And Finally Machu Picchu

The rainy season was supposed to end here the first of April, but it has continued into the end of April (El Nino, global warming?) It has been quite cold at night getting down into the 40's. Afternoons have been nice when it's not raining. We have gotten to know the town and have seen most of what is here, we are starting to feel like locals now after six weeks. I (Dave) have been taking guitar lessons from this old hippie rocker (Mike is 68) who is still going strong. He wants me to make a debut on stage with him. I don't want to embarrass myself. Leiann was able to help out at a local school teaching 1st & 2nd graders English, she said it was mayhem, but she loves kids. We finally headed up to Machu Picchu the 3rd of May. The weather has cleared, cold at night, but sunny and warm during the day. There are a few ways to up to the site, one way is to walk the Inka Trail (we have no interest in doing that). You can take the train most of the way, or you can go as cheap as possible and take a shuttle then walk the rest of the way or catch the train for the remaining 10 miles. Trying to save cash and doing the alternative thing appealed to us. We caught the shuttle van at 7am (very cold out). It was a six hour ride up to Hidroelectrica which is where they dump you off to either walk for three hours or pay another $28 US to ride the train up to Aguascalientes, there are no roads going all the way up. Leiann was car sick even though heavily medicated. She did not enjoy the ride at all as it was very curvy all the way up. One up side to the shuttle ride was taking the mini death road. The road like the “Death Road” in Bolivia is dirt, one lane mostly with a 500 to 1,000 foot drop off. Though not nearly as long and the drop in Bolivia is 2,000 feet (not that it matters much after the first 500). I told Leiann not to look and she mostly laid on the back seat not having much fun. At one point the van turned onto a very old wooden bridge that looked like it was not safe, no railings just wood planks. We all said to ourselves (he could not be serious). Over the bridge we went as we held our breath and looked down into the raging river below us. Hey it's all part of the great adventure. We got to small town of Hidroelectrica and decided that we would opt for the train as Leiann was not feeling to hot. We had a little incident with the police there after I voiced my displeasure with the tour operator. She had us climb up this rocky dirt path, several hundred feet, with us believing this was the way we had to go to catch the train. As it turns out she just wanted to take us to a rustic restaurant that she most likely was being paid to bring tourists to. We ended up missing our train because we now had to climb back down the rocky dirt trail to catch the next train. I was not happy and when I found the tour operator I asked why in hell did she take us on this goat trail only to miss our train. She said she spoke no English. At this point her male friend came to her rescue and we exchanged a few choice words and I walked away thinking that was the end of it. But later as we waited for a couple of hours for the next train here came the guy with the police claiming I pushed the women (total fabrication). After explaining (in Spanglish) to the police that I did not touch the woman and that her friend had came over and “chest bumped” me and he began yelling at me and after some more heated banter Leiann's calming voice took effect and the police shook our hands and left. Leiann was not to happy with me, but hey I just felt the guide should be held responsible for her actions, that maybe she might not pull this crap on the next tourist. Getting up to Aguascalientes we found our room to be very acceptable for the $31 a night. The next day we drank coffee until 11 and got on the bus up to the site. Most people like to go early in the morning but it is more crowded then. Hence our plan to head up when most would be heading down. The site is about 2,000 feet above the town, the bus zigzags its way up. One can take the path which has 2,000 steps but we chose the bus. We had been told by many that Machu Picchu stands up to the hype. We walked up onto the high side of the site so that our first view would be from above, taking in the entire site. I think it is impossible to express the feeling of seeing Machu Picchu up close and personal for the first time. We sat for half an hour just taking it in. Thinking about the people who built this city in the clouds. Machu Picchu was only occupied by the Inka for a little over a hundred years. A hundred years of continuous building with rock. Some archeologists believe that the site was not started by the Inka but by an earlier people (a controversial theory). One of the highlights was seeing the Inka Bridge, the emergency exit of the site. If being pursued Inka could pull the bridge behind them and then continue across the cliff face (you would have to see this yourself to fully understand it, but you can see the pictures). It would be way to long of a story to tell here to describe all of Machu Picchu but you can see lots of it on You Tube. One thing not to many people notice is the difference in the stone wall construction. Many walls are of very precise stone work where others are just stacked stones. Some walls start of with precise cut stone and then halfway up turn into much less precision and then just stacked stones. This to me would give evidence of an earlier people doing much finer work and then later people getting lazy, hey it was hard work! We had a great three days and finally getting to see Machu Picchu after five years of heading south did not disappoint. We took the train all the way back down and a short taxi ride to our apartment. Leiann liked this method much better then the trip up. We have just learned that the Physical Therapist that I trained and worked with in Boquete, Panama was tragically killed in a car accident leaving her son with cerebral palsy in critical care. We were asked if we could come back and help out with the clinic as they now had many patients and no therapist. We had planned to stay here six months and to go up to Bolivia to see Lake Titicaca but we feel compelled to return to Boquete to see if we can train another therapist as the clinic we worked at has very little funding and can not pay a therapist much (like $5 a day). Jackie the therapist I worked with had no formal training but had been taking her son to Physical Therapy for 15 years so was able to use what she had learned to help treat handicapped children in Boquete who had no ability to pay for care. I was able to work with her for two months teaching her as much as I could about anatomy, physiology, assessment, and treatment intervention philosophy. She was very intelligent and was a sponge, soaking up whatever I taught her. I suggested sources online she could go to for continuing education. It was very satisfying working with Jackie and knowing years later she was still there taking care of patients I had worked with. We had always planned to return one day and it is devastating to learn of her short life. She will be be remembered for her commitment to help those that had no where else to go. We are now making plans to return to Panama at the end of May. Stay tuned for more Chrysalis Adventures