City of Gods

Increasing number of upper crust Indians are heading to Machu Picchu, the ‘wonder of the world’ farthest from us for the adventure of a lifetime.

- Andy Round

When it comes to lost cities, you’d be hard pressed to beat Peru’s Machu Picchu. This is a city that was so lost that it took almost half a millennium to find it. When the abandoned citadel was finally cleared of vegetation and snakes in 1911, it came packed with a full complement of Indiana Jones-style accessories. There is a rock for sacrifices, sun temples, altars, sacred niches, ceremonial baths and strange carvings loaded with unknown significance. In the graveyard, 80 per cent of the skeletons discovered were women.

It’s all exciting stuff and there’s certainly enough inspiration for a History Channel documentary or two. What’s even better is that although the bloodthirsty Spanish conquistadors rampaged through South America, they never managed to find this city.

At 5.00am one frosty Peruvian morning I’m looking up at the reason why. Above is a crude track which scratches its way across the hillside to a peak 4,000metres high, beyond this point is Dead Woman’s Pass where the crafted stones of the Inca Trail begin.

We’d taken the train from the colonial city of Cusco to somewhere in the lowlands. In the carriage it felt quite romantic what with coffee-serving women, chickens in cages, bright Peruvian clothing, small children, pan-pipe playing teenagers and the odd pickpocket. Still, after an hour, this stew of humanity was overdone and becoming as claustrophobic as a llama in your sleeping bag. When I finally squeezed out of the train into the fresh Andes air it was a lipsmacking moment of relief.

Our little group of 10 started to amble along a hillside track by the river. It was easy, like a bracing Sunday afternoon walk to the pub. Clearly this was the comfortable prologue to the so-called Inca ‘Trial’ and the mood was brighter than our flashy waterproofs.