The Amateur Archeologist Mecca

That’s right folks, after only 10 short months on the southern side of the Americas, I made it to the amateur archeologist Mecca, Machu Picchu – it rocked!! I say amateur archeologist Mecca because at this site anyone can be an archeologist. This is not to put down the real professional archeologists, because they have done a thorough job with this site, excavating, reconstruction, restoring and theorizing. They probably even have some very good, maybe even valid theories about this place, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of mysteries remain about how they constructed this place, why they constructed it and how and who used it. But the site is in incredible shape and is extremely tourist friendly, allowing one to wander around almost completely unbounded in this archeological Inca fun park. I must say that after spending 2 days walking all around the site and watching all the other tourist walking around the site, really there is only one natural conclusion to come to; that was the purpose of this place, it is a Mecca. People have been flowing to this spot from around the world since its discovery and opening to the public (discovered approx 1930 and I am unsure when it was open to tourist) and I imagine that the Inca did the same thing. The fact of the matter is that this spot is incredibly powerful and it literally draws people towards it, with its reputation of awesomeness spreading about the world like wildfire, and I will now do my part as an amateur archeologist and amateur photographer to spread my little flame to contribute to the wildfire.

It was awesome! The whole trip really was awesome, okay I could have lived without the altitude sickness, but the awesomeness of everything thoroughly overrode the sickness part. Maybe the best part was that my parents came down to Peru, along with their friends Dick and Bryna, and it was so refreshing to see all of them. Like some of you, they were a little skeptical of my whole falling in love with a Chilean thing, but I think time will show my love the victor in that battle. It was a huge relief and a joy just to give them both a big hug upon their arrival and of course we had a great time exploring these amazing Inca sites together.

We started in Cuzco, a beautiful city (maybe a little too high in the mountains for my sea blood) with the Inca at its foundations and colonization as a substructure, both literally and culturally. My favorite story from this city was a piece of history from a Dominican Church and Monastery. Now from the exterior this church clearly sits on an Inca Acropolis, with the perfect Inca stonework at the base with the colonial crappy architecture on top.

Now I say crappy not just because I naturally don’t like the conquistadors because they raped and pillaged a beautiful culture, but also because the earth gods agree with me. You see in 1651 the earth god shook the earth fairly fiercely perhaps trying to tell the bastardly Spaniards to go back to where they came from, but naturally their gold greedy eyes did not get the message. They proceeded to rip down the temple of the sun in the Inca spiritual acropolis to build a church and then constructed a monastery on top of the temples to the moon, the stars and lightning/thunder. Now the earth god laid low for a while, but exactly 300 years later in 1951 he again shook the earth fiercely and the Spanish substructure of this complex literally crumbled to its base while the Inca stonework, in its perfection, remained completely intact and beautiful. Thus the real genius was revealed at a time when Peru was ready and able to embrace its roots, having triumphed over the Spanish, sort of. Well, they rebuilt the church because all that lay below it was the foundation of the temple of the sun, but the other 3 temples stood with all 4 walls and they rebuilt the exterior of the monastery but only to protect the Inca structures within and now it is a cool museum with a cool story. Of course you can’t really take pictures there, dammit! But the story will have to suffice.

The other highlight of Cuzco was sexiwoman, oh I mean Sacsayhuaman which is the famous jagged wall constructed with gigantic stones that sits on a hill above Cuzco. Again the great enigma of this place is how the hell they constructed it. Now, the impressiveness of all this stonework (temples and Sacsayhuaman) is not just the sheer size of the stones, which is massive, but how perfectly the stones fit together, literally one cannot slip a piece of paper between these stones and they use no mortar and are perfectly flush against each other. And the even crazier part is that they are not in perfect gridlines, they have natural and irregular forms, yet they all are carved to fit together perfectly, even stones of 3 tons, now how the hell did they do that!?!

Okay, now the good part…Machu Picchu. Even the ride there on the train was spectacular traveling alongside roaring rapids and passing through mountain valleys with jagged snowcapped peaks, being a tourist can be fun. We lucked out with the weather because the first day we were there was warm but overcast and we even had a dramatic rain storm roll through the valley but not hitting us completely, therefore giving great lighting for photographing. Then the second day was clear and beautiful and sunny with the occasional cloud to create dramatic backdrops or lurking clouds clinging to mountainsides. Maybe this place was created to be photographed because I have rarely had so much fun running around and taking pictures. In case you were wondering I took approximately 600 pictures in 4 days, this should surprise none of you, but luckily for you, I narrowed them down to my favorite 100, which do not fit here, so I had to create a Kodak gallery slide show, click here if you want the full 100.

