Living in Peru : your everyday companion

By Richard Nisbet
Cusco Tales
Part 1

Washi didn’t show up until 1:45 and then he told us that he could only get two horses.

“Fine,” I said. “We can take turns on the horses. I’m sure I can walk some of the way as long as there’s a path.” I was thinking of last year’s hike on the other side of the river and the scrambling and how hard it was for me.

Washi goes for the horses, and I go for a walk in the direction of the quarries. “I’ll meet you somewhere before the bridge,” I tell him.

I wanted to have another look at one of the so-called piedras consadas, the “weary stones.” These were gigantic monoliths that according to legend were just too tired to make it to their destination. I was interested in one particular and peculiar weary stone. This huge megalith has two rows of cups cut into the surface. When I was here six months ago, I was told that someone had written a paper theorizing that these cups were part of a transportation scheme. The cups fit over round rocks so that the megaliths rolled as if on ball bearings. It sounded pretty strange, especially since the cups were on the top of the rock, and it would be a beast to turn the rock over, but I am determined to examine every theory, so it seemed worth another look.

So I am walking down this very dusty road that parallels the ramp. I come upon a huge weary stone replete with modern graffiti. A little further on, I come to the stone of many cups. I climb up on it and have a good look. There they are: two rows of cups, or one row of pairs of cups. Most of the depressions are separated by a few inches, but one pair is joined. It looks like a pair of aviator’s goggles or a pair of butt cheeks.

I try it out. I lie down and discover, to my amazement, that the cheeks of my butt fit perfectly into the butt-cheek cups. Not only that, my heels fit perfectly into another pair of cups, and furthermore, my shoulder blades fit into still another pair. And beyond even that, the surface of this rock is putting pressure on my back at the very point where my neuropathy originates. AHA! I think. It must be an ancient Rolfing table.

The ramp.

I lie there, feeling very comfortable and dreamy. There are gentle clouds playing around in the sky. The day is fine and I am fine. An old man comes along and tells me in a Spanish-Quechua patois that the stone I’m lying on is a piedra consada.

I told him I was going to the quarries of Kachiqhata.

“Lejos,” he said to me. “Far.”

No problem, I think. We’re going on horses.

After a while there are still no comrades, and no horses, but I am content to lie here and sense my surroundings. The stone is massive and firm beneath me and the sun is warm. I wonder at the effort it took for men to move this 20-something foot-long monster all the way over here from the quarries.

It seems like a good opportunity to ask the Inca spirits to have a shot at curing my voodoo neuropathy.

I intone to myself, “Oh Sun, oh Inti, who has nourished us for lo these many years, who has provided warmth and food, may your rays from above penetrate and heel me.”

“Oh mighty stone, so powerful beneath me, may the strength of the earth, of Pachamama, penetrate from below and heal me.”

I realize that this sounds clichéd and banal, but I am not accustomed to praying to pagan deities and so may be somewhat lacking in verbal finesse.

I keep this up for half an hour or so, trying to muzzle my left brain so that perhaps a minor miracle might transpire.

Still no comrades and no horses. It’s almost two-thirty. I’m ready to postpone the trip. I’ll ask Doug to draw a map for Washi so that we can go tomorrow. Washi and Doug have both insisted that the round trip hike on foot is only three hours. With horses it should be even less. But austral winter is coming in and the sun sets early. It’s down by 5:30 or 6:00. If we leave in the next fifteen minutes, we’re still cutting it close.

Then, suddenly, here they come.

“Hey, old man!” René is in the lead. He passes me with the news that my horse is coming and that Washi has managed to get a third horse. “But Washi’s horse is a pain in the ass,” says René. “He don’t want to go on this trip and Washi ain’t too good at changing his mind.”

Next comes Washi. Washi is not exactly an experienced equestrian and he’s having a terrible time what with the horse making furious attempts at a U turn about every twenty yards.

And finally comes Doug, leading my horse. He has passed Washi, who is still struggling with his reluctant gelding.

Doug is walking. He’s leading a gray mare. And trotting along beside her is a sorrel foal.

The foal keeps going for her teats.

This seems like a clear sign to me. Didn’t Irini warn me about the mare with the foal?

