Machu Piccu

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Blown away by the beauty of Peru! As far as High Adventure and Deep Native Culture, I put it right up there with Alaska and Africa!! Flew into Lima and then up to Cusco — quite an altitude jump from sea level up to 11,000 feet. Then took the most beautiful train ride in the world through the Andes Mountains; hopped off and trekked the last leg of the Inca Trail — high emerald-green jungle full of orchids, hanging bromeliads, soaring condors, zinging hummingbirds, waterfalls, glaciated mountains, Inca ruins. There were steep drop-offs in gorges to the raging, white-water Urubamba River and as we passed up through The Gate of the Sun, we wore “halos” of multicolored butterflies! And there below was the fabled Machu Piccu. Known as the “Lost City of the Incas,” it was rediscovered under overgrown jungle in 1911 by Hiram Bingham. Walked through the maze of plazas and palaces and down long staircases hewn from solid rock and terraces (the lawns trimmed by grazing llamas) that go right to the edge of sheer cliffs. The presence of the ancient Incas (“Sons of the Sun”) is palpable. There’s harmonic resonance in the perfectly fitted rocks, and the sunlight so high in the sky is absolutely radiant, firing-up your soul! MP is one of the planet’s spiritual power points and plants — pumping out a cosmic force. Climbed back up to the top and read aloud Pablo Neruda’s magnificent poem, “The Heights of Machu Piccu”: permanence of stone. . . raised like a chalice. . . formed from the sperm of condors.