Our backs were turned for 15 minutes, as our guide explained the history unfolding behind us.
Little did we know that the clouds that were masking the great Peak of Huanapicchu were bashfully disappearing from the horizon.
This would be expected at 6am with the changing climate and the morning sun. This was the culmination of a four day journey, beginning in the Lares Valley, and ending in the busy town of Aguas Calientes.
The initial landing was a bit of culture shock, the scene of sign upon sign rising upward from a sea of taxi cab drivers, trying to find your name became harder than I would originally have thought.
The sounds of the big city became readily apparent, and the offers for “cheap” taxi rides were abundant. We had landed in “paradise”. Lima, like the famous beans for which it is named, proved in the end to be equally complex.
The hotel bed was much welcomed, the warm shower would be something I would later miss. The wobbling ceiling fan would cut all night through the humid coastal air, and I would be happy to wake up the next day unscathed.
A phone call from an old friend, what a weird coincidence, and what a small world in a city of 9 million.
Tomorrow, I would find myself more awake. Oh how I love the free breakfast.
Stephen, you have a great gift for writing. I wish I could write with your passion and clarity of thought. Well, maybe it’s not clarity of thought as much as your ability to present what you’re thinking clearly.
I only say this because I know you’d laugh that I might believe you think clearly, or that you think you think clearly since many of your blogs show doubts like all the rest of us humans who are at least somewhat in touch with our feelings.
Dad