“Doug,” I say. “I think it’s getting a little late to begin this trip.” Then I lay out my map idea.

Doug’s answer is succinct and unequivocal. “You’ll never find it.”

I acquiesce without hesitation. Whatever it takes, I am determined to see this wheel. And I want to see it on this trip. The next time I get back down here, Doug may be somewhere else. It seems like a last chance.

I ask Doug to lead the mare up beside the Rolfing stone so that I can mount. The stone is so huge that its height is level with the mare’s back.

I rode horses so much in my youth that my legs are bowed. I rode hunters and jumpers that were of goodly size. This mare was hardly more than a pony. I wonder at the sorry horses they breed here in the Andes. What ever happened to the seed of those steeds that carried the conquistadors? The mare is sad, but the tack is sadder. The saddle is a sort of McClelland with a high pommel and cantle and a slot running through the middle. The stirrups are of insufficient width and are fronted with leather hoods so that your foot can only go in so far. They are made for those pointy-toed boots that cowboys wear. I am wearing wide waffle-stompers and the stirrups must be pounded onto my shoe. Whenever I put weight on it, my right foot falls out of the stirrup and it is almost impossible for me to get it back in without help..

So now, with all but Doug mounted, the American-Swiss-Peruvian expedition to the Kachiqhata quarries, struggling with reluctant horses, proceeds apace. Down the road a bit, we cut a left to cross the fields. The corn has just been harvested and here and there are neat rectangles of ears both white and yellow laid out to dry in the sun. To our left, we see more piedras cansadas, huge and pink, lying there for oh so long with the grass growing up all around them. They are like disconnected railway cars scattered along a lost track.

Doug is walking ahead of the procession. He is not walking, he is striding. “Without a backpack, I feel light as a feather,” he says. It looks it. He is charged with energy and fortitude. I remember the feeling and I envy him.

We come to the river. The stones from the quarries had to get past this obstacle somehow. It has been theorized, and is still written in guidebooks, that the river was diverted then re-diverted to get the stones across. Then along came Vincent Lee, the intrepid architect and explorer who tried to duplicate the transportation of stones from quarry to construction site. Lee discovered that because of the round river rocks, it was easier to pull the huge stones across the river bottom than on dry land.

We cross the rickety old bridge and begin to climb the other side. We pass a house or two, and at each of them Washi and the inhabitants exchange words in Quechua. I’m not sure what they’re talking about, but I think it has something to do with somebody’s sister or cousin. Whatever, it all seemed very familial.

Quechua was the language of the Incas. It is still spoken today by millions of people in the Andes. The Incas imposed Quechua upon all of their conquered subjects. If you were a personage of any importance and you didn’t use Quechua in your transactions, you were a candidate for severe punishment. Sons of the conquered, those of consequence, were sent to Cusco to learn the lingua franca of the Andes.

The foal turns out to be more help than hindrance. I urge her ahead by swinging the end of my reins near her rump. She moves ahead and the mare hustles to keep up. By the time we cross the bridge and begin the ascent on the other side, it is three in the afternoon.

“Yo, René,” I shout.

“Ya?”

“Somebody has a theory that these stones were moved by cutting cups in them and hauling them with round stones in the cups. Like ball bearings. What do you think.”

“Vouldn’t vork. The stones vould fall out whenever there was a depression in the ground.”

Ah the Swiss. His answer makes sense to me. Besides, I am still convinced it is an ancient Rolfing table.

We come to a turn in the path. Doug confers with Washi. The way Doug hiked this mountain before was to go straight ahead. Straight ahead is damn near straight up. Washi says the horses can’t make it that way. We must go a distance over to the right and then somewhere over there, way out of sight, switchback to the left. Already the trek is beginning to look longer than anticipated.

So far the ascent is gentle. We have climbed high enough to get a fine view of the valley and the river and the mountains that rise on the other side of the river. Washi points to a little settlement half way up the mountain opposite. We can see a path that leads up to it. This used to be his home, he tells us. His home looks to be at least 1500 feet above the river. He had to hike from there down to Ollantaytambo and back every day. Washi doesn’t have the body of the typical Andean. Most of them are short-legged and barrel-chested from eons of accommodation to this vertical, oxygen-weak environment. Washi’s body is long and lean and he doesn’t have ostensibly gigantic lungs. But Washi can walk with the best of them.

