Emeralds and Ruins

Everywhere throughout the Peruvian Andes, from Machu Picchu's tropical, 6000-foot-high climate to the dry-arid Lago Titicaca at more than 12,000, each town and tiny village boasts emeralds and ruins: A fertile Pachamama's embrace of Pachapapa's naturally destructive hand.

Plumping up for the winter to come

Especially at summer's end during this rainy month of March, Mother Earth's fecundity is in high form in the high plains—the altiplanos—where wildflowers and lavender and chrysanthemums bloom in riotous color. Water overflowing from Lake Titicaca swamps rich, cultivated fields sprouting corn and potatoes, Peru's agricultural gift to the universe. In fact, at least 40 different kinds of potatoes are intrinsic to the cuisine, depending on recipe.

Storm clouds darken the green plains of Chachani volcano above Arequipa

Mountains towering even above these plains are full of green shrubs and cedars and green, green weeds and grasses to plump up llamas and alpacas for the soon-to-come winter.

Way up here, Patchapapa has laid his cracked, brown hands on Inca temples, some of which date back to archeological ruins in Pukara (0-500 A.D.), well before King Pachacutec's high Inca empire and Machu Pichcu, a most well maintained national park. Yet many ruins stand about unattended; a roofless structure here, a low, meandering stone fence that goes nowhere.

Stones cut for the gods are topped with adobe bricks used by mere morals at the preserved Wiracocha temple in Roaqi, Peru

If a town of, say, 200 people can't lay claim to abandoned ruins or at the least a sacrificial altar then almost always it has a colonial church, or indeed, three or four churches. In one otherwise nondescript village, Andahuaylillas, renovation of San Pedro Cathedral is in full swing. Built circa 1575, the excessively Baroque church (can Baroque be excessive?) challenges St. Peter's in Salzburg, Austria. In Peru, though, this church touts 22-carat-gold leafing on statues and crosses, ceiling beams and huge portrait frames, besting even Cuzco's primary basilica, which is five times the size and gilt through and through with, ahem, 18-carat gold.

Unfortunately, some of the country's ruins are contemporary. Cities like Juliaca or the outskirts of Arequipa harbor hundreds of thousands in shanty-town squalor, a lifestyle that jars senses heavily and blurs the memory of stone cut so precisely a knife blade can't pierce foundation joints.

Tom ponders ancient construction at the Santa Catalina Convent in Arequipa

Ollantaytambo and Aquas Calientes are cities steeped in ancient culture, but these days, they are mostly staging towns for Machu Picchu tourism. Full of hustle and bustle and cheap cinder-block hostels, they're reminiscent of Alaska's boom-bust mining towns.

Contemporary Aquas Calientes

Puno, the gateway to Lake Titicaca, exhibits a similar frenzy of coarseness and youthfulness; backpackers and teenage, native Peruvians bundled with babies on backs. Lots of them; uncut emeralds, truly green among the ruins of hunched old ladies, bent in half from decades of hard labor backpacking bundles of wood, potatoes, reeds up impossibly steep roadsides.

Motorized boats amidst Lake Titicaca's floating islands

Even the ancient culture of Uros, where six or seven families currently live on each of the 49 floating-reed islands in Lake Titicaca, embraces the here-and-now as much as the past. Of course, little old ladies still huddle together to admire their fine embroidering, but motorized reed boats a la Kon-Tiki and solar panels on some thatch houses are something to think about.

I Can See Key West from Here

At roughly 6000 feet, Machu Picchu is certainly not the highest elevation in the world, but it is surely among the highest locations spiritually. Even if you don't necessarily find God here, you might find yourself in this thin place, as defined by NY Times writer Eric Weiner: mesmerizing for sure, with less than six degrees of separation between heaven and earth,..

Huffing and puffing thin air, standing at the edge of sheer cliffs and contemplating ancient architecture, you have to be brain dead not to rethink past, present and future possibilities. The following photos say a lot about the essence of place and politics, surrounded by the myth and mystery of mankind, but I'd be hard pressed to say that one picture is worth a thousand words. Of course, a thousand words on Machu Picchi may be forthcoming.

Huanyna Picchu is probably the world's most recognized mountain peak amidst Vilcabamba, one of the most unknown mountain ranges in Peru's Andes.

Architecture worthy of gods; its stones so carefully cut and stacked, knife blades can't slip between joints

A city for all times; at least 500 years' worth

Contemplating the universe

Tom contemplating the Sacred Valley

Chinchilla contemplating dinner

Antique terraces Inca style for gardening and agriculture; the economic base

Park rangers maintaining structures in Machu Picchu... 

Because Patchamama's seedlings are ever present..

the before...

and after!

Head Scratching Moment in Peru

At nearly two miles high, the headache's gone, thanks to Hotel Monasterio's oxygenated room. Of course, the two 12-hour nights of dead-man sleep probably helped, and for sure my soul is renourished by music: a classical guitarist who plays at breakfast each morning; the opera soprano who sang from the hotel's restaurant pulpit during Tuesday night's dinner, and last night, by the string quartet in the chapel.

