Would you please visit my home?

Falling Uphill

Chapter 25: Would you please visit my home?

Dennis and I awake hours before sunrise and hike 700 meters in elevation from Aguas Calientes, Peru to Machu Picchu. My knees grind as I walk up the uneven stone staircase that cuts through the road’s switchbacks. We’re the first to enter the park. It’s dark and foggy. We can’t see the city and the signpost has fallen over. We continue trudging up the mountain searching for the Lost City of the Incas.

“I think we’re lost, too,” I say.

Frustrated, we sit on some boulders and wait for the fog and rain to clear. “It’s hard to believe the Incas built a palace to worship the sun here,” Dennis says. Hundreds of years ago, as the winter solstice approached and the sun appeared to disappear more every day, an Incan priest would perform a ceremony tying the sun to a rock to keep it from vanishing forever.

After an hour, the fog begins to evaporate, and we’re surprised to glimpse the Incan city far below us. We’re given tantalizing views of Machu Picchu, as the fog flows over the ruins like a river, occasionally parting to let the sun spotlight emerald-green patches of grass and the jumbled-stone ruins. The background mountains form the silhouette of a noble face lifted towards the sun; the city terraces resemble teeth, and Machu Picchu appears as if it’s being born from the mouth of ancient Mother Nature. As the numbing fog dissipates, I feel born from limbo: the mountains cradle me in their nook; the sun tickles my skin; the hairs on my arm flutter in a breeze; a creek trickles; leaves rustle; and, in the distance someone—maybe the mountains themselves—plays the pan flute.

I break our speechless awe. “Is Machu Picchu built here because this is a sacred site full of spiritual energy, or is it just the beauty of nature that’s inspiring?”

“Many people believe they’re closer to God on the top of mountains, perhaps because we can look down and see how small and insignificant we are,” says Dennis. Indeed, the whole city occupies a tiny plateau, and the hordes of tourists and the llamas (Incan lawn mowers) are colorful dots.

A few days later, we cycle away from the tourists and their entourage of beggars. We traverse the Altiplano, a plateau at an average of 4000 meters elevation in the Andes Mountains. Soppy scrub brush carpets the ground and sweeps up the sides of the distant black mountains, their leaves turning from green to yellow as they struggle with the altitude. My body feels like a rusty gate. My head throbs from the thin air. I’m unable to eat cookies and cycle at the same time without gasping. My knees are weak from Machu Picchu. My lips are cracked and bleeding from the dry air. My intestines have been burning for weeks. (Unbeknownst to me they’re riddled with acute salmonella intestinitis that will mutate into irritable bowel syndrome and plague me for years.) I’ve lost over 20 kilograms. My heart aches with loneliness. And, I wonder if we’ve seen the only thing worth seeing in Peru.

After an emergency pit stop, we pitch camp near a creek and remain undiscovered until sunset. The owner shouts at us from across the creek. I reluctantly get out of my warm sleeping bag and push through the tall wet grass towards him. His Spanish accent is very thick, and Dennis keeps telling him that we’ll leave—“No problemo”—that we didn’t know it was his pasture. Finally, the Peruvian man conveys that we’re welcome, and that he only wanted to invite us to breakfast.

I’m honored to have been invited to break bread with families in almost every country I’ve visited, ironically, most often by the poorest of people. Their ostensible motivations vary: custom, honor, curiosity, friendship, pride, showmanship, even guilt or dishonesty; but, more fundamental than all of these reasons, people seem to value, more than anything, sharing their lives. 

Back home, as I was preparing for my trip, I had doubt atop of doubts and felt I had to make a decision between the guarantees of the material world (career, house, car, stock portfolio, retirement) or living my dream and risking ruin. So, I asked myself a litmus-test question, “What would it be like to have all the riches of the world, but no friends, no lovers, no experiences, no memories?” Or, in this case, no one to a share a meal with and trade notes about life.