Honestly it is hard to describe this place because it was just so incredible. It is a very big site, mostly because there is just so much to see. Every corner has some amazingly beautiful view or intriguing shrine or powerful temple, I definitely needed the 2 days to make it through the whole place and feel fulfilled. Oh there are so many corners that I would like to tell you about, but I will try to narrow it down to my favorite. The Incas clearly worshiped natural forms, but also recognized the power of combining the natural forms with the geometry and cleverness of man. There are points and temples and shrines all over the site that reveal wild beams of light in very particular spots on the solstices. The sun temple (pictured above on the right) is supposedly the most important, but I was not that impressed with it, perhaps that is because it was one of the only spot in the site that was closed to tourist so I could not step inside of it and feel its power.

But my 2 favorite spots were the temple of the condor and the sacred stone. In the approach to the temple of the condor, you are forced to weave and wind through stairs and paths and then they drop you in front of a condor. You can see that on the ground is a triangular stone with a small condor beak carved at the front point of the stone, and then the rock face behind naturally spreads up behind in the form of the condor wings. Now if that isn’t cool enough, there is a cave behind the right wing that you can go into and it opens on the other side to stairs the weave to above the rock wings and there is some sort of throne like shape on the top of the rock, all the same rock as the wings. And in case that’s not bomb enough for you, when I saw it at sunrise, there is a beam of light that reaches down into the cave and touches the exact center of the cave. Hello, this is so cool! Machu Picchu is full of this shit!
Okay, so the other spot I liked was the sacred stone. It is a huge stone, perhaps 8 ft tall but the stone is very thin, maybe only about 2 ft thick. The stone was very intentionally placed here and put on a pedestal, but it does not appear as though this stone has been carved. As you will notice the natural shape of the stone mimics the form of the mountains behind!! Yeah, the Incas rocked. They seem to have understood the beauty and power of nature and clearly they were doing something right, because they did things to stone that masons today can’t even do. This sacred stone was flanked by 2 huts that I can only assume were for ceremonial/gathering use, but nowadays they serve as a nice spot in the shade on the far end of the site where one can rest and contemplate, hey maybe that’s what the Incas used them for too. Anyways, so I was innocently resting there, admiring the beauty of the stone, when a seemingly Peruvian group arrived at the stone. It was 2 women with 2 small children, and they stepped up on the pedestal and faced the stone and rested their heads against the stone and also placed their hands on the stone. This was so wonderful to see, first of all because they were some of the first Peruvians I had seen at the sight that were not working there (the place was full of gringos and Asians) and secondly because it was refreshing to see someone really paying respect to the creators of this magical place. After a few minutes they went to the hut across from me and sat down to rest and reflect upon the stone I imagine. I then watched as a young Asian man stepped up to the stone and mimicked exactly what the Peruvians had done and then he turned and smiled for the camera. I wanted to run over and smack him in the face, but I restrained myself and tried to laugh off the stupid tourist. I then sat and watched in disgust as 2 large gringas went up to the stone and did the same thing!! All with the Peruvian women right there watching! I was so ashamed and appalled, I wanted to go over and beat up the stupid gringas, or at least give them a thorough lecture about being respectful of another culture. I hate tourist sometimes, too bad I am one of them.
Back to joy of this trip though… the second day at Machu Picchu we woke up offensively early to head up to the site before the sunrise. It was a mad dash, but it was absolutely worth it. This place was clearly constructed thinking about the sunrise. As the sun came up first it hit Huaynapicchu (the large mtn/hill towering above Machu Picchu that also has a shrine built atop it), then the sun hit the main gate to the city and then it hit the high shrine/temple/sundial/sun calendar/throne (again no one knows, they just know that spot is important) and then the sun trickled down on the rest of the city. It was truly magical to watch the sun fall upon this sacred spot and walking around the site at that time of day only further enhanced the power and magic of this spot.

I hope you have enjoyed this epic of the amateur archeologist/photographer. I thoroughly reccomend this adventure to anyone who has the opportunity, it was an unforgettable adventure into the world of the Incas.