We come to the first steep ascent. My old gray mare struggles up the hill, sagging and wallowing like an old Buick with bad shocks. She makes pathetic groaning sounds. The foal has a try at her udders. I can’t take it any more. I dismount. Screw it. I’ll walk up the hill. It doesn’t really look that far and I seem to feel a hell of a lot better than this pathetic, worn-out horse.

“Save the horses for the trip back,” I say. “Coming down is harder than going up. I’ll need them more then.”

The others dismount, and with fragile vigor we set out afoot.

Doug, ever the cheery one, tells me that we needn’t worry about darkness because there’s a full moon tonight. I know that’s not true. The moon is waning and won’t come up until some time after sunset. How long after sunset, I don’t know. I don’t remember how many days it’s been since full moon and I’m too preoccupied with getting my legs to work to calculate moonrise anyhow.

Doug leads, apparently still feeling light as a feather. René is next, behind Doug, but still ahead of me.

“Hey, René,” I shout.

“Ya.”

“You know what’s gonna happen? When we get to that wheel, Doug is going to look at it and say, ‘Well, it looked like a wheel the first time I saw it. It looks kinda square now.’”

“Ya,” says René, laughing. “That’s it.”

We all laugh and plod ahead.

After a while, I realize that my assessment of the distance is way off. It’s a long, long way up there and I don’t even know where “up there” is. I trail further and further behind.

Washi has taken all the horses by the reins and is trying to lead them. As we climb higher and higher, I look down and see him struggling with the beasts.

The going is so precipitous and rough and difficult of purchase that I can’t imagine climbing it on a horse anyway. Much of the time I’m grabbing at whatever bushes are there for lift. I figure Washi will give up on us and take the horses home. We’re all a little pissed at him anyway for bringing us tired horses, and nobody has much faith in the boy.

It’s getting harder and harder for me. Dancing is the only exercise I’ve had in the last three weeks. Our elevation is around 10,000 feet above sea level and the air is thin. My lungs burn and I breathe with deep gulps. My heart is ka-thumping like the timpani in the opening of “2001, a Space Odyssey.”
BOOM-boom, BOOM-boom, BOOM-boom, BOOM- boom!

It feels ready to break out of my chest.

All right, I say to myself. It’s about time you had an extreme experience, Richard. Your life has been too even. Time you should push yourself. So I proceed, still feeling pretty good, if pretty tired. The legs are working okay.

We continue onward and upward toward, we hope, the stone wheel. Doug, the vigorous young bastard, is out of sight. René, who smokes one thing or another all the time and coughs like he has emphysema, is way ahead of me.

Now I’m having a bitch of a time. One foot in front of another. One foot in front of another. One foot in front of another.

I think about the people who have climbed Everest. They deal with even thinner air and they’re freezing their asses off. This is nothing compared to that. I think about the soldiers who were on the Bataan death march. If you quit on that one, you got a bayonet through the gizzard. The only bayonets I face are the cactus spines.

The sun is getting low. It will disappear behind the mountain maybe 30 minutes before sunset. I can only think now of getting to the wheel before dark. René waits for me to catch up.

“Don’t worry about darkness, René. There’s a big moon tonight.”

“Dere’s NO moon tonight,” he says.

“Yeah there is. It’ll come up a little after sunset.”

“Bull shit! Dere’s no moon tonight.”

“Okay René, let’s get on with it. Where’s Doug?”

“Vey up dere somewhere. Vat’s vith dese stupid guides.” He gets in my face now. “Dis is no three-hour trip. Maybe it’’s a three-hour trip for a twenty year old.” I can’t tell whether he’s really pissed or just messing with me.

“He’s twenty nine,” I say.

“IT’S THE SAME GODDAM THING!” says René. He is pissed. René likes to kvetch and this is one grand opportunity for kvetching. Nevertheless, he’s probably right about the difference between twenty and twenty-nine. There’s not much.

