Machu-Picchu and beyond...

“Ellen, Ellen, we’re over here….” I looked around to see my cousin Joan and the man she recently married, Wes, waving at for me. I wouldn’t have missed them, even without the shout-out. Standing in a crowd of Peruvian peasants, Joan, at 5’7” and Wes, at 6’4
” weighing in over 300 lbs., looked decidedly gringo.

Two days before, I had left cold wintry, wet Boston, and joined a cheap NY based junket bound for Lima, to spend a week visiting Machu Picchu and the surrounding countryside. When I landed on the steamy Peruvian asphalt, a half dozen or so “guides” surrounded me, offering help to navigate Lima’s maze of neighborhoods. With the help of one of them, I’d managed to get a next day ticket to Cuzco, the ancient city at the foot of the Andes. I was ready for my adventure.

When I reached for my wallet to pay Juan or whatever his name was, even though I had been forewarned about airport scams, I discovered my wallet had been picked out of my pocket. My first hours in South America were spent negotiating with multiple policias and funcionarios del aeropuerto, decked out in random military-esque uniforms. Not surprisingly, my stuff was never found.

By the time I arrived in Cuzco, an hour’s flight from the busy capitol, I was ready to take on South America. “We’ll go back to our house and have something to eat,” Wes suggested. “I’ve been cooking all day.” He and Joan, a linguist, had been living in a village near the old city. Joan was seriously immersing herself in the local culture and studying the Quechuan dialect while her newly acquired, unemployed husband was getting used to his role as wife.

Their little white stucco house, smaller than my apartment in Boston, was filled with local artifacts and an assortment of handcrafted musical instruments Wes had collected from nearby villages. I was shown my bed, in the corner of the closet they called a study, and dropped my bags. Whatever Wes had prepared for our meal, smelled wonderful after my day and a half of airport chips and sodas. In the dark kitchen, the rough table was set with crude terra cotta dishes. I sat down and Wes ladled up a savory, herb-scented stew. After a few bites, I asked what type of meat was in it. “Guinea pig”, Wes answered. “Tender, huh?” I stopped chewing. Visions of Butterscotch, my classroom pet, being cared for by one of my students over the winter break, seemed to hover above us. Pleading a an upset stomach, I left the stew on my plate and nibbled on some boiled potatoes.

That evening, we went into town to meet up with friends and introduce me to the local music scene. The plaza in front of the old colonial catedral católica served as a marketplace, filled with peasants selling random goods ranging from hand crafted textiles and pottery to packaged foods and cheap plastic household items – a flea market in day-glo colors. Every few feet, there would be someone sitting on a rough woven blanket, selling what appeared to be a pile of dried leaves; coca, as it turned out, which, chewed in its natural state, is a stimulant, and more importantly, the basis for the production of cocaine.

After a few hours of walking around, sampling the local alcohol and buying tickets for the next day’s trip up the mountain to the ruins of Machu Picchu, I was feeling wheezey and woozy. My asthma was flaring up, my head felt unusually light and my tummy was not right. “Soroche – altitude sickness,” Wes diagnosed. “Chewing coca leaves usually does the trick, that, or glucose tablets.” So, we circled the Mercado once more to score a baggy full of leaves that promised to be much more interesting than sugar pills. Back at the house, I whiffed my inhaler, chewed a few foul tasting leaves and fell into bed.

“Time to get up,” Joan and a rooster called in the early morning from the front yard. “We need to be in town to get the train.” I was feeling less than my best, but wasn’t ready to forego my only chance to see the ruins. The clouds weighed heavily, but hoping for clearer skies, we boarded the train at a village station and set off for the lost city of the Incas. The ascent to Machu Picchu was by switchback rail, zigzagging its way up the cloud-covered mountain, over treacherous cliffs. By the time we reached the top I was so overcome by altitude, I could barely stand. Wheezing and coughing, clutching my brand-new camera, I leaned against Wes and gamely climbed over rock walls, taking badly lit photos of the site. I would have been better off buying picture postcards at the train station tourist trap, as my mother always did when she traveled.

