Turn Right at MacHu Picchu 12-Copy Floor Display - Mark Adams [105]
The evidence that Paolo dug up over those two decades supported an accusation that people had been making for years—that the site Bingham identified as the Lost City of the Incas might not have been nearly as misplaced as he’d made it out to be. I had exchanged dozens of e-mails with Paolo and found him to be, by far, the best-informed expert on the subjects of Hiram Bingham and Machu Picchu. Having seen his research twisted in the press, he was also suspicious. Whenever I inquired about visiting him in person to discuss Bingham’s role at Machu Picchu, he seemed to vanish into his isolated cabin near Fairbanks, which had neither phone nor electricity. I’d come to understand that if I was ever going to meet Paolo, it would probably be easier to track him down during one of his long visits to Peru.
“Is Paolo still in Lima?” I asked John.
“No, he’s gone back to Cusco. But I think he’ll be back through Lima for a few days in June before he returns to Alaska. Says he’s very keen to have a chat with you.”
The feeling was mutual, which gave me an idea. I’d made a small discovery of my own, one that seemed head-slappingly obvious once it sunk in. Somehow in all my reading I had failed to recognize that an ancient highway leading to Machu Picchu that Bingham uncovered in 1915, one that he was convinced proved his Vilcabamba theory, now went by a more familiar name. For it was on his last expedition to Peru that Bingham found the Inca Trail.
“When do you think you’ll be ready for hiking again?” I asked John.
“The doctors tell most people to avoid strenuous exercise after a procedure like this.”
“Uh-huh. And you?”
“Well, I have been doing some special exercises to close this hole in my chest. It’s supposed to take six to ten weeks to heal up, but I think I’ve been able to do it in five. I felt it seal—it was like plastic setting.”
“You think you’d be up for doing the Inca Trail by June? I’ve been thinking that I’d really like to see what happens on the solstice.”
“I haven’t done the trail in, it must be twelve years.”
“Think it’s changed much?”
“Oh yeah. And unlike most things in the world, for the better. It used to be a mess, porters carrying a hundred pounds of gear, people shitting everywhere, bugs from the cattle that roamed the farms next to the trail. All that’s gone now; they’ve got regulations. No more than five hundred people per day are allowed on the Trail, including guides and porters. Speaking of which, we’ll have to get you a Peruvian guide, licensed for Machu Picchu—I can’t take you by myself.”
“Anybody you’d suggest?”
“There’s one fellow I know from Amazonas Explorer named Efrain—he’s very, very good. Speaks Quechua and English, knows his history. I’ll see if we can get him.” I heard the click of a ballpoint pen. “We’ll need porters . . . and a cook. Might be a little tricky.”
“Is there a problem?”
“It’s my new diet. I don’t know how I’ll ever explain low-fat cooking to one of these guys.”
I asked John if he’d like anything special from the States.
“Actually, yes. A good heart rate monitor.”
FORTY-THREE
The Last Crusade
Far Down the Urubamba Valley
When we’d been sitting out the rainstorm en route to Espiritu Pampa, John had explained to me what might be called Leivers’s Law of Expedition Entropy: “The bigger the expedition, the greater the chance of something going catastrophically wrong.” Bingham’s 1915 expedition offered an excellent case study. Things began well enough at Patallacta, 14 a site of “half-moon terraces” that had been