Hot water

I am here at the Presidente in Agua Calientes, a village at the base of a network of old and new mountains, including Machu Pichu, that surround it. The town is divided in three by a set of train tracks and the great brown river Urubamba. The prices are jacked and the rum is very expensive; I am surrounded by about a thousand other trekkers who just saw the hidden city too.

When the blue Peru Rail trains arent passing by, the train tracks become pedestrian - children play tug of war on opposite tracks with sticks, the indian workers haul heavy cables and cement mix up and down. It was sunny today and it rained heavily for about an hour at 2. I ate pizza and got sick from the lemonade.

My last four days were hard and my knees are killing me. But I have spent the last few hours exploring the town and sitting on my hotel patio overlooking the river with my new friend Pete, who is 70 years old and who walked the trail with me for four days straight - amazingly, really, since I almost died myself, it felt like.

Today I saw Machu Pichu. We woke at 4 am and ate oatmeal and drank coca leaf tea before setting off to teh check point, which opened at 5:30. I raced down the old Inca trail of slippery stones and terrifying cliff to make it to the sun gate by about 8 ish. I enjoyed the historic and post card vista for a while, on my own for a bit, but my knees were so destroyed from the days before that the climb down to the old complex of Machu Pichu took longer than it did for the peach faced and white haired tourists who had come for just the day by bus or train -- arguing about the altitude as they rub sun tan lotion over their pug faces. Oh well.

Day two was absolutelty the most challenging. From the camp, it is about 1100 metres up to reach the first pass.. which is well over 4100 metres above sea level. A steep up, where I amused myself by speaking to the mountains. For the most part I was all alone and chewed coca leaf. The problem was I didnt drink any water, and as the day was over, I was drenched by the Andes rain and well dehydrated. Once you get to the top, it is all down for two more hours, and you havent even eaten lunch yet. The down is the hardest, they say. But the climb up was mystical and tortuous, like something from Dante or some bad routine of Naked Lunch.

Peter is a good man. He wanted to get a good picture of the Urumbamba before getting on his train. But I knew he liked rum and decided it would be better to first settle on the patio of my hostel and have a few before exploring.

"Theres this poem, and in it, the man wants to learn all there is to know. So he buys a complete set of the Encycolpedia Britannica and reads it from A to Z," Pete is telling as the river rushes past. "Except the only thing is, once he finishes he dies, --- ´and the only ones who feasted upon his knowledge were the worms"

Here is a man who admits hes got tonnes of books in him. But given that hes an engineer and, once retired was diagnosed a dislexic, he admits he cant write adamn word. Now, I tell "well thats why Im here... I guess. I can write, or at least, I WANT to. But I dont have a book in me."

I bought these four screaming happy kids ice cream and let them play with my camera after Pete and I watched them play tug of war on the tracks for a bit. Immediately I felt a tidal wave, sort of, shift between me and this city.

Pete sailed across the Atlantic on his own. He is trading in his London house to buy a nice new sail boat and is going to sail the Baltic in May and then in September go somewhere very south from Liverpool, his home. Im not sure, but he firmly shook my hand and said Im welcome as crew, for definite, if I wanted.

My friends, although this trip has been more work than play so far, I am glad to be here. Experience is life.

"I dont care if if I die tomorrow, but I plan on using life as much as I can until I do." Peter Marksman, 70. I hope you live, but if you dont, I hope you die in yer boots.