El Condor (Shannon)

Peru the vast, the illegal, the unready is a vertical country. To get around, Peruvians chew coca leaves, which give them energy and make them less hungry. They wear t-shirts that read: "La coca no es una droga." They eat guinea pigs. And use them for rituals: removing cancer, exorcisms.

Guinea pig scat litters the ruins tourists pay big money to visit. The money goes to the government in Lima and is not used to restore the ruins, build decent transport or affordable, convenient hotels. It is not spent on guardrails for the dangerous mountain roads or to pay the local tour guides or restaurant workers.

Tourism brings all this money that flows past the people like the Urubamba River, piped to provide hydropower for people in Cuzco. Yet when you turn on a hot tap in Aguas Calientes, the water is cold. Ironic.

So when the tour buses bullet down the deadly cliff road from Machu Picchu, little Quechua boys in native dress slingshot rocks at the bus and yell, "Chuparos!" Suckers!

In a country without mass communication, basic truth stands naked, such as,"Changing presidents is like changing robbers," as Miguel,our Quechua guide at Machu Picchu said.

And if you sit down at a restaurant, know that it´s also someone´s house,with a shower in the bathroom,laundry drying upstairs and babies crawling under the table. Do not order more than one of the same menu item for each person because plates will come out of the kitchen one at a time or not at all. Everyone has to bestir herself, or himself, which they do cheerfully, but tourists´ desires are still a mystery to the Peruvians. Everything they need grows on trees or underground or upon a llama.

This is what I like about them. I like their gentle voices, fangy teeth and shining eyes. The way they preface their answers with "Normal" (for us), followed by what you (abnormal) might want to hear. As in our trekking guide Dante's answer to how long will it take to climb this mountain: "Normal,15 minutes. For you, maybe 4 hours."

This is a beautiful,unspoiled,serene country where we walked for days through incredibly varying landscapes seeing no houses,roads or electric wires. The stars fill the sky with a clarity and abundance I have never seen. The constellation Lamaria is called the Eyes of the Llama. In one day we climbed a sheer, dry, rocky mountain in intense heat,and around the bend ducked fierce snow audibly breathed by its glacial neighbor,then slid downhill through a mossy Irish bog into a cloud forest where we inhaled thick mist as the trees dripped on us and unseen birds sang crazy-colored songs. The we followed a foaming green river through quiet jungle along shady soft roads where bananas and avocados and passionfruit grow, following giant metallic blue-winged butterflies and soaking in the abundant solitude.

We were hot, we were cold, we struggled and laughed and ate strange fruit in a land that conquered itself with Incan dances, with golden pumas and offerings to the sun, and no need for an army until the Spanish wanted it, and Quechua words became twisted with Castillian but still spoken, still sung.

Miguel said to evolve, float like the condor, be gentle. Fly softly through the world.