Trail of Feathers (3 page)

*

On the third night on the Inca Trail, after a suspect bowl of stewed
cuy
, which we know as guinea pig, I asked the guide, Patricia, if she had heard whether the Incas flew. A sensitive woman with deep-set eyes and an infectious smile, she’d laughed at my question. Only when I declared that I wasn’t joking, did she become more serious. Like many Peruvians I quizzed, she was capable of extraordinary perception in esoteric matters. And, as with many others, she had a nugget of information to pass on.

‘When my grandfather was a young man in Urubamba,’ she said, stirring her guinea pig goulash to cool it, ‘he was walking in the woods near his home. At the foot of a tall tree he came across a young condor. Its wing had been broken. Taking pity on it, my grandfather gave the bird a little meat. He took it home, where he cared for it through the winter. After many weeks, when it had recovered, he let it go free.’

Patricia slurped her stew and stared into the camp-fire.

'From that day on he had wild, vivid dreams’ she said. ‘He dreamt he was an Inca flying, gliding through the empty sky … he dreamt he was part condor, part man, a man from ancient times’

*

By the time I had struggled back to my tent from the lavatory field, Patricia was ready to leave. It was just before three a.m. She supervised the porters, two of whom had been assigned to haul my luggage across the passes to Machu Picchu.

Laden down with non-essential knick-knacks, I limped forward on bleeding feet. I cursed myself for giving in to the salesman’s tempting merchandise; and I damned Deiches. If it hadn’t been for him, I would have been tucked up at home dreaming of adventure. The porters scuttled ahead under the weight of survival gear, their sandals biting into the granite-paved path. All around us the jungle slept.

Patricia told me to keep a look out for
Cuscomys ashaninka
, a new genus of mammal, the size of a domestic cat, which had been discovered in the hills for the first time a few days before. But I was in no mood for nature. I inched forward through the darkness, my hand on Patricia’s shoulder, like a gas victim from a forgotten war.

Four hours later the undergrowth appeared to know that dawn was near. The food chain had woken and was hungry. After breakfasting, one creature would become an early meal for another with wider jaws. A thousand birds nudged about in the foliage, restless to take flight. Each nest sheltered a clutch of mouths waiting to be fed. Darkness lifted by gradual degrees, although there was still no real light. At last the first shades of cypress and olive green came to life.

The track had levelled out, and was now clearly visible. I responded by moving faster, bounding across the neatly-fitting flagstones. A thermometer, distress whistle, and signalling mirror clattered from my jacket, like tools hanging from an astronaut’s suit.

Turning a sharp bend, I was struck dumb by the view. Stretching out ahead was a valley. At its centre lay the ruins of a city. The valley was like none other I have ever witnessed, just as the city itself has no equal. The colours, the shadows and the sense of secrecy, were bewitching.

I rested there at
Intipunku
, the Gate of the Sun, before starting the short walk down into the ruins. The air, which had shed its nocturnal blanket, smelled of fennel, although I could not see that aromatic herb growing among the smooth-edged granite stones. As I descended, the first fragment of dawn rose out over the dark peaks, giving them colour. No more than a glow of light at first but, as the moments passed, the glow transformed into a bolt of gold. I watched transfixed and, as I did so, it struck the ancient ruins of Machu Picchu.

The Spanish ravaged the Incan kingdom, stripping away its riches. But they missed this, the greatest jewel of all. Before walking the Inca Trail I had wondered how the sacred city could have eluded the Conquistadors. Far too steep for their horses, the trail - supposedly the original route of pilgrimage - appears to lead nowhere. Only after four days of hiking across mountain passes, do you reach the city itself. The elusive path had kept the Incas’ secret safe.

Current thinking says that Machu Picchu was probably deserted before the Conquistadors arrived. Some experts say it was abandoned after a plague,- others that the religious centre may have moved elsewhere.

The American scholar Hiram Bingham is credited with rediscovering Machu Picchu. Leading a Yale University team to the site in July 1911, he claimed to have found the Incan stronghold of Vilcabamba. A historian rather than an archaeologist, Bingham knew how to put together an expedition and his team was remarkably well-equipped. When I read his book
Inca Land
, I wondered if he’d visited the same mountaineering shop as me. The inventory of his equipment suggested that superior salesmen had been at work.