After about five more steps, I feel a sharp pain in my right ankle. I look down and see that two cactus thorns have penetrated my hiking boot and lodged themselves in me. I jerk them out and yelp. The damn things have barbed ends.

We climb. Looking down we can see the Urubamba River and the fields beyond and the mountain rising beyond the fields. I pause for breath and thought. The breath consumes me at first, and then some thought comes.

There was a big battle fought down there, across the river. It was the only major battle the Spanish lost. Manco Inca, once a puppet ruler for the conquerors, is now in revolt and holed up at Ollantaytambo. The Spanish send out a small contingent of horsemen and foot soldiers and a bunch of Indian auxiliaries to deal with the problem. They know Manco is there, but they’ve never seen Ollantaytambo. They’ve never even sent a scout. Big mistake.

They have a terrible time getting there. The path along the Urubamba River changes from side to side and every crossing of the river involves a battle with the Indians. When they finally get to Ollantaytambo, they are faced with an impossibly steep climb to the temple/fortress where Manco is ensconced. There are archers and stone-throwers and lancers all over the slopes. Not only that, the Indians have by now acquired horses and harquebusiers and know how to use them.

After enduring a hail of rocks, spears and arrows, the Spanish finally decide that this campaign is a bad idea. As they retreat, the Indians, seeing a sign of weakness, mount a furious counterattack. And they have a secret weapon. Manco has arranged for a system to divert the river onto the fields to flood the enemy. The horses are mired, sometimes up to their bellies. But the Spanish somehow manage to get to the river and begin their retreat. The battle to get back to Cusco is harder than the initial incursion. The Indians had sprinkled thorny agave cactus over the paths to wound the horses. But the Spanish made it back. The conquistadors were rugged, fearless fighters, and luck (they would have said “God”) was on their side.

I think about what a hard time the Spanish had and I think, “This climb is nothing. Those guys REALLY had a hard time.”

Where we are going is somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500 feet above the river. From the other side, it didn’t look so high.

Most of the time there is no path and the mountain is rocky. We see cut stones of varying shapes. Here a block, there a column, all over, many medium-sized stones, and everywhere, pebbles that are like ball bearings underfoot.

My right leg is getting tired of this drill. It doesn’t want to work. I curse it. “Get up, you lazy piece of crap!”

One foot above another. One foot above another. One foot above another.

The heart is still beating out 2001 and I am pumping this thin air in and out of my lungs with frightening depth and speed.

Be glad this isn’t the Bataan death march, I think. Along with everything else, they had dysentery. You’ve got it easy, pal.

René comes to kvetch some more. “Dis is crazy,” he informs me. “It’s getting late. Remember, DERE’S NO DAMN MOON TONIGHT! How’re we going to get down dis fucking mountain in the dark?”

I’m trying to get my right leg to do my bidding. I’m too exhausted to argue. I raise a tired hand and shoot René the bird. “I don’t know, René. If I think about getting down, I won’t be able to keep going up.”

“We’re never gonna get to that wheel. I don’t think there even IS a wheel. This is a nightmare.”

“Then why don’t you turn around now and go home so I don’t have to listen to any more of your pissing and moaning?”

“I’m not gonna leave you, old man. You’d probably get killed up here without me to help you.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing? Looking after me?”

“Ya! Ya! Dat’s it. If it wasn’t for me giving you shit, you’d probably quit.”

Quitting was out of the question. I was determined to see the wheel, and it never occurred to me that getting there and back, even in the dark, would kill me.

We start climbing again. It requires a tremendous willpower to make my right leg work. I struggle to another level and pause, hands on knees, gasping and cursing.

After a few more exhausting minutes I call out to René.

He stops and turns around. “Ya?”

I pull the camera bag from around my neck. “Take this. In case I don’t get to the wheel before dark.”

For a moment, I can tell, he is formulating a wisecrack. But for once, René relents. He takes the camera and sets off ahead of me.

I shout after him. “Do you know how to work it? Be sure to turn it on first. And pop up the flash. It’s the little button on the left.”

René pays me no mind. He is trudging ahead.

We are moving in the general direction taken by Doug, whom we haven’t seen for about fifteen minutes. Suddenly we hear his voice. We look left and right and see nothing. Then we look up.

