Pachamama and the Puma family in Peru

It's been years since I decided to write a blog during my trip to Antarctica. Now that I've traveled out of the country again, I'm resurrecting the blog for anyone who might still follow my ramblings. 

Here's the teaser . . . Guess where I am? 

Peru ! Machu Picchu ! I was finally here . . . with no working camera.

This mystical site has been on my wish list since I was a child. I don’t know precisely when the kernel was planted in my mind. I have a vague memory of Grandmother Watson (my dad’s mother) visiting us in Alaska after a trip to Peru, and giving one of our family members a knitted alpaca cape. I also remember being stunned by a large painting of Incas performing brain surgery (called trephination) on a family visit to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Every few years, I’d do a bit of research on trekking trips to Machu Picchu, but never actually made concrete plans. Now, I was actually here.  I decided the images in my mind would have to suffice. I was with my niece Carie. She had a good camera, a good eye. I’d rely on her.

It wasn’t happenstance that I was here in Peru, but neither was the trip planned months or even a year out. Carie had elected to celebrate the earning of her doctorate by traveling in South America. She’d started her adventure in August and invited family and friends to join her at some point. I’d casually mentioned that if she wanted to visit Machu Picchu the following spring, to let me know. I didn’t really expect her to follow up on that idea, but she did. With encouragement from my sister Pat (Carie’s mother), we fairly quickly planned the trip. Carie had a window of time that would work for her. Once I figured how to get off of work and decided to not think about the cost, I decided it was my chance.

We figured we were much too late to do the traditional trail - dubbed the Inka Trail - ending at the Sun Gate, leading into the site of Machu Picchu. Carie suggested the Salkantay Trail and gave me some links to check out. Wow! the photos I pulled up on the Salkantay Pass and Salkantay Mountain were jaw-dropping gorgeous, reminiscent of photos I'd seen of the foothills leading to Everest. It seemed apt when I read that Salkantay (or Salcantay) Mountain is the “apu” of “apus” in the Peruvian Andeas - the “god” mountain. 

And, this hike was billed tougher than the Inka Trail. After all, its highest point, the Salkantay Pass, was at 15,000 plus feet instead of the 12,300 feet of the Inka Trail's highest elevation at Dead Woman’s Pass. It was decided - the Salkantay it was. Before Carie "disappeared" on her next adventure to Antarctica, we agreed on a trekking company and that I would reserve the trip by the time she got back from the White Continent.