Day 1: Off to Peru

4:00 AM sneaks up on you and hits you like a bus. Especially when you were up until 2:00 AM packing and worrying that you might be stuck in the Peruvian wilderness without some critical piece of equipment. But alas, it was 4, and time to catch the van to the airport to begin the trip.

The plan was to fly from Los Angeles and meet everyone else in the lovely city of Atlanta - known, if not for anything else, for being an amazing Delta hub. If you fly Delta, you go to Atlanta. To London? Atlanta. To Rio? Atlanta. I'm sure if you're even flying to Atlanta you have to change terminals and get on another plane for at least a minute or two. They wouldn't want to cheat you.

Sitting over my carefully prepared Egg McMuffin in the surprisingly busy LAX McDonalds, I figured it would be an appropriate time to open the Machu Picchu and Inca Trail travel guide Dad had given me nearly a month before. It quickly became a page turner as I learned the history of the Incas was incredibly rich and fascinating. They were basically the Romans of South America, yet they accomplished so much with so little.

We'll get into all of this more in depth later on, but a quick overview of the Incas. The word "Inca" actually referred to the king at the time, and the rest of the race as the "Inca's People." The most noted of the Incas was the ninth one, Pachaputec, who expanded the empire to staggering lengths and is responsible for a good deal of construction throughout the land, including Machu Picchu. His name in Quechua, the language of the Incas which is still spoken in the mountain areas today, means "expander of the world." More on him later.

Anyhow, the Incas conquered vast amounts of territory without the use of the wheel or writing. They constructed a vast system of roadways branching out to the various provinces from Cusco, their spiritual and political capitol. Communications were made via messenegers who ran along the roads and in lieu of writing, they tied knots in strings using a base-ten counting system. Their palaces and buildings were made using stones cut perfectly to fit each other and without any mortar whatsoever. Being on the coast of the Pacific "Ring of Fire," the region is very prone to earthquakes, so go figure that there was no mortar or anything to hold these buildings up yet they have withstood centuries of unstable earth.

Like all of the other native empires of Central and South America, they met their end at the hands of the greedy Spanish. Taking advantage of a civil war between two brothers vying for the throne as Inca, the Spanish worked their way in, manipulated the current leader, killed him, and pillaged the empire. The remaining Incas fled to their last city of Vilcabamba where they languished until the final extinction. An amazing race that would rival the great empires of all history was raped and pillaged until it was no more. But hey...at least the Spanish got there in time to make them all Catholics. Praise Jesus!

What is truly amazing, however, is that in the mountains the farmer people still speak the ancient Quechua and while the country is largely Catholic now, there are still remnants of the Inca faith being practiced throughout the region. Even some Christian celebrations are molded to fit their repsect and worship of the sun, the mountains, and the earth. In the midst of the heartbreaking destruction of the Spanish, there still lives on a glimmer of the ancient greatness that was the Inca empire.

I boarded the plane and opened my book to continue this fascinating tale. I woke up three hours later to some strange video concoction involving Meryl Streep that turned out to be "Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events." Watching the airplane movie with no headsets is always a little wierd, but this one in particular looks like an entire generation of children will grow up quite disturbed. James and the Giant Peach was bad enough for me. I also found that the nice lady sitting next to me had saved one of the in-flight snack packs for me. It was a small white bag with the word "ENJOY!" written in large letters across the front. Be assured that after opening it and examining the contents, I most certainly did not "enjoy." Funny to think that the airpline food we once complained about is now a vertiable feast.

I landed in Atlanta a little more than an hour before everyone else was supposed to get there. Dad had been so kind as to schedule my flight in the wee hours of the morning and then laugh at my misfortune the night before. That's ok. I'm sure I'll get my revenge. There are thirty miles of trail ahead of us and he is, after all, a very, very old man.

Once they arrived we caught up after I had a chance to peruse the wares of the Brookstone and the food court and we were off to Lima. The party now included myself, my sister Shannon, my step brother Simon, my step mom Barbara and my dad, Cam.

After the surprisingly short six hour flight, we landed in the warm and humid evening air of Lima. The airport seems to be the place to be and be seen in Lima since there were an awful lot of people hanging around outside. Of course most of them drive taxis (of questionable officiality) and they don't hesitate to let you know that. This is where Spanish starts coming in handy with the accurate yet futile phrase, "no gracias." I felt badly when I tried to push a man away from Shannon's cart who seemed to be grabbing it for her so we'd pay him, but then he flashed an ID badge and said he was with us. How precocious of me to be off to such a start. That was until he made it all the way to the bus and the driver shooed him away. I guess he wasn't with us after all and he had pulled a fast one. But it wouldn't be the first time I'd be had. Oh no.

On the bus to the hotel, the guide told us of the local color of Lima, which consists primarily of casinos themed after American cities. So there you go. You can visit lovely Miami, New York, or Los Angeles without leaving the comfort of Lima.

Our hotel was across the street from the Colombian embassy, so we felt quite safe. Even though it is the same embassy that one of the past Peruvian presidents hid out in for a good deal of time to avoid capture and arrest by his own people. That sounds like fun. After checking in, Simon, Shannon and I decided to deal with our at this point ravenous hunger and visit the restaurant. Everyone spoke Spanish so I was working on dusting off my skills. The person at the desk said the hotel restaurant was open late. The man standing in the restaurant pointed us to a table. But then the head waiter came out and looked at us like we were from some foreign planet. Apparently they were closed. We were all a little confused as to where the disconnect was...but he still brought us sandwiches, so I suppose no harm no foul. The sandwiches were some kind of ham and melted cheese situation with the edges of the sandwich pressed together. I have never seen that before.

After this eventful day, we went to bed to the sounds of a raging party somewhere across the street or in the hotel itself. Sweet, sweet Peruvian music. Tomorrow, we are off to Cusco to begin the adventure.


Simon, Dad, Me and Shannon at the hotel in Lima