The Mountain People of Peru

  Who discovered the Inca holy site (actually a town of 500 people with a very important temple inside connected by stone-pave Inca trails trails originating from all around South America in 1911?  Hayram Bingham is what most text books tell you.  Yes, this American did discover it for the Western world, but certainly the locals who live on the Inca trails (PAVED TRAILS!!) knew about it.  These are the mountain peoples who live much today like their ancestors lived.  They farm potatoes and freeze dry them for Inca soup (a minty soup made of ground freeze dried potatoes processed by a lengthy back and forth process of bringing the potatoes to the cold mountains and down to the warmer valleys). 

  They serve the local fruit beer that the porters who carried our tents and cooking supplies up the 4-day long Inca trail that we climbed drink as sustenance to carry their unimaginably heavy loads.  Yes, they eat guinea pig (the brain is particularly delicious evidently) and many (such as the porters and guides) carry on the tradition of going to Machu Picchu each day with their sweat and energy.  ¨Don´t be lazy,¨ ¨Don´t lie,¨ and ¨Don´t steal¨ are the three most important rules, transgression of which in the mountains is dealt with harshly by the community leader. 

Nine hours of hiking up hill, and this lady is there to sell local beer.

The superhuman porters.

   These proud people are the purest descendants of the Inca civilization, and even today they are discriminated against in the cities (their first language is Quechua, not Spanish, and so they are identifiable).  Except for some distinctly Spanish introduced cultural elements such as a bull fighting ring (apparently the bulls at times were used to represent the Spanish to vent frustration at the ruling class), the people here are very hard for a foreigner to understand (except for the "Inca Bucks" coffee shop near Machu Picchu...I understood that one). 

  Shoes, for example, are a difficult adjustment for any rural person from the Inca regions to adapt to (as reported by a man who we talked with who had come from a very poor mountain neighborhood and had succeeded in going to college).  It is also very foreign to have a town in which the sun streams down the alley ways as it lights up a Temple of the Sun on the nearby hilltop with sheep from the house across from your hostel who are let out of their yard to wander BY THEMSELVES four or five blocks of winding lanes to their grazing pasture for the day (we also felt them push their way past us back to the same house unaccompanied in the evening time). 

There go the sheep!

This baby cow wasn't as brave as the sheep.

   Just like our campsites, much of the walk to Machu Picchu was so high that it was often shrouded in clouds, imbuing a certain mysterious nature to the lands and people inhabiting the Incan highlands. 

   While the locals here certainly do not have an enviable lifestyle, there is the very strong allure of mystery to keep travelers interested and happy while exploring the many Inca ruins that are surrounded today by the descendants of their original inhabitants.