Yesterday had been worse. The headache had started just off the plane and had pounded on my temples so loudly that I had woken up at night to see if someone were trying to get in my room. There were no windows or TV, just a small bed with a cross over it like an old convent, with a door leading out to a shared balcony surrounding a white courtyard and fountain.
There hadn’t been a sign for the hotel and I’d only been able to find it because I had given up carrying the weight of my bag from the airport and had paid for a pedicab. The driver stopped in front of a set of huge wooden doors, arched at the top and held together with medieval irons, and then pulled a knob out from the wall that extended out into a string. When he released it, a bell rang on the inside and a smiling woman opened a smaller door cut out from the larger one so that I had to duck down to get in which caused me to get woozy and sit with my head in my hands before I could check in.
My heart was quieter now. I pushed two fingers up against my neck and felt the steady rhythm through my jugular, my blood pumping the thin air into my veins, not understanding why it needed more. My body would need three days to learn to work with this altitude and then I would begin my hike. Three days to ease into it. I was making progress.
The next morning the climb up the steep street outside of the hotel was a bit easier. I washed down an altitude sickness pill with a guzzle from my water bottle, then threw it and the rest of the pills into the daypack with my camera. I walked past the main streets lined with locals selling souvenirs to tourists and crossed into the back streets of the city where the bus to Ollantaytambo was picking up passengers. It would take about an hour to get there and would help my body adapt to the Andes by taking me up in altitude over the mountains and then down again to the city. I climbed in to the back seat of the white minivan and was followed in by a group of Quechua women wearing black fedoras and brightly colored scarves. They spoke amongst themselves, the woman next to me leaning forward to the edge of the seat to have her words heard.
The van drove up out of the old city and into the suburbs, past corrugated tin roof shops and open-air markets with stray dogs nosing through discard trash, cutting off other cars and waving to people at the bus stops to wait for the next one since we were full. I waited for the headaches or the double beat of my heart as we climbed up, but I only felt the excitement of the city in my stomach and then a release as it all began to fade away and transform into fields of rolling green and tilled earth.
They dropped me off outside the city and then sped away to the deeper parts of the mountains. Up ahead a wall of stepped terraces from the ancient Incan city loomed over the small streets still paved in cobblestones and lined with working aqueducts. I followed the rushing water towards its source, tracing the neat canals still in place after five centuries, powered only by gravity and clean enough to drink from, until I was standing at the base of Temple Hill and looking up at the cascade of steps. I took a deep breath.
There were more than a dozen terraces cut into the hill, each one joined to the next across the flat expanse of green by a set of exposed steps that led to the summit and to the religious heart of the city. The gods in Peru lived in the sky and I would have to climb to see them. I took another sip from my water bottle and then started up the steps.
After the first few sets of stairs my heart was beginning to thump thump again, but instead of stopping I breathed in slowly and focused my gaze on the stones. Unlike the precision-cut stonework of the ceremonial buildings, the walls were utilitarian and made of fieldstones stacked together and mortared, put together with what they could find. As I climbed I brushed the moss that grew between the cracks with my hands so that by the time I reached the top the soil had collected all under my fingernails.
I took a seat in a building-less doorway, on a stoop where the entrance had once been and where only a transom held up by two columns remained. Behind me lay the valley from where I’d come, the town of Ollantaytambo and Cusco far beyond it. Ahead of me lay the mountains and the beginning of the trail to Machu Picchu. I reached for my camera, but when I pulled it out of my bag it was wet, and I saw that I hadn’t properly sealed my water bottle and it had leaked over everything.
I quickly dumped out the bag, still dry to touch on the outside, and wiped down my camera with my shirt. It turned on for an instant, then flashed a red light and wouldn’t start again. I pulled out the memory card and tucked it into my pocket to dry, hoping I could still save the pictures stored on it when I got back to Cusco. But I might not be able to get them back, I thought, they may be gone for good.
I looked out to where I would be hiking the next day. The pictures from my first few days in Peru might be gone, but it didn’t really matter. The real challenge lay ahead, on the trail, and all that had happened had been in preparation for it. I was going to start fresh. I put my fingers on my jugular and listed to my heart. Thump thump. Thump thump. The water had washed me clean.