He’s standing atop a knoll that at this moment looks to be about a thousand feet above us. “I’ve found it! Up here!” He is silhouetted against the sky, standing there like a triumphant Thor on the mountaintop, the son-of-a-bitch.

“Up here.”

Like getting up there was no problem.

There is no path to “up here.” It is a steep ascent strewn with rocks of rose rhyolite. They look like huge hunks of salmon. Earlier, René has asked me why they didn’t just build the damn temple where the rocks were, instead of bringing them all the way down one mountain, across a river and through a field and up a ramp to the spur of another mountain. I had surmised that it was because the temple site was located on a promontory overlooking the delta of the Patacancha and the Urubamba rivers and was probably considered a sacred place . Struggling now up this barren rock-strewn slope, I couldn’t imagine even those magnificent Inca engineers attempting to build that shrine here.

René is plowing up the hill ahead of me. “René,” I yell to him.

He doesn’t even turn around. “Ya?”

“ I think Doug was pointing down when he said he had found the wheel. Why don’t we just walk around the hill rather than over it?”

“Na. Won’t work. We gotta go up.”

I’m too tired to argue with him, so I follow. We are walking into the sun’s waning light and everything is in silhouette. Finally, we come to the top and there is no sign of wheel, no sign of Doug. We call out to him and his voice leads us, not down, not over, but up. More Goddam up.

Exhaustion is edging me into an altered state of consciousness. The sun is below the mountain now and everything is getting pink. The golden light of dusk heightens the color of the stones that lie everywhere. It seems surreal. I tell myself that I’ve got to come back here with a fresh horse and enough time to really see things. I’m far too out of it to give this extraordinary place the attention it deserves. I can only put one foot up and then another. It’s a laborious process.

Finally we see Doug again, standing above us again, with that triumphant Thor stance again that makes me want to strangle him. He speaks. “Come on up here and see this wheel! Well, sort of a wheel. It’s at least round on the edges.” He laughs.

Okay, ha ha. But the distance looks manageable. Doug’s not nearly as far or as high as he was for his first Thor appearance. I can’t see a wheel from where I am, but I think he is pointing to it and it looks like he’s pointing to something right there beside him.

That rock wheel was not right there beside Doug. It was more UP. More mothableeping UP!

I am scrambling up the scree in spurts. The light is waning. I’m going to get to this wheel if it kills me, and I am going to photograph it. “René!”

“Yah?”

“Give me the camera.”

He waits until I catch up. “Think you’re gonna make it, old man?”

“Up yours. Give me that goddam camera.”

He gives it to me and we continue. I figure René must be tired. It’s been a while since I’ve heard any gratuitous grousing from him.

Then all of a sudden we are there.

And it is a wheel. It is not lying flat as I had expected. It is standing just a few degrees off the vertical. I activate the camera and flash. René immediately mounts the wheel and perches on the edge, wielding his walking stick like he’s the king of the mountain. Doug stands beside the wheel.

I take a couple of pictures, then Doug, who’s had enough of sharing the discovery, yells at René. “Get off there.” After that, I have Doug take a picture of me at the wheel. I look as exhausted as I feel.

The wheel is 63 inches in diameter. The edge is beveled. There are holes drilled on-center, one from each side, that do not meet. The front hole is the larger of the two.

Part of the back of the wheel has split off and there is a hairline crack completely around the circumference just a couple of inches in from the front surface. Sooner or later the thing would have split again. This stone was layered and it was hardly the one to use for this purpose. I can’t imagine the same people who built the temple having made such an egregious mistake. It adds to my belief that some of the art was lost by the time the Spanish arrived.

It looks sort of like a millstone, but I can’t figure out why the holes are drilled from either face but do not meet. I imagine the thing careened down the hill from where it was shaped, careened down and lost major parts of itself. I wonder, did it land so perfectly like a standing picture frame? Or did someone with a fine eye take the time to set it up so nicely for future generations to admire?

But there is no more time for conjecture or photography. The light is getting frighteningly dim. We begin our return.