Bingham’s gear included: a mummery tent with pegs and poles, a hypsometer, a mountain-mercurial barometer, two Watkins aneroid barometers, a pair of Zeiss glasses, two 3A Kodak camera, six films, a sling psychrometer, a prismatic compass and clinometer, a Stanley pocket level, an eighty-foot red-strand mountain rope, three ice axes, a seven-foot flagpole with an American flag and a Yale University flag, four Silver’s self-heating cans of Irish Stew, a cake of chocolate, eight hardtack biscuits, as well as raisins, sugar cubes and mock-turtle soup.

Gazing down across the valley, it was hard to imagine that until Bingham’s arrival Machu Picchu was lost in jungle. The canopy of trees which had hidden and protected the sacred city for centuries has long since been hacked down. Modern times have brought mod cons in abundance, paving the way for the tourist bandwagon. The most notable additions were an exclusive hotel and the railway, which runs from the nearby town of Aguas Calientes down to Cusco. Each year brings newer and more costly comforts. The latest idea is to build a cable-car which will ferry even more tourists up to the sacred city from the valley floor.

But for two hours each morning, Machu Picchu belongs to the weary, stomach-clutching legion of Inca Trail warriors. The ruins are deserted and lie silent. For those who have staggered over the passes, the reward is like slipping into Disneyland before the gates open. You have a chance to breathe deeply, to soak up the textures, and to absorb the lack of human sound. But then, on the dot of nine, as if some invisible gong has been struck, the first of a thousand tourist coaches winds its way up the hairpin bends to Machu Picchu. Within moments, the turnstiles are spinning, the flush toilets are churning, and soft drinks fizzing, as the seething mass of Banana Republic explorers descends.

Tour groups, speaking every language in the world, criss-cross the place like spiders weaving a giant web. Stubbing out their duty-free cigarettes underfoot, rubbing sun-cream into their wrinkles, troupe after troupe of khaki-clothed tourists hustles forward, desperate to get their money’s worth in this, the greatest archaeological theme park on earth.

*

On the western edge of Machu Picchu, we came across a group of seven East Europeans, clustered around a curiously-shaped granite block. The tourists, dressed in matching lilac robes, were barefoot, except for one woman who was wearing purple moonboots. They were chanting some kind of invocation. Patricia frowned, then shook her head woefully.

They are always doing this’ she said.

‘Who?’

Those purple people. They come from Poland and think they are Incas. They come to take power from the
Intihuatana
, the Sacred Stone’

We watched as the Poles, their palms pressed against the granite surface and their eyes tightly closed, sapped the rock’s energy. ‘What’s so sacred about that stone?’

‘The Incas used to tie the sun to it’ said Patricia. ‘It proved their power over nature. When the Spanish found those special stones, they broke them up. I wish this one could be broken’ she said, her voice rasping with anger, ‘then maybe the Polish people would go away’

Soon after, Patricia’s wish was granted. The sacred stone was crushed to bits during the filming of a beer commercial.

Without wasting time Patricia led me from the holy rock, down through the terraced ruins, pointing out the principal buildings along the way.

Since Bingham, every generation has dreamed up new theories to explain the ruined city. Experts have claimed it was a fortress, a private hacienda, a nunnery, centre of learning or religion, even an observatory.

‘Look at this place’ Patricia said, sweeping her arm in an arc over a bluff of rocks, ‘this is called the Temple of the Condor.’ I entered the shrine.

‘To me it does look like a temple dedicated to birds’ said Patricia. ‘See here, how the wings of the condor are represented by the rock. And here, how the image of a condor has been carved from a piece of granite.’

The guide wiped her neck with her hand. ‘But has it got anything to do with birds at all?’ ‘What do you mean?’

‘Bingham thought it was the prison, where convicts were chained up or killed’ she said. ‘Others have said it’s a princess’s tomb, a kitchen, or a place where maize was stored.’

I stepped out of the way as a river of retired Israelis flooded in. Before we knew it they were upon us. We held our ground. The Israeli leader, waving a pink flag - embroidered with the legend
Moses Basket Tours -
was a force to be reckoned with. He spewed out a couple of lines about the temple, clapped his hands signalling for photography to begin; glared at the Bengalis; clapped again, and led the way to the Temple of the Rainbow.

