Shadow of the Inca

Thanks so much to everyone who responded to my last blog! I'm ecstatic to report that seven students in Ghana will now have a chance to go to college! I've been pretty busy organizing that for the last couple weeks, so this blog is going to be heavy on pics and light on text. Probably for the best!

It's been a while, I guess, since I posted anything about the actual bike trip. Well, here's where I've been so far:


For the last bit, we've been in Peru.

We rode deserts and dunes along the coast to Lima,

where we made some Peruvian friends,


who invited us on their Easter vacation to relax and play some traditional Peruvian games.


Then we climbed, up, up, up, from the sea...


to way the heck up in the mountains.


What goes up must come down, and down we came, in hail and rain,


to the prickly desert,


where we met some cyclists from Switzerland and Sweden, also headed south,


and enjoyed the company for a few dry days.


But of course what goes down must go back up, and we did,


to the top, of the world, it would seem,


and then back down, and back and forth,


to a river yet again, where it was hot.


Then we went up, where it was cold enough for the rainfly,


and then we went down,

and up,

and down,

and up,

and down,

and up,

and down,

6 times, to be exact, mostly on dirt roads, a couple thousand meters each time, before, at long last, we reached a vast plain, a valley to rival all valleys, the "Sacred Valley of the Incas."


We sought the fabled Inca Capital, and finding it accessible only by a mystical road of stone and steel known to aged local sages, we ditched our bikes and began to walk.

But we were turned back, and had to take the train after all,


which took us with speed through the night to a small, ethereal city,


where we woke to find strange and colorful people.


Then one morning we arose, early,


under a full and luminous moon,


stretched, yawned, and engaged in calisthenics,


to set out upon the final quest for the rumored ancient city. We scaled ominous peaks, shrouded in cloud and dawn,


until, appearing silently through the mist, we beheld, perhaps for the first time among mortal men, a glimpse of that ancient and storied land,


Machu Picchu, glory of the Incas.


It drifted in and out of existence with the clouds,


and seemed of a substance neither material nor illusory.


We documented our discovery with a hurried photo,


then continued to climb, to ever new and mythical heights,


where for but a moment, among the clouds and vapors, we were graced by the shadow of the Inca himself. (Can you find him, in the picture below? You may notice that he is, as might be expected, of about my height and build...)


We contemplated life,


and flowers,


alpacas,


and other flowers,


and the magical skill with which this place was built, stones carved and formed as if they were mere clay, moved and set as if they were pumice,


fashioned into vague and subtle shapes of untold astronomical import.


As the day waned the shadows grew long,


and the sun fell, like the terraced brink of the city, into the river.


Ever fearless, we pressed on, the next day


through fields of rustling grain and brilliance,


to new wonders yet unseen,


unexplained depths, concentric terraced circles,


oft entered, with curious purpose, and by circuitous route, perhaps a botanical laboratory of microclimates as many guess,


though in this conjecture there are some holes, for of what use could such dimples be among such a vast and fertile plain?


But all theories confounded, beauty was yet beheld,


the sun fell once again, as it is given to do,


upon the intrepid explorers, who slept.