Machu Picchu

I once went to a place called Machu Picchu in my very own home-state, except they called it Mesa Verde.  But I didn't realize I had been there.  I went for the first time when I was...hmmm, what was it Mom?  Was I eight or so?  And I went again when my two oldest were young enough that I wanted to cross myself before we went up and down the ladders on the cliffs and when we skirted around the edges of the kiva pits.  But I loved it.  It was like a child's dream to put all those playhouses in red-rock cliffs next to blue skies.

I went to Machu Picchu again, this time the one they really call Machu Picchu, with just my husband exactly 10 days ago.  You see it was that same exotic ruins, an ancient, but not too ancient culture in a high, remote beautiful place with construction that shows strength, intelligence, patience, group-commitment, devoutness - things that we think are mysterious, but that at the same time feel just as present in the computer, the internet, and the airplane.  And I loved Machu Picchu.  It's a place to play tag running through stone foundations on a green mountain top dwarfed by even greener and bigger mountaintops.  Except nobody was playing tag, there were way too many people there.  But if it was just me and Dan, I would want to camp there and play tag and roast marshmallows.  It's a shame that it's not a possibility.

Just the same after listening to our guide, we wandered around on our own, took our pictures to post on Facebook, had snippets of conversation with people from England and France and Brazil, overheard people wondering how the Inca's did this or did that or, "do you think maybe this was for that?" - that type of conversation that goes up and down Machu Picchu as consistently as the sun.  And then we found this spot where the grass was wild, where the ruins weren't restored and we sat down and I took a nap for a second with my hat over my face because the sun really pounds up there.  And that was nice.  It was quiet, and peaceful, and meditative, and real.  And then we walked around it all one more time and in seeing it a second time we saw it a little bit more.  If you can't play tag at Machu Picchu then I guess I think you need to take it slow, almost lazy, almost asleep.  It's the breeze and the view and the sun and the timelessness that gets you.  And by 2:30 most of the other folks who came to see it have called it a day.