The Inca Trail

When you meet Llama’s on the edge of the trail, the best course of action is NO action at all.

It’s best to just stand still and shut up.

They seemed passive, but I hear, if provoked, they could spit in your eye, and being on the edge of a cliff, I didn’t think it was a good idea to cause problems....

So I yielded the right of way and waited for them to pass.

Llamas were the last thing I expected to see after an hour and a half hike to the top of the mountain near Machu Picchu.

I had watched them in the ruins below, before starting the hike, and was impressed with their steps and stability, but a mistake here could be fatal. Especially if you were wiping spit out of your eyes while tumbling blindly down the mountainside.
Yep…the best thing to do in this situation is just wait it out and be polite.

After all, I was in their territory.

The Inca had built this place as a resort for their leaders. The Spaniards intended to loot and plunder it, but before they had the opportunity, the Inca moved all the gold and silver to another location. There was no need to destroy it now….

It wasn’t re-discovered until 1911 because it’s so inaccessible. It’s on top of a mountain, in the bend of a raging river, and the kind of a place that no one would DREAM of building a city.
Except the Inca….they are NOT ordinary people.
It brings tears to my eyes to think of the care they used to fit these rocks together. To them, ROCKS had a magical quality, and the ability to focus the earth’s energy. Some of them have 30 cuts in them and fit as precisely together as the floor in a modern day home. When you see an Inca structure, just one look tells you who the builders were. They are near perfect and built to stand the frequent earthquakes in Peru.

We spent two days here, got our passports stamped, and then rode a train back to Cusco before leaving for Ecuador. In Quito, we would spend another couple of days before our final voyage to the Galapagos Islands, and we would stand on the Equator and wonder at water spinning, the opposite direction, down a drain, and stand an egg on the head of a nail.

I’ll send a few pictures of this on the next entry.