and in the morning, I go to machu picchu

It was the morning of Friday June 17th, 2022. My body was buzzing. It was another crisp and sunny morning in Cusco, Peru. There was not a cloud in the sky. Tomorrow, I was going to Machu Picchu. And I was so excited.

It’s a trek to get from Cusco to the base of this sacred place. I opted to pay a little more and take the Machu Picchu bus through the winding mountain switchback roads with gorgeous views of snow-caped peaks all around me. It was midday by the time I arrived with a collection of others at the train station to board the Machu Picchu express. The sun was close to setting and as we travelled through the mountains of Peru. We were slowly enveloped in darkness as the light faded behind looming mountain peaks.

It was evening by the time I arrived in Aguas Calientes. For some reason, I don’t remember what I ate at all that day, other than a sweet lemonade I bought before boarding the train, and a hot chocolate I bought while walking the streets of Aguas Calientes at night, walking off the lack of movement during a long day of travel. I checked into my hotel, set my alarm for 4 o’clock in the morning, and tucked myself into bed, eagerly awaiting the morning’s arrival.

It was quiet in the streets the next morning, Saturday June 18th, 2022, when I left my hotel at 4:30am to walk to the bus stop and get in line to be the first group of people on the mountain for sunrise over Machu Picchu. A lovely female tour guide approached me, as I read would happen, to offer her services as my guide through the site. I said yes, and we chatted in the early morning hours as we rode the bus up to the top of the mountain together, watching the sun slowly start to creep up from behind the mountains.

The anticipation was burning through me as I showed my ticket, passed through the security gate, and we approached the final turn before entering. My guide took a final photo of me before passing through the archway, beaming from ear to ear.

I turned the corner and there it was. I was captured in the magnificence that is Machu Picchu, and in that moment, I started to cry. All those years of little me pouring over picture books, and google searches, and websites, and tour pages. All of them leading up to this moment. All of them manifesting me here, right now. All of them pulling me forward, willing this day into existence, allowing me to be present for all that I was experiencing. Allowing me to be so abundantly grateful.

Did I mention that my tour guide doubled as a personal photographer? From the moment the tears sprang to my eyes as I watched the sun rise over Machu Picchu, so unbelievably grateful that this was my life, and pinching myself that this moment was actually happening, to the moment I said goodbye to her on the steps of Machu Picchu mountain, she was telling me all of the history, while simultaneously making sure I got photos of myself from every angle in each location. Did I request this? No. But she was committed to making it happen, determined for me to have memories of myself in front of each monument. I look back on these photos now and just laugh with gratitude and joy over the sheer beauty of that day. It was simply perfect.

After a detailed tour, including the site where the Incas worshipped the sun Gods, I paid my guide, said goodbye, (had one final photo op), and started the gruelling climb up Machu Picchu mountain. When I bought my ticket, it included a tour of the lower half of Machu Picchu and a pass to climb the mountain. Little did I know how difficult it was going to be. Huge high stone steps, steep incline, the hot June sun, but breathtaking views. With all of my gear and warm things from the cold start to my day, I climbed and climbed, and finally made it to the top to look down at Machu Picchu from a bird’s eye view. It was incredible, and another pinch me moment.

By the time I descended the mountain, took my “typical tourist at Machu Picchu” photo, and left the grounds, it was only lunch time. I took the next bus down off the mountain, had the best vegetarian lunch of my whole trip at a restaurant called Govinda’s, had a spontaneous call with a dear friend back in Ontario, bought a sticker for my water bottle to memorialize the moment, and caught the Machu Picchu express back to Cusco.

This story gets interesting only after what was the most “simply perfect morning.” Boarding the bus to take us back up through the mountain roads after getting off the train at the station, I was sat a row across from a guy about my age who had sat across from me on the train ride back. For the first half of the ride, the bus was silent; people tired from the day’s already full activities.

As darkness fell, and we were still an hour away from Cusco, I had my headphones in and was quietly dozing when the bus broke down, right in the middle of the road, in some random small town that no one knew the name of. It was from that moment forward that I learned the guy’s name, Frankie, from Mexico City, Mexico, and a German woman too, who was sitting in the row in front of me. With the cash we had left on us, we walked the one road town to buy chips and bakery sweets in the stores still open, and waited to hear the news from the bus driver on how we were going to get back to the city. Somewhere between 9 and 10pm the bus was somehow brought back to life, and somehow made it up the steep mountain roads back into Cusco, and then promptly broke down for the second time that night, a 30 minute walk from the city centre. At that point, I was tired, hungry, and all of the perfection of the morning had slowly drained from my being. Frankie and I got off the bus and I, like a mamma goose, navigated us back to Plaza de Armas, with Frankie following behind me like a baby duckling, where we tucked ourselves into an upstairs table at a bustling Italian restaurant off the Plaza and didn’t leave until we both had our fair share of lemonade and pizza. We chatted, him with the little English he knew, and me, with the little Spanish I had picked up along the way, about his queer dating adventures in Mexico City, and me about my long-term relationship and solo travels through Ecuador and Peru. It ended up being the perfect end to a perfect, and adventurous day, and Frankie and I ended up seeing each other again for drinks with new friends another night before I left Cusco and flew to Lima later the next week.

It was close to midnight by the time I unlocked the door of my apartment, and fell into a deep sleep, full, and happy.

All for now,

All my love,

Onward.

-m

(Written 05/05/2024)