We have gone only a few yards when we hear a whistle. We look up to see the totally unexpected. On a ridge above us is Washing-tone. And he has the horses. They actually made it up there. Washing-tone is like his namesake, the general himself, ready to lead us across the Delaware. We shout to him and he motions that he will bring the horses around. He indicates “around” with his hands and it looks like a long way around. He is pointing to a path that is way below us.

Doug, René and I begin a pell-mell scramble down the hill. As usual, I hold up the rear. Going down is worse than climbing up. At least it seems that way now. I am falling a lot. The slope is rife with pesky little pebbles that deny me purchase. I announce now that I have a flashlight. I pull out a finger-size maglite that runs on a single AAA cell. I have no spare batteries. Other than a couple of Bic lighters, this is our only light. No one considered it necessary to bring a flashlight. After all, it was only supposed to be a 3-hour trip. The only reason I have one is because the little thing was already in my pocket. I am determined to continue without it as long as possible. We have a long way to go in the dark.

The light goes from pink to colorless, and as it diminishes, so does my balance. I am staggering as though besotted and don’t have much faith in my ability to negotiate this treacherous descent without help. It’s another trick played on me by this vile voodoo neuropathy. Doug is ahead of me. I call out to him. I have this idea. I ask him to hold one end of my walking stick while I hold the other. It works. My balance, borrowed from Doug, returns.

When we finally meet up with Washing-tone and the horses, there is scant light left. But now there are two new people with us: a boy who couldn’t possibly be over ten and another about Washi’s age. It was their home we passed on our way up. They have realized that we are in trouble and have come to help. Washi has René take the reins of two horses while he and his friend strategize. They are speaking in Quechua and the clicking sound of that strange language in this strange, dark place comforts me. I don’t understand the words, but it is obvious that they are trying to decide the safest way out of here. Washi has been here many times, but he’s never had to get home in the dark.

They decide that we should not return the way we came, but should take the long way. The long way path is a long way down from where we are and there’s no possibility of riding horses down that slope. They must be led. Suddenly the boys move. They tell René to follow them with the horses. In the few remaining minutes of light they must get the horses to the path.

Doug and I set out to follow. Once again I am the holdup. We are using the stick trick to keep me in some semblance of balance. Finally it is so dark that I have to use the little flashlight. I turn it on and stick it in my mouth. It illuminates only a few feet ahead of me, just enough for the next step or two. This is beginning to look like it could be a genuine life-threatening experience. Whatever I thought about the difficulty of that hike last year, it was nothing. This is something. Too much something.

I come to a clearing, a little level place on this unforgiving slope of ball bearings. I stagger around a bit and sit down. I have a poncho in my backpack. I know the moon is going to come up sometime tonight, and I’d a hell of a lot rather wait for moonlight than to continue with this madness. I can see me stumbling to my death; or at least to a damaged body part. I tell Doug I’ll give him the flashlight and I’ll stay here till moonrise. But he’ll have none of that. We have to keep going.

Doug tries to encourage me. Or maybe he’s encouraging himself. “You know, whenever something like this happens, the day ends up with everybody sitting around a fire talking about what a hell of an experience it was.” That seems to me the most likely end to this saga. I never once think there will be dire consequences to this night ride. Why I think this, I can’t tell you, for in truth, there is ample opportunity for tragedy. There are no precipitous cliffs where you could fall hundreds of feet to your death, but there are so many rocks. Rocks to trip you, rocks to slide on, and steep slopes strewn with more rocks to break your head or your bones.

Now there’s another problem. It’s totally dark and Doug is unsure of the direction we should take to connect with the others. We continue in the general direction of down and keep shouting to them. We can hear René calling to us, but we can’t tell where his voice is coming from. We keep yelling and I wave the flashlight.

“Where are you,” yells Doug. “We can’t see jack.”

René flashes his Bic to give us a fix on his direction. It is impossible to tell how far down he is but it looks close. I see lights somewhere behind them and assume that they are coming from one of the houses we passed on the way up. That would mean we are pretty far down the mountain. No such luck. Those lights are coming from way across the river. We still have a long trek ahead.

An hour after René and the others left with the horses, Doug and I finally get to them.

