Turn Right at MacHu Picchu 12-Copy Floor Display - Mark Adams [22]
The road system is believed to be the work of the greatest Inca of all, Pachacutec. The name means “he who shakes the earth.” If the Incas were the Romans of the Western Hemisphere, then Pachacutec was one part Julius Caesar and one part Romulus—a more or less historical figure who expanded a modest state near Cusco into Tawantinsuyu. Separating fact from fiction in Inca history is impossible, because virtually all the sources available are Spanish accounts of stories that had already been vetted by the Inca emperors to highlight their own heroic roles. Imagine a history of modern Iraq written by Dick Cheney and based on authorized biographies of Saddam Hussein published in Arabic, and you’ll get some idea of the problem historians face.
Using Pachacutec’s roads, fleet-footed messengers called chasquis could relay a message from Quito to Cusco—a thousand mountainous miles—in twelve days. For comparison’s sake, that was about half the average speed of the Pony Express—though the chasquis were running through terrain more rugged than the Rockies (and a lot more rugged than Kansas). According to some accounts, the chasquis carried fish from the Pacific to Cusco, three hundred miles away, where it arrived fresh enough to serve to the Inca.
Near sundown, having left the asphalt behind hours earlier, the Land Cruiser bounced through the tiny town of Cachora. At the very end of the road, we pulled up at the farm of a fellow named Octavio. We’d expected to be met by one muleteer who would assist Juvenal. We were greeted by two. Mateo was the older of the pair, about fifty. He wore unlaced rubber boots and a wool cap and had a profile that belonged on a medieval coin. Julián, who was in his late thirties, had youthful features that were not dimmed by his Boy Scout–style shirt and wispy beard. He was the special surprise guest, necessary because Juvenal had decided to provide us with six mules instead of the agreedupon five. “Don’t worry, don’t worry, Julián will work just for tips,” Juvenal said when John asked what was going on. This appeared to be news to Julián.
I asked John how I might help in setting up camp. He seemed to think it was a better idea for me to stay out of the muleteers’ way. “These guys only have two speeds—absolute idleness and complete chaos,” he told me. Our four-man team shifted into second gear as they got to work, pumping water, passing propane tanks and erecting the gigantic orange cook tent shaped like a circus big top, inside which Justo set to work peeling and chopping. Edgar climbed atop the Land Cruiser and threw my big bag to Juvenal, who caught it and ran up the hillside. Mateo and Julián set up tents for John and me. John crawled into his and spent about fifteen minutes dragging things around, grunting as if he were trying to subdue an intruder. I unrolled my virgin sleeping bag, stared at it for a moment, then stepped outside, uncertain what to do with myself. The view looking north was astonishing—a panorama of jagged peaks converging in the snowcapped Mount Padreyoc, nineteen thousand feet high. Two kids ran past down the dirt road, barefoot, pushing an old wheel with a stick.
A story in The Economist a few years back cited Peruvian cuisine as one of the world’s finest. The secret ingredient—what butter is to classic French gastronomy—is corn oil. (When Nati makes aji de gallina, a rich, velvety chicken stew, a quart of Mazola vanishes into the pot, along with an entire loaf of de-crusted Wonder bread. My sister, a professional chef, says it may be the most delicious thing she