Every three minutes another wave of white-skinned, blue-rinsed retirees splashed in, and swirled around us. Between the waves, I made a hurried inspection of the sanctuary. The form of the condor was blatantly obvious, lying outstretched on the floor, its wings writhing behind, and its beak lurching ahead. This was no prison block or princess’s tomb, but quite obviously a shrine dedicated to flight.

Patricia pointed out the groove in the bird’s ruff, where sacrificial llama blood might once have run. A rush of energy gripped me as the next swell of Israelis surged into the cove. Surely this, the Temple of the Condor, was connected to the Birdmen?

Patricia noticed my particular interest in this shrine.

‘Why are you so interested in birds?’ she asked, scrunching her cheeks into a smile.

‘I have heard that the Incas glided over the jungles,’ I said.

‘They may have done so,’ Patricia said. ‘But you don’t understand.’

‘Understand, what?’

‘You are thinking of the flight itself, which is meaningless’ she said. ‘And, you’re missing the real question.’

I paused, as another wave of tourists hurled themselves into the temple. A moment later they were gone.

‘What is the
real
meaning, the
real
question?’

Patricia ran her fingers across the stylised stone wing of the condor.

‘Whether the Incas flew or not is irrelevant’ she said. ‘Instead, you must ask why they wanted to fly.’

Reflecting on Patricia’s words, I recalled that, on a trip to Mexico, I had once come across a
fiesta
in the small Yucatan town of Ticul. The highlight of the festival was a ceremony, called
Volador
. It’s said to have been started by the Aztecs. Three men, guised as birds, with papier-maché beaks and feathered robes, leapt off a miniature platform at the top of a towering pole. Each had a cord tied to his ankles, which had been wound around the pole. As the men vaulted from the platform, they swung round and round, unwinding as they flew.

A Mexican friend told me that
Volador
represented freedom, and the devotion of man to God. For years I had puzzled over this. But it helped me to understand why the Incas might have wanted to fly. It wasn’t about getting from A to B. It was about something far more fundamental, far more spectacular.

The Incas could have had no need to use flight as a means of transport. Such a thing would surely have trivialised what they considered to be a sacred medium. Yet they must have had good reason for yearning to glide, to soar free in the air. Perhaps, like the condor, the Incan Birdmen were messengers to the Gods.

Two hours later I was perched up on the summit of Huayna Picchu, the sugar loaf peak which overlooks the ancient city. The climb is strenuous, especially when you have a bout of the runs. Crawling on my hands and knees up the sheer faces of stone, I began to wish that Pd stayed with Patricia. I had left her in the café down below, with a plate of roasted guinea pig.

Staring out across the valley, down to the Urubamba River, was invigorating beyond words. The light was now a syrupy yellow, bright yet not harsh. A chill wind ripped through my hair, whistling between the crags. I yelled at the top of my voice. But no one heard me. Then, like a cat stuck in a tree, I peeped down at the ruins. The lack of safety devices was unnerving, but at the same time exhilarating. One slip of the heel and Huayna Picchu would have embraced another victim.

The rush of the wind was telling me to thrust away from the rock and jump. ‘You will fly! You will fly!’ it called. ‘But I have no wings. It’ll be suicide.’

‘Make a canopy,’ urged the wind. ‘With a sail streaming above you, you’ll glide down to Earth.’

I closed my eyes and sensed the current of air on my face. Then I breathed in deeply.

‘Trust me, and I will protect you … I will hold you as you fly’

I opened my eyes a crack, and began to understand the significance of Machu Picchu. Stretching out in symmetrical flanks, on east and west, the ruins were arranged as wings. Once I saw them, I couldn’t get them out of my mind. They gleamed up at me, glinting in the yellow light.

Machu Picchu was laid out in the shape of a condor.

I would have slithered my way back down to the café much sooner. But a refined-looking Peruvian man was watching me.

‘It’s a condor!’ I shouted. ‘Machu Picchu’s a gigantic condor!’

The man was dressed in a sheepskin jacket, with the flaps of a woollen hat pulled down snugly over his ears. His nose was streaming, and his cheeks were scarlet. In his hands was a tin, and in it were coca leaves.