That evening, back in Cuzco, we got a taxi and returned to the house. Joan’s friends all had advice about what would cure me – more coca leaves and tea, ponche – a local drink that promised to cure everything, anticuchos (grilled beef hearts) and local beer. None of this improved my condition, but I slogged on, listening to jazz musicians gig and drinking Pisco sours. I was not going to give in to the myth of altitude sickness and miss out on anything, including Marco, their very hot friend who was particularly solicitous of my well-being.

The next few days were a blur of sightseeing and socializing with a growing awareness that I was not adjusting to the altitude and that my asthma was scarily escalating. December is summer in Peru, and brings with it high humidity and rain. My allergy to the mold and mildew that flourished in the stucco walls all around me, was raging. My inhaler had run out of steam or whatever it spewed, and I needed to figure out how to get back to Lima for my return flight to NY on Sunday. It was Thursday, and I wanted to make sure I could get a ticket back to the capitol allowing me enough time to figure out transfers and luggage issues. For my peace of mind, I hoped to get my ticket sooner rather than leave it for the last minute.

What I didn’t understand, and ran full force into, was the Peruvian concept of “now”. “This is South America,” Wes explained. “Time is different here.” Our fruitless visits to travel agents in Cuzco proved him right. Sure, they would all be able to get me a ticket to fly to Lima, but when was questionable.

“Maybe, there’s a flight on Saturday. Maybe not,” was repeated over and over. “Not to worry – you’ll get to Lima.”

Disheartened, by the laissez-faire attitudes of travel agents and after a few hours of frustrating non-compliance, we decided to go out to the airport – nothing more than a large shed with walled off areas for official business. We were assured by various clerks, that if I arrived at the airport on Saturday morning, I would be able to get a flight back to Lima. This sounded hopeful, but with no actual ticket, my gringo doubts kicked into play.

“I think this is the best we can do, now, Ellen. Let’s go home and show up here on Saturday. It’d probably be a good idea to have some cash with you to make sure this happens.” Wes and I got on the bus back to Cuzco, stopping at a bank to exchange soles for the more stable and desirable American dollars.

Early Saturday morning, we re-boarded the dilapidated, multi-colored bus back to the airport. Wes pushed me towards a seat among the jabbering locals carrying everything from laundry to livestock while the bus careened down the dirt roads, finally dropping us at the entrance to the airport. Between my wheezing and general lack of Spanish, communicating with the airport personnel proved almost impossible. Wes and Joan took over and managed to secure a place for me on a military transport to Lima. Barring any great misfortune or Peruvian contretemps, I would be able to catch my NY bound flight later the next day.

I spent that night in the gritty Lima hotel room that was part of the trip package, and set my alarm for an early morning alert. The city is at sea-level, and with some relief, I no longer felt the effect of the extreme altitudes of the Andes. Although I was still wheezing, I was able to get myself a simple breakfast in the hotel and find a taxi to the airport.

At the gate, the clerk noticed my distress, ordered a wheelchair, and made arrangements for me to have access to oxygen on the return flight. As dreadful as this may sound, I wasn’t especially worried about the flight or my asthma – I just wanted to be back home. The large jet arrived on the tarmac and a flight attendant wheeled me and my luggage to the plane.

“STOP! – HALT! - !ALTO”, Two red-faced military officers called out as I approached the plane. “Is that your luggage? Open it up!” and they grabbed my bags from my hands. As they pulled apart my belongings, I demanded to know why. My unorthodox, escorted ride across the airstrip must have raised some bureaucratic flags.

“Why are you in a wheel chair? What are you trying to smuggle?” they yelled at me. They threw my clothes on the ground and opened up anything that was packaged.

“Nothing – I’m just a school teacher visiting Peru on holiday.” By then, I was wheezing heavily and crying; usually a sympathy-evoking behavior. Unimpressed, the two uniformed, armed men continued their search. “There’s nothing in there that you would want,” I pleaded.

After some time, they were satisfied that there was no contraband – I later found out that it was coca leaves they were looking for, and they released me. Hurriedly, I repacked my luggage, boarded the plane, clamped an oxygen mask over my mouth and slept the whole way back to JFK.

My mother and brother, waiting at the airport, took one look at me, and drove off to the hospital where I spent the next two weeks recovering from my vacation in Peru. But, that’s the another story.