Cuarteto de Camara practices in the chapel at Hotel Monasterio

The concert was fabulous: Two hundred people crowd into the golden gilt, religiously-iconated 14^thcentury hall to hear Cuarteto de Camara play Haydn and Halvorsen, Bach and Schubert. The concert is worthy of Key West's Impromptu Classical Concerts, which on March 4 hosted the world-renown protege, pianist Conrad Tao. In Cuzco, though, half the concert goers are under age 30, and when the chapel's huge wooden doors creak shut for the performance at 7p.m., a door-pounding performance takes place by folks stranded outside, who want to get inside.

What an elegant mob scene. Almost entirely local.

The tourist scene, on the other hand, is generally less mobbed in March, the end of the the South American summer. Rainy days and nights are normal; temps range between 60 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Tom and I have been weather lucky; the occasional sun ray plows through roiling gray clouds for some most-appreciated moments of vitamin D. Rain or shine, the lure outdoors to hike about the City is irresistible. The steep streets and narrow back alleys are as intriguing as they are intoxicating; in fact, a breath-gasping exercise in lung development that reveals how Tomcito's high-Andean training made him a 2008 Triple Crown contender.

Textured mix of stones and slate indoors and out

I am, of course, not so sure footed. The headaches may be gone, but a lingering sense of altitude impairment lurks behind each trip over a cobble-stone curb, each slip across a slate or highly glazed interior brick floor. Most surface textures are intricate and uneven, even when my sense of balance is balanced. But centuries-old cities like Cuzco attain antique status precisely because they evolve from hard, hard building material. Reflected in the architecture is the solidity of granite and gray slate, clay-tiled roofs and massive brown, cut blocks of stone, not to mention a pervasive monotone.

Colorful family wearing colorful fibers

Cusquenians challenge such dullness with flashy fibers—vibrantly colored blankets and wraps, ear-flappy hats with braided ties, fingerless gloves, embroidered skirts—all natural materials, woven with cotton and wool from alpaca and vicuna.

Marybelle displays an endangered vicuna pelt in her fibers shop

Oops! No mas vicuna. Because this wild camalid has been over harvested, Peru protects vicuna and its lush, downlike fur. The super-soft baby alpaca, which is domesticated and sheered, is vicuna's fashionably trendy replacement. En route to Banco da la Nacion, Tom and I drop into a city park, where Mama Llama greets us with a few grunts and spits and hisses. In the distance, a couple of alpaca, or is that vicuna? happily harvest the terraces' grass.

            Mama Llama greets us in a Cuzco city park

This lovely cultural moment transitions into a real headache at the bank when we try to prepay our $64-per-person park tickets for tomorrow's entrance into Machu Picchu: After a half hour queue the bank cashier refuses to accept our credit cards. That's right, no US credit available at Peru's national bank. Even more head scratching: Because she accepts cash for MaPicchu tickets, the cashier then refuses to trade Peruvian soles for US dollars. She explains there's a daily exchange limit—banks only accept $4US in trade—and obviously, the two-day, $128 pass has already over taxed the bank's assets.

Can we thank the US credit downgrade for this, or are we at war with Peru?

Not Tonight Honey

"Honey, I have a headache" is a given in these parts. But because I almost never get headaches I didn't think much about altitude sickness, even after a half dozen or so conversations with people who suffered the malady. Not even when Mary, a Spanish teacher from Pennsylvania sitting next to me on the early morning LAN Air flight that descends into Cuzco, Peru says, "Man, the pilot doesn't have to drop down much to make a landing here."

Cuzco rooftops behind Hotel Monestario

Tucked into an Andean valley at 11,000 feet, this antique city boasts a half million people and among them, Carlos a native Cusquenian who works at the Hotel Monasterio figures that headaches are a standard mode of operation: "Especially when I go to higher altitudes," he says.

My friend Tom anticipated the possibility of headaches so he booked the first three of our 24 nights in Peru at the Monasterio. Three days of glorious pampering and acclimating. This is especially prudent because the hotel's driver snags us instantly at the airport, amidst the chaos of taxi drivers hawking rides: One headache saved. The trip is quick to the heart of Old Town and Hotel Monastario, built in 1595 on the site of the Palace of Inca Amaru Qhata. It is a national landmark. It's also one of the few hotels in the world that infuses its rooms with oxygen-enriched air to help temper the impact of altitude sickness.

My first clue that I'm getting high is not a headache, but rather the slowly developing loss of balance--an unnerving problema in the land of mountains and Machu Picchu. After a cup of coca tea I feel absolutely airheaded, almost like I'm about to fall off the chair--time for an oxygen-enriched room.

Paititi hidden in stone galleries at Plaza de Armas

Four hours of sleep and no food since 9 a.m. sends us scouting into the evening air and through the plethora of narrow, cobble-stone streets and open-air plazas. We find Paititi, a fine little pizzaria hidden in ancient stone galleries across from the Plaza de Armas. Fausto, the owner, informs us Paititi is an Incan city that has been pursued by many, but found by none. The wine and pizza is a lifesaver; Fausto a true gentleman, who wishes us many more Paititis on our Andean adventures.

Tom in search of oxygen

Then Tom announces what we need to search for most is oxygen: He has a headache.