I have a few yards to go. It’s still down and still rocky and precipitous. I place my stick on what appears to be solid ground and lean on it.

It is not solid ground. The stick gives way and I go into a somersault down the hill. I’m in mid air and my head hits a rock. Strangely enough, it doesn’t seem to hurt much. I wonder if it’s worse than it feels. I land on my back and go into a downhill slide. It all seems very slow and dream-like. Suddenly Washi is there trying to brake my fall. He catches me in his arms and the two of us continue sliding down the hill. When we finally stop, Washi says something that sounds like “concussion”. He gets a firm grip on my arm and leads me around like he’s a cop hanging onto his prisoner. I wonder what a concussion feels like and if I might possibly have one. After a bit of this being dragged around by Washi, I tell him I think I can make it better if he’ll just loosen his grip on my upper arm.

When we get to the horses, René says, “This is the part where we throw you over the saddle.”

“Ha, ha, René. Very funny.” Actually, if René stopped insulting me I would figure he didn’t like me any more.

Our entourage now includes three gringos, three Peruvians, three horses and one foal. The Peruvians form a plan. The gray mare, the one with the foal, will go first, and Washi’s friend will lead her with the help of my flashlight. They reason that the other horses stand a better chance if they have a light-colored horse to follow. Only René and I ride. Doug, who isn’t too comfortable with horses, leads the gelding I am now riding.

The horses, sensing that down means going home, are no longer so recalcitrant. It’s a good thing because we still have a lot more down to cover before we get to the path that will take us home. Now is when I really hate these stirrups. As my horse picks his way through the rocks and down one steep incline after another, I lean back, put the weight on my feet and repeatedly, the right foot falls out of the stirrup. It still beats hell out of walking.

Doug is ahead of me, trying to lead my horse, but I think the truth is that the beast doesn’t need any leading. He’s following the gray mare. Doug is having a terrible time. He slips and slides every few steps. He is wearing a dark jacket and it is now so dark that there are times when I cannot see him. I think he is taking a left turn only to realize that he has actually turned right. Doug, in his slipping and sliding, is no longer quite his Thor-like self, but he carries on and complains not.

I had forgotten how well a horse can traverse difficult terrain. My gelding is picking his way down through the rocks very nicely. He is doing a lot better than Doug.

René yells to me, “Dese horses are doing pretty well.”

“That’s because they have four legs,” I say. I am, after all, the horse expert in this group.

“Dat’s three more legs dan you have.”

We laugh. “Good one, Ren.”

“Ya,” he says. “I tell you this. I’m glad it’s dark, because if I could see I’d be scared to death.”

I had thought about that on the way up. The path is just a narrow ribbon etched into the steep slope.

When I was here six months ago, I had wanted to see the southern sky the way the old Incas saw it. We who live anywhere near a city have lost our skies to electric lights. But in this darkness and thin air the stars seem very close and very clear. It is so clear up here that the Incas envisioned some of their mythological animals in the Milky Way. They didn’t see them in the stars, but in the dark clouds of interstellar gas that punch holes in the sparkling swath of our galaxy. Six months ago the viewing was poor. Now the viewing is patchy, but where there are no clouds, the sky is magnificent. The Southern Cross is low on the horizon, and near it the Milky Way billows up from behind the mountain, rising to thirty degrees where it disappears behind the clouds. It sparkles over us with an intensity and depth that stuns the eye.

We come to a clear path and the local boys leave us. I thank them and give the older one 20 sols, a bona fide bargain for getting saved from what could have been truly dire straits.

Finally we see signs of civilization below us. There is a string of lights that seem to float in space. It looks like the bridge to me. Thank God. Finally.

But it’s not the bridge. It is another fifteen minutes before we realize that what we are seeing is streetlights on the short road from the railway station to the town. The station was hidden from us. Now we can see it just a short distance away… but across the river. We are so close, but still so far. The bridge is nowhere near.

Now we are down close to the river. This is where I hiked last year. Silhouettes of dimly remembered features loom up into the night sky. Starlight is our only illumination. Exhaustion clouds my awareness and casts a dream-like state over everything.