After a cold, wet night, I’m anxious for a warm breakfast to bring me back to life. Dennis and I push our bikes through the damp grass and drizzle towards their mud house. Most structures in Peru are made of mud and straw bricks with thatch roofs. I wonder how they don’t melt in the rain. We’re greeted by a smiling mother, her teenage son and a shy girl who falls over trying to hide her smile. The girl is barefoot and the adults wear sandals made out of old car tires and drive belts; their feet are gray and swollen with toenails falling out. It seems they’ve been waiting for hours. The husband has already left to shepherd some sheep to pasture. Their house—I nearly humiliate myself by referring to it as their barn—is the size of an average bedroom with small windows. An adjacent fence, built of stones with mud mortar, houses the sheep. Outside the fence, cattle are tied to rocks that break through the muddy ground.

To enter the small door, we have to stoop and turn sideways, step up and over an uneven dirt floor and past walls 30 centimeters wide. Inside it’s very dark, and I can barely see the musty bed that our host invites us to sit on. As my eyes adjust, I notice the inside of the house looks similar to the outside. I expected it to be faced with plaster or paint, and full of knickknacks. Instead the walls are “decorated” with farm tools hanging from wooden pegs. The roof has several holes; nonetheless, their home is dry and warm, and smells comfortingly of moist earth and tangy dung. The woman wears the typical garments of the indigenous people: a bowler hat, stockings, and many layers of dresses and shirts, handmade from colorfully woven and embroidered fabrics. She prepares our breakfast in the steaming kitchen. We’re soon given a bowl of soup that looks like tripe.

In undeveloped countries many people keep adding ingredients and reheating their soup indefinitely. Most soups are served lukewarm with soggy noodles and mysterious meats and vegetables. I am afraid my stomach won’t tolerate a piece of tripe that has dodged the ladle for months. During lunch yesterday, a woman had a plate of raw gutted fish swarmed in flies on display for her customers. And when I ate some—it was either that or starve—I prayed that all the germs and larvae were fried dead during cooking. For dessert, I had some fruit. The vendors rotate the fruit only fast enough to give you one near—but not quite—spoiled, while perfectly ripe fruit is left for next week’s customers.

I take a tentative sip, afraid to insult my host. It’s a salty beef broth with dried potatoes. The starchy broth quickly soaks up the acid in my stomach. The second course is a cup of tea made from coca leaves, the same leaves used to manufacture cocaine. It provides a slight buzz like coffee and is very soothing on my intestines, and relieves my head of altitude sickness.

While we eat, the stout woman sits beside the bed on a pile of cow dung used to fuel the stove. She frequently stands and squats in front of us with impressive strength and agility and yells, as though the increased volume will help our understanding. Her accent is almost indecipherable, and I wonder if she’s speaking a mixture of Spanish and Quechua.

Rumor tell us that many people in the area don’t have enough money to feed themselves. I doubt this family has any money, simply sheep and cattle for barter. Even an empty soda bottle is valuable to them. I’ve seen them used for anything from storing important documents to salt shakers with holes poked in the cap. We’re flattered to receive their hospitality; they give us the only thing they have to give—food and companionship. Dennis and I are unsure how to repay their kindness; just owning bicycles it’s obvious that we’re rich men by comparison. We debate giving them money, pens or candy. But we don’t want to nullify their hospitality, turn them into beggars or rot their teeth (they have no toothbrushes or dentists here). So, we settle for a simple handshake and, “Muchas gracias.” Judging by their smiles, they’re very happy. To me, they’re more beautiful and inspirational than Machu Picchu or Volcan Parícutin, which we rode past in Mexico without even realizing it was a Natural Wonder of the World. 

Dennis says, “Just think of the story they’ll have to tell their neighbors.”

More sample chapters

If you enjoyed this chapter, you might like to read one of the funniest chapters about how my friend Edwin traded a pen for a sheep as he tried to teach a Tibetan shepherd a lesson.

If you want to see the table of contents, introduction and the first chapter, please read the sample on the Kindle eBook Preview. You can also listen to a “Preview” chapter on Audible. Or ask your local library to order a copy.