More than a quarter century ago

Machu Picchu

It was in 1981 when I went to Peru, my first international trip. I had always wanted to visit Machu Picchu, but I had never gone farther afield than Mexico before I spent six weeks in Peru, adventuring in what was supposed to be a solo trip. My friends were horrified that I would even contemplate doing such a thing, so they hooked me up with another young woman who was looking for a traveling companion: Marla (I have forgotten her last name). She knew little to no Spanish and was a strict vegetarian to boot. This was a long time ago, before cellphones, before even the internet communities that we rely on these days were even around. 

Me and Marla, high in the Andes

It was on the flight to Peru that I first realized that we were very different people, with different ideas of what we would be experiencing in Peru. The one thing I wanted (other than to see Machu Picchu) was a chance to get into the Andes and walk among those magnificent mountains. Marla was looking for adventure, and someone who would help her navigate a foreign country (which I had never been to, so why she was so determined that I was the perfect traveling companion, I will never know).

Anyway, I just looked back in my old posts and found that I've written about this Peruvian trip before, so I'm going to lift some of the text from 2011 and 2021 posts, since in re-reading them, I can't make them better. But then I'll return to the current moment to finish the post. Is it considered plagiarizing when you lift from your own stuff? 

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Marla knew not one word of Spanish and needed someone to help her with the language. Although certainly not fluent, I knew enough Spanish to get by. And so, in October 1981, we flew to Lima and stayed at a hostel, before deciding to travel to Cusco, where we would be able to take a train to the beginning of the trail. Most people took three or four days to travel through the minor Incan ruins before coming to the main attraction, Machu Picchu. 

I have learned since then that traveling to Machu Picchu is entirely different today. Now there is a luxury hotel near the site, and a cable car takes tourists from there to the main ruins. A friend went there a few years ago, and the pictures he showed me looked nothing like the place I visited so long ago. You even have to queue in long lines to get in. Totally different from my experience.

Marla and I took a local train to Kilometer 88, where we began the 26-mile-long trip. We got off the train with about a dozen other hikers from all over the world. I think we were the only Americans and nobody else spoke any English. Everybody strapped on their backpacks and took off at a fast pace. We waited until the last, and then when we were on the trail itself, we saw very few other hikers during the next days. I found this site that tells about the trip.

The trip begins in the town of Qorihuayrachina, at kilometer 88 of the Quillabamba railway - Cusco and takes 3 to 4 days of strenuous hiking, it is the road that takes tourists to Machu Picchu. The route consists of an impressive variety of altitudes, climates and ecosystems ranging from the Andean plain to the cloud forest.

Today, you are expected to stay in the campgrounds that exist along the trail, but in those days you just had to find a place to camp on your own. There were no porta-potties or even water sources that seemed safe. We used iodine drops in our water to keep from picking up bacteria. It was a very memorable adventure, and it reminds me that I have been making long and difficult hikes for much longer than I remembered. I made this trip a full decade before I discovered skydiving and stopped everything else, including backpacking and strenuous hikes. 

During the two months I spent in Peru, I made four different trips into the mountains, two with Marla, and two with other solo hikers I met while staying in hostels that catered to tourists like me. These days, I am actually a bit surprised and impressed with the adventurous spirit that I seemed to have back then. And so much has transpired in my life since that time. Looking back, I am so glad that I was able to have such exciting events and still have a few memories that recall such a distant adventure.

Although I am much older now and my hair is white and my body much used and abused, I can still walk several miles at a time and enjoy being outdoors, breathing fresh air and taking in the sunshine. I will continue to do all this until the day comes when I must stop. Fortunately, it is not happening today or tomorrow, I hope. I will give it all I have until that day comes.

If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much. —Jim Rohn

We carried a tent and iodine drops to treat whatever water we might find. After those three days of hiking, we crested a hill and looked down on Machu Picchu, with Huayna Picchu (the big mountain behind the ruins) resplendent in all its glory. 

When we arrived early in the morning, there were only a few fellow hikers there, but as the day went on, busload after busload of tourists arrived from Cusco so they could walk around the ruins and then be transported back to town. I climbed to the top of Huayna Picchu after touring through the ruins. I felt that the bused tourists' experience of the place could not be anywhere like mine, since I had actually WALKED there.

I don't even remember what kind of camera I had with me, but of course it had film back then and I didn't see my pictures until I arrived back home in Boulder. Funny, now that seems so strange since I'm used to seeing my pictures instantaneously. Life has changed a great deal, in ways that no one could have predicted. But one that is the same today, I'm still hiking.

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Okay, back to the present moment. It's odd to re-read what I wrote about this trip so many years ago, but the memory is still very strong and continues to be a bright spot in all my years of living. I also realized, in finding this information, that I have been hiking for longer than I had recalled earlier. I was going on week-long backpacks in the mid-1970s, so it's been at least a half century of hiking, with a brief quarter-century interlude with skydiving, which caused everything I'd been obsessed with before that fateful day in September 1990 to disappear, when I made my first jump.

But now, in my early eighties, I am back to the original passion of my life: hiking. Now that I have the Senior Trailblazers from the Senior Center to hike with, I've continued to enjoy that exercise. And I continue to meet new like-minded friends. Although I miss my old hiking partner, Melanie, when she moved away, we spent the entire pandemic hiking together. Now I am again in a couple of groups, the "Happy Wanderers" and the "Relaxed" hikers. I've left the "Half Fast" group, because they tend to hike faster than I'm comfortable with these days. I no longer feel any need to be completely worn out after a hike.

My tea is finished, my post is written, and my dear partner still sleeps next to me. It's dark outside, but not for long. We are just a few days away from the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and the sun is expected to shine unremittingly all day long, just as it did yesterday. The trees are flowering, the daffodils are up, and soon it will be time to visit the tulip gardens in Skagit Valley. We made it through another winter, and I am happy to report that my aging bones are still able to carry me out the door and into the Pacific Northwest paradise. Until we meet again next week, dear friends, I hope you have a wonderful few days, too. Be well.