It is the end of the rainy season, the end of their summer, and the river is swollen. I think of the next chapter in the efforts of the Spanish to quell Manco Inca’s rebellion. They didn’t quit after that first disastrous attempt at Ollantaytambo. They were a persistent lot, the conquistadors, and they weren’t going to let their only big defeat in Peru go unanswered. They were determined to put an end to Manco.

They waited for reinforcements and then they came back. But Manco knew they were coming, and he had fled deeper into the jungle. The Spanish pursued, but Manco eluded them. The same could not be said for his wife, who was captured and brought back to Ollantaytambo.

The Spanish were frustrated and furious. And just to show it, they stripped Manco’s wife, whipped her, and shot her naked body full of arrows. Then they stuffed her tattered corpse into a basket, which they set out on the river, knowing that it would come to Manco. And Manco would know that they meant business.

Manco was eventually killed, not in battle, but by duplicitous Spanish assassins. That pretty much ended the Inca rebellion and consolidated Spanish rule in Peru.

When René and I were up at the temple site yesterday, he said something I won’t forget. I told him that these huge stones for the sun temple came from across the river and up the mountain opposite. I pointed to the Kachiqhata quarries.

He laughs, “HA! HA! HA!” That’s the way René laughs. It’s like a bad reading of a script. “Dese guys really had it coming. HA! HA! HA! Think of what they could have done with all that energy.”

Maybe so. But I don’t think it would have changed the course of history. The Spanish had the horse and fine steel swords and were the best soldiers in sixteenth century Europe. Disease and civil war had already weakened the Incas. They were no match for the conquistadors.

It makes me sad to think of a civilization of such incredible achievements in agriculture and construction and governance being so thoroughly obliterated. But But that was the way it was. And in some ways, that is the way it still is.

We finally got back to town at nine o’clock. We were all exhausted, except, perhaps, for Washi. He’s used to this. All the horses but mine were stabled on the way to the central plaza. While they were being put away, I rode on alone.

A huge truck is coming up behind me on this narrow street and there is not room for it and my horse. I continue and the truck is forced to move at horse speed. With the bright headlights behind me, I sit tall in the saddle for my entrance. There is a crowd waiting. They are gathered around the owner of my horse who has been there for hours waiting for his animal. I dismount and a group of boys crowd around me to gawk and ask about my bloody head.

Washi and the others arrive. It is time to pay up. I am expecting an appeal for more than the figure agreed upon, but he keeps to his price… twenty sols. Forty sols would have gotten us up there and back long before dark. Lesson learned.

We pick up René’s girlfriend, Victoria, who is pretty calm considering we are 3 hours late. We go back to Café del Sol. Washi is already there and Irini has given him a large ration of grief for taking us up there so late on tired horses, especially when one of them is the gray mare with the foal.

We all have dinner. We take pictures. Washi says to me, “Tu es fuerte. You are strong. Your leg hurt but you wouldn’t quit.” It makes me feel good.

* * * *

We all lived. And that is the end of it.

Except for a footnote or two:

You may be wondering about the effectiveness of my prayers to the Inca gods while I lay upon the big Rolfing stone.

Did it work? I can’t be sure. I climbed a mountain that I thought was surely an impossibility for me. Sufficient evidence perhaps, but who knows? Perhaps prayer to Inca gods had nothing to do with it. Inti and Pachamama, as powerful as they were in their time, may well have expired with the rest of the Inca civilization.

When I got back home I went straightaway to the best source I have on Ollantaytambo; Jean-Pierre Protzen’s, Inca Architecture and Construction at Ollantaytambo. I am breathless to see if he has knowledge of the wheel. It would be so fine to tell him something new.

But, alas, he does know about it. He mentions it briefly in his chapter on the Kachiqhata quarries:

“A lone millstone, not quite completed… testifies to colonial presence in the quarries.”

That’s all. It was no big deal.

Richard Nisbet now lives in Cusco and is leading tours of the realm of the Incas. (www.machupicchu.us.com)

"Cusco Tales" is widely available in Cusco and is in some of the Zeta Books stores in Lima. It can also be purchased online through the South American Explorers Club (www.saexplorers.org). A version of the CD that goes with the book can be seen at www.ancientwalls.net.