Three weeks with my brother - Nicholas Sparks [44]
“Wow,” Micah would echo. “Just imagine it!”
“I’m trying,” I’d add.
“Different liquids! Different jars!”
“It boggles the mind, doesn’t it?”
Occasionally, we’d learn something truly intriguing. Bones, for instance, usually made us pause. And weapons. And skulls. Especially the skulls. In the Cuzco museum, there was a collection of skulls behind glass. Though the placards were in Spanish, we were able to decipher a bit of the exhibit, and make out the word surgery.
Our guide wasn’t nearly as excited about the skulls and the idea of primitive surgery as we were. He seemed to want to downplay what Micah and I were seeing, as if it somehow cast doubt on the gentility of the early Incas.
“This is not important,” he urged. “Come—let me show you the jars and bowls. There are more up ahead.”
“We’ll catch up,” we said.
It turns out the Incas engaged in brain surgery, which fascinated us. We could see the holes where they’d bored through the skulls. The holes were as big as quarters, and from the number of skulls and variations in the placement of the holes, it wasn’t an uncommon practice. As we stared at them, I tried to imagine what the patient must have been going through, or what the chief said when explaining why the surgery was necessary.
“Mmm. You’ve been depressed, huh? Well, I’m pretty sure you have animal spirits between your ears. I think we’d better dig them out.”
“Okay, Chief. As long as you know what you’re doing.”
“Of course I know what I’m doing. Haven’t you seen our jars and bowls? We’re an advanced civilization. Now hand me that jaguar bone, lean over the rock, and let me dig in.”
“Okeydokey.”
The next morning, we drove to the train station in Cuzco, to embark on the ride through the legendary Urubamba Valley on our way to Machu Picchu. Our guides had described the valley views as some of the most beautiful in the world, and our trip was everything it was advertised to be and more. Micah and I spent three and a half hours gawking through the windows, staring up at the towering granite cliff sides, and marveling at the river that often seemed close enough to touch. In places, it was possible to see Incan ruins that had fallen into disrepair; a wall here, a storage building there.
As we first descended through the valley, then started climbing into the Andes, the blue skies gave way to white, mist-filled clouds. The Andes became green with forest, and we disembarked at a ramshackle village perched on the banks of the by then raging Urubamba River. It was raining as we made our way down a narrow street, crowded with vendors, which also served as the town market. From there, we boarded a bus that would travel along the narrow switchback roads that ended at Machu Picchu, more than two thousand feet up.
The tale of a lost Incan city high in the Andes was regarded as little more than folklore when Hiram Bingham arrived in Peru in 1911. Wanting to prove its existence, he hired local guides and embarked on a quest to find it. The guides had been chosen because they supposedly knew its location, and after making their way through the valley, they eventually led him to a cliff whose top was shrouded in the clouds. As he and his team made their way up, they met a few natives, who remarked on the “houses just around the corner.” Within minutes, Bingham soon came across the ruins of the fabled city, one that was estimated to have housed more than 2,500 people. To this day, no one is sure why the city had been built. It may have served as an outpost against invading Spanish marauders; other discoveries suggest that it may have been a place where the king rested, much like a vacation hideaway. Others have pointed to evidence that most of the occupants were women, which further complicates the theories. What is known is that the city was abandoned soon after the Spanish arrived.