"It is not down on any map; true places never are." (Herman Melville) (Entry 22, Day 9)

Sunday, 2 June, 2013; ~3:00 PM; the campsite (Llactapata)

After a morning of hiking, a pause for lunch that was better than Philmont, and arrival at a campsite that is already prepared and has an amazing view, I have concluded that I am dreaming, and that I will wake up soon enough.  Or that the mountain across the valley with the ruins on it is actually a prop, and all the rest is just a painting.  Or that the Reality TV people are waiting in the shadows, trying to get footage of some dirty secret.

But the only dirty thing here is dirt.  There are no cameras, and I"m fully awake.  This is not a dream or a painting or a movie or a novel - this is a place that can only happen in certain circumstances, and it's hard to believe this is actually happening.  That this is actually for real.

Why?

The Andes are stunning - they're young, for mountains, so they're still rugged and very rocky.  We've been following the river all day, so it's easy to tell how high they are - not that the cloud-covered peaks need to be reminded of height.

We're camping in a cleared-out field across from an old Incan fort.  Its bottom is terraced, like so many of their fixed locations are, but it's still really cool.  The fort is built into the mountain, so the biggest change in the landscape is the terracing and the extra rocks that were used to build it.  We also passed several resting-houses on the way here.  They're exactly like they sound - places for travelers to rest and resupply before continuing on to either Machu Picchu or Cuzco.

Originally, Cuzco was called Qoscol or something like that - it meant "capital" or "center" in Quechua, (I originally misspelld it as Cetchwan).  When the spanish came, they couldn't pronounce it properly, so they called it Cuzco, meaning "little dog," as a way to demean the people living there.  Later (fairly recently), the 'z' was changed to an 's,' so there wouldn't be any definition stigma (I messed up this, too - I initially wrote it as 's' to 'z,' but the Peruvian spelling is with an 's.'  English doesn't differentiate).

It turns out tat calling the tribe the Incas is a bit of a misnomer - one of those Invader Errors that somehow sticks.  They're technically called the Quechua, the same as their language.  The sun god, Inka, was very big in their culture; they believed that the king was descended from Inka, and so they called him Inka [InsertNameHere].  When the Spanish came, they met the king, heard him called Inka, and called the entire population that.

It's true that the Inkas (we still refer to them as that) were only in real power for around 100 years, but there were other Andean tribes and civilizations prior to that, which the Inkas took over.  Some structures attributed to Inkas are actually pre-Inka - for example, the Inkatara (sun temple) in the fort nearby is probably pre-Inka.  Additionally, what's interesting is that a lot of the first levels of Cusco buildings are Inka-based.  They're probably not all original, but still.  On some of the streets of Cusco, there are little indents that used to be canals that brought water to the city.  It's crazy what the old populations did, yes?

If there's one thing I do not want to do while I'm here, it would be spending the night in a ruin.  They're pretty in the light, but it would be really creepy to spend the night there.  It's like the basis for a horrendous horror movie - Inkan ghosts and whatnot - but the fort, at least, seems like the sort of place that would cast eerie shadows and freak me out all night.  Also, it seems like a place that's easy to get lost in.  I'm excited to explore it in the morning.

Actually, I have a different Number One No-Go: sleeping in one of the tombs - one of the common ones, where you can fall and die if you don't tread carefully and there are dead people everywhere.  Again, I'd be willing to explore during the day, as long as I'm not spending the night there - I'd be too creeped out, and I'd probably desecrate someone's remains by walking all over them or something.

You know, it's interesting how many horrendous horror movies could start on this trek.  There's obviously the scenario of going-where-you-shouldn't-at-night, but there's also the one where people start dying because they're all over 50 (except for me, Miguel (our guide), and a lot of the porters).

Anyway, I have to pee.  Will write tonight.


A/N: I didn't finish this by the time it was supposed to go up, so if anyone is confused about that, my apologies!