Machu Picchu, Part 4

Alturas de Machu Picchu, by Pablo Neruda

XII
Sube a nacer conmigo, hermano.
Dame la mano desde la profunda
zona de tu dolor diseminado.
No volverás del fondo de las rocas.
No volverás del tiempo subterráneo.
No volverá tu voz endurecida.
No volverán tus ojos taladrados.
Mírame desde el fondo de la tierra,
labrador, tejedor, pastor callado:
domador de guanacos tutelares:
albañil del andamio desafiado:
aguador de las lagrimas andinas:
joyero de los dedos machacados:
agricultor temblando en la semilla:
alfarero en tu greda derramado:
traed a la copa de esta nueva vida
vuestros viejos dolores enterrados.
Mostradme vuestra sangre y vuestro surco,
decidme: aquí fui castigado,

porque la joya no brilló o la tierra
no entregó a tiempo la piedra o el grano:
señaladme la piedra en que caísteis
y la madera en que os crucificaron,
encendedme los viejos pedernales,
las viejas lámparas, los látigos pegados
a través de los siglos en las llagas
y las hachas de brillo ensangrentado.
Yo vengo a hablar por vuestra boca muerta.
A través de la tierra juntad todos
los silenciosos labios derramados
y desde el fondo habladme toda esta larga noche
como si yo estuviera con vosotros anclado,
contadme todo, cadena a cadena,
eslabón a eslabón, y paso a paso,
afilad los cuchillos que guardasteis,
ponedlos en mi pecho y en mi mano,
como un río de rayos amarillos,
como un río de tigres enterrados,
y dejadme llorar, horas, días, años,
edades ciegas, siglos estelares.

Dadme el silencio, el agua, la esperanza.

Dadme la lucha, el hierro, los volcanes.

Apegadme los cuerpos como imanes.
Acudid a mis venas y a mi boca,

Hablad por mis palabras y mi sangre.

Machu Picchu, Part 3

The Main Street, Aguascalientes, Peru

I am sitting in the plaza in Aguascalientes, Municipalidad de Machu Picchu, 12:30 pm, 7/19/07.

A statue of Pachacutec Inka and a fountain. Music from a live band in a pizzeria. A mix of Peruvian traditional music and rock. Many tourists walk through lugging backpacks. Some sit. There is an ugly, hairless dog wearing a red vest. Shopkeepers lug the propane cannisters that arrived on the train through the square to their restaurants. Many policemen with guns and shields and vests and chevrons. Groups of local people dressed in red panchos and traditional hats, perhaps porters on the Inca trail. Groups of street cleaners in orange and green uniforms with green aprons, face masks, and brooms. Boys play wildly with a broken, plastic car. A child breaks a beer bottle on a step. A woman in a traditional, tall, white hat sits on a bench. All of this, every bit of it, is part of one of the largest, most charming tourist traps on this continent.

But there is also a real Aguascalientes, past the sprawling market the runs from the main street all the way up the hill to the modern train station. It is past the soccer field. Few tourists see it. It is dustier and quieter. And poorer. The real Aguascalientes has something to do with the recent two day, general strike. It has something to do with the policemen and their vests and riot shields and automatic weapons. The real Aguascalientes has graffiti denouncing Imperialism. To see it, you have to want to see it. Otherwise, it is a secret. It is not part of the most charming tourist trap on this continent.

Machu Picchu, Parts 1 and 2

7/19/07, Machu Picchu.

I.

I am sitting high on a wall overlooking dense clouds hiding the mountains. I sit just above the huge arched door. Many swallows. Many tourists. It is 8:30 am. I can feel the sun but mostly it is a damp breath, gentle, not enough to move the clouds or dry last night's rain.

Every so often tourists pass me, talking in many languages. Either they climb up huffing, or they descend talking. This is not a place where silence prevails. Despite its breathtaking vistas, its high altitude, its incomprehensible architecture, despite its mysterious, overwhelming, miraculous, incomprehensible existence, Machu Picchu cannot inspire silence. In fact, with its monumental size and exquisite details, Machu Picchu so dwarfs us, reveals us for all our pretense as underachieving, unimportant, without significance in the long stream of time, that we respond with the trivial, as if to prove the point, perhaps to comfort ourselves in the presence of the awe inspiring.

We respond with a thousand photographs. An avalanche of flashes. Conversations that seem far too loud, far too incessant for such an enormous cathedral, questions about the mundane. I wonder, have we lost our capacity to be struck silent?

Four llamas have arrived. One chases another past me, making wheezing noises. Tourists hug the walls. When the chase has subsided and the larger llama has mounted a terrace below and the smaller one is standing on the descending steps, the tourists resume their chatting and photographing. One calls out, "Llama, Llama," as if the animals spoke English. Then others arrive to discuss the llamas and to speculate further about them. Even these wonders, with their cushioned feet, their long necks, their fleece still wet from the rain, almost wild, inhabiting this place for millenniums, cannot quiet us. A llama releases a cascade of urine and feces on the terrace near me. Tourists gasp and then discuss this.

Two friends arrive from above and call out to me. We chat briefly. We too are too loud. They arrived at 6 am to hike above to the Inka Sun Gate, a hike I took yesterday, and they are now returning. It is now about 9:30 am. They trek away.

A huge tour group with a guide is above me on the path. He explains-- is he speaking in French, Portugese, English?-- pointing and gesturing into the wide void below him. The tourists listen attentively. His left arm waves deep into the void, floats over his head, waves at the distant mountains, toward the clouds.

Below, two women touch the sunburns they received yesterday and discuss them.

A sparrow lands near me on the wall. It hops toward me. Two people nearby speak softly in German. And at last, unbelievably, there is total silence.

Machu Picchu stands wrapped in soft cotton. Sparrows speak. The open roofs of distant buildings jut into the wet sky. And there is a moment, a precious, evanescent moment, of utter silence.

II.

I am in a small room above the Condor Temple, a great view of wide terraces below me. Wispy cotton clouds slowly rise. Voices in Italian fill the Temple below me. My small room is in an out of the way spot. It leads nowhere. But it is now surrounded by voices in Italian and Spanish inquiring where the exit is. At last, the voices wander off.

I inhale Machu Picchu, its magic, its endurance, its incredible strength, its genius. I feel that it is sacred. I inhale all of this and I exhale gratitude. There is a moment of peace.

No one has any real information about Machu Picchu. The guides always being with, "They say..." What they say is a blend of fact and fiction so thoroughly mixed and so often repeated that provable facts cannot be distilled from it.

Tourists have arrived to take photos of my small, private room and speak in Spanish. The guide says that they know 25% about this place and that the remaining 75% will have to be revealed by modern technology. Not likely. And then, they too are gone, as are their speculations, and the peace returns.

I inhale Machu Picchu and I exhale peace. I am content.