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“Oy gevalt, Mom, I’m calling from nine thousand feet. I can barely breathe. Hold on, I want you to say hi to our guide, Juan.” Her pronunciation of WAAAAAAHHHAAAN could have summoned a flock of mallards. We slipped behind Juan, who seemed a little surprised to be connected to Nassau County, and continued to the top. A crowd was milling around the enigmatic carved rock that had been Bingham’s final discovery that July day.

Bingham gave this sculptured stone the name Intihuatana,10 and it almost surely has something to do with the sun. It’s also clearly related to the Sacred Plaza right beneath it—the winding staircase up from the Principal Temple ascends to one of those archetypal Inca ta-da! moments as the mysterious stone is revealed. Today the rock seemed to be operating as a magnet, pulling toward it the dozen or so mystical tourists who hadn’t left with the rain.

“Watch this,” John said. “Their guide’s going to tell them to hold their hands out to feel the cosmic energy emanating from the rock.”

Several sets of hands reached out toward the Intihuatana. After a second or two, the mystics turned toward each other excitedly.

“I feel warmth,” said one.

“Me too,” said another.

“It’s a rock that sits in the sun all day,” John said, loud enough to be heard in Cusco. “Of course it feels warm.”

I smiled condescendingly to show John that I was with him one hundred percent—what’s with these weirdos?—and we started to head for the stairs down toward the bus. But first I pretended I’d dropped something next to the Intihuatana, and, when John wasn’t looking, held my hand out to touch it. I couldn’t say for sure if it was charged with Pachamama power. I’ll say this, though—it was definitely warm.

THIRTY-FIVE

The Big Picture

High Above Machu Picchu

At four forty-five the next morning, John and I were standing in line, in the dark, in a monsoon. Only the first four hundred of the three to four thousand visitors who sign in at Machu Picchu’s main entrance each day are allowed to climb to the top of Huayna Picchu, the green peak that anchors its north end. This exclusivity, among a crowd of people who’ve often waited years to see Machu Picchu and traveled from around the world to get there, makes the idea of queuing for a bus in the predawn darkness seem almost alluring, even when rainwater has leapt the curb and flooded the sidewalk and the feet of all those standing on it. I was exhausted after weeks of fitful sleep at altitude, but excited, too. John had assured me that climbing Huayna Picchu not only provided a gorgeous overview of the site, it also would be the best illustration yet of how Machu Picchu had connected with the rest of the Inca empire. The first bus was scheduled to depart at 5 A.M. The bus drivers began arriving at five-forty.

When the gate to Huayna Picchu was opened a couple of hours later, a number of fit young men were waiting impatiently at the sentry hut, fiddling with their digital watches. Everyone making the climb must sign a waiver relieving the INC of any liability should they fall off; Justo had told me that a Russian with multiple piercings had attracted a lightning bolt recently and taken a nasty fall. Evidently a rumor had swept through the bars of Aguas Calientes the previous night that the record for ascending the peak was twenty minutes. One after another, competitors took off in a sprint. “The real record’s probably more like twelve minutes,” John said as we signed in. “No need to tell those lads that, though.”

From afar, and in photographs, it’s difficult to see that Huayna Picchu is covered in stonework, temples and terraces that cling to the slope like baby monkeys. A recent soil analysis revealed that some of its highest terraces were used to grow mate, the nasty caffeinated beverage that people suck through metal straws on the east coast of South America. Sets of granite steps wound like a DNA helix several hundred feet to the summit. Most climbers turned right near the top. John went to the left, where we clambered alone up a final set