The craziest 72 hours of my life: Back to Cusco

I looked down at the verdant green, but unforgiving, slopes.  I gazed into the blue skies, becoming thick with the afternoon clouds. I heard no one; the crowd was growing scarce as the Park Service began quietly pushing people to leave.  I took a sip of water.  A feeling of peacefulness, a strange powerful peacefulness, washed over me.  And in that moment, I felt God pulse between my veins, consume my skin.  In that moment I didn't doubt God anymore than I doubted the llama chewing on the grass a few yards away from me. I said a silent prayer to whoever or whatever God was:

Thank you.

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The Park Service asked me to leave; it was after four o'clock and the afternoon clouds were descending on the ruins.  The Park Service had to make sure everyone left, that no one had tried to sneak in a sleeping bag to spend the night among the Incan ghosts.

Cody, Adam and I met in the area outside Machu Picchu and got on the bus to go back down to Aguas Calientes.  We followed Felix to a local restaurant, where I think he got served for free in exchange for directing tourists to the establishment.  I ate ají de gallina; it was the first meal we'd eaten since the night before in Cusco. It was one of the best meals I've ever eaten.

Then it was time to board the train back to Cusco.

************

It may seem as though I've dedicated an inordinate number for words to transportation in these essays: trains, buses, vans.  But when you travel, or at least when you take this kind of trip, this month-long, multi-destination trip, bus trips and train rides become more than a way from Point A to Point B. They become a way of marking time, a way of remembering how and why Point A led to Point B, and what happened before and after Point A and Point B.  They become as much as--or even moreso--a part of the trip as the great meal you had in Aguas Calientes, as the fearsome terrain of the Andean jungle. The train ride to Machu Picchu gave us Ray, and his history of bad luck in love. Cody, Adam and I still talk about him to this day; not even, so much, to make fun of him, as to remember that moment we shared together.

At 6:00 on Thursday, June 28, 2007, however, my main worry in getting on the train back to Cusco was to stay away from Roy.  I wanted to reflect a little bit on where we'd just been, not hear more stories about internet love.  I was lucky; this time I was seated across the aisle from Cody and Adam. There was no one sitting right next to me, and I didn't know the people across from me.  Roy sat a few stations down, and I realized Cody and Adam had been right: he was really fucking loud.  And with a new audience, he was sharing many of the same stories he had shared with me in the morning.

I made a point to kind of sit back and quietly reflect the first 30 minutes or so of the train ride back. By the time I came out of my self-imposed reverie and bought a Cusqueña, Cody and Adam had already gotten into a lively conversation with the two young men across from them. They were Aussies; they were somewhat similar to us in their ages and backgrounds, but they, too, were loud. I'm sure the whole train could hear them. They'd been in several South American countries already and were headed for more, but were, for the moment, focused on that day, and that night:

"Look at this poncho. I love this fucking poncho.  I am going to wear this fucking poncho everywhere," said one of them, handling with love the Incan poncho he had bought in Aguas Calientes.  "Did any of you guys buy a poncho?"

"Wha 'r ya boys doing tonight? You partying?"

"Maybe," Cody said. "But we have to get up early to catch a flight to Lima."

"Mark doesn't," Adam said. "He might be partying."

The Aussies looked at me. "You guh be partying mate?"

I shrugged. "Maybe.  But I don't know if I'll stay out alone, without these guys."

"You guys know where (some club) is? I think we're gonna party there," said one of the guys.

"I hear they got good blow in Cusco. You guys know anything about that?" said the other.

Adam, Cody and I weren't sure what to say.  But they insisted:

"Seriously, we want to get some good blow. Seriously, you guys know? Where we can score?"

It was one of those conversations where it was hard to join in if you weren't in it from the beginning. There was also a blond woman with them, American, who had left her seat and was crouched in the aisle while the five of them talked, holding her Cusqueña.  Apparently she was on her own multi-country trip, and had ran into these Australian guys the day before, and they had made fast friends.

As it became apparent that it was going to be tough to get in on this conversation, I sort of gave up. I sat back against the wall of the train, and closed my eyes. I tried to sleep but I was far too uncomfortable. Around me, the Australian guys competed with Roy for who could be the loudest, and I just bought another Cusqueña and tried to relax.  I was really ready for some socializing, but it looked as though between trying to avoid Roy and the incredible alpha maleness of these two Aussies, it wasn't meant to be. And I made my peace with that. It looked like this train ride really would just be about getting from Point A to Point B.

To be continued...