And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Machu Picchu in 1987, before most tourists had ever heard of it. It took us four days to walk there along the Inca Trail. No tent, had to sleep under the stars. Cold hardly begins to describe it. No stove, had to eat crackers and stale bread. Didn't know better, so we drank the water. Chewed coca leaf all the way. Those were the days.
My wife and I went around 2011, it is completely unimpressive when you consider it was built in the 1400's, hundreds of years after far more beautiful and elaborate churches and buildings were built in Europe but the remoteness makes it remarkable. Even today you have to fly to Cusco, take a 2-hour bus ride to a train, take a 1.5-hour train ride to the literal end of the line and then take a death-defying bus ride up some extremely narrow switch backs to reach the top...and that is the easiest way! You feel like you are at the top of the world even if the overall elevation is lower at the top than the elevation of the entire city of Cusco.
In 1967 one of my professors went to Machu Picchu over Christmas break. His photos were also stunning. He must have been a "mountain man" to have done it then. The irony is that he was 47 years old at the time and died of a heart attack about six months later and just had accepted a departmental chair and moved his family to NYC and Columbia University.
Watch that last step. Its a Doozy.
ReplyDeleteMachu Picchu in 1987, before most tourists had ever heard of it. It took us four days to walk there along the Inca Trail. No tent, had to sleep under the stars. Cold hardly begins to describe it. No stove, had to eat crackers and stale bread. Didn't know better, so we drank the water. Chewed coca leaf all the way. Those were the days.
ReplyDeletehttp://mikeaustin.org/Peru/015_14%20(4).jpg
Nice description, and great photo!
DeleteMy wife and I went around 2011, it is completely unimpressive when you consider it was built in the 1400's, hundreds of years after far more beautiful and elaborate churches and buildings were built in Europe but the remoteness makes it remarkable. Even today you have to fly to Cusco, take a 2-hour bus ride to a train, take a 1.5-hour train ride to the literal end of the line and then take a death-defying bus ride up some extremely narrow switch backs to reach the top...and that is the easiest way! You feel like you are at the top of the world even if the overall elevation is lower at the top than the elevation of the entire city of Cusco.
ReplyDeleteThose stairs aren't ADA compliant...
ReplyDeleteI have to wonder how many residents died every year from falling off those stairs.
ReplyDeleteI'm a gonna nope it. Great picture and comments though :)
ReplyDeleteIn 1967 one of my professors went to Machu Picchu over Christmas break. His photos were also stunning. He must have been a "mountain man" to have done it then. The irony is that he was 47 years old at the time and died of a heart attack about six months later and just had accepted a departmental chair and moved his family to NYC and Columbia University.
ReplyDeleteDan Kurt
Those stairs suggest they lived under fear of attack. Were the Incas as warlike as the Astecs? The stairs look very defensible with handheld weaponry.
ReplyDeleteYes, they were very warlike, though not into mass human sacrifice like the Aztecs or some older Andean civilizations.
DeleteStill have the t-shirt.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing what cropping a photo 15° off of actual plumb does to your visual perception.
ReplyDeleteLook at the wall at lower middle center, and the orientation of the building walls in the background.
I did this with a roommate's climbing pic in college, and it made him look like Spiderman on a middling easy wall.