This trail is but a fraction of a vast 14,000-mile network that, in
the words of one dumbstruck Spanish conquistador, "excels the
constructions of
Egypt and the monuments of Rome." More numbing
still, no one will ever really know how this vast web of trails and
the cities and temples they linked were constructed. The Incas
didn't keep records, and their Spanish conquerors, intent on wiping
out all reminders of Inca presence, wouldn't have left them intact
if they did.
What is known is this: An Inca messenger, chasqui in the Quechua
language, probably ran this very trail 500 years ago, headed,
maybe, as we are, to Wayllabamba, or Ollantaytambo, or perhaps the
legendary city of
Machu Picchu. And he did so a lot faster than
I.
We are here, seventeen of us, to enjoy the natural splendors of
Peru, explore the local culture, and learn about
Peru's Inca past.
This is not unusual. Since the government has largely quashed its
number-one public-relations stumbling block (the now-subdued
Shining Path terrorist group), tourists these days are coming to
Peru in droves, most of them making the pilgrimage to Machu Picchu,
the lost city of the Incas.
But these visitors generally travel by bus, helicopter, or train.
Our itinerary calls for us to run, and not because we are late for
our bus. We have signed on to run the
Inca Trail to Machu Picchu
and beyond - along wind-swept rivers, through damp cloud forests,
up and over blustery mountain passes - because we want to.
At least running is what my new friends came to do.
As Bob Graham, a fifty-six-year-old emergency-room doctor from
Connecticut, tells me, "Running is a great way to explore a place.
You see things you wouldn't normally see."
Like everyone else's rump disappearing up the trail. Only a few
days into the trip, we have already established a pecking order,
and I am right at the back. Not that anyone cares. My fellow
runners - and, unlike me, most of them really are runners - are
distinguished less by their impressive athletic accomplishments -
marathons, 100-mile races, a rim-to-rim-and-back run of the Grand
Canyon with only two pretzels' worth of supplies - than by their
plucky mind-set.
Our first night in Cuzco, our starting point before we set out on
our run, I sat next to Amanda Zuckerman at dinner. A soon-to-be
Harvard graduate, Amanda seemed quiet and shy. She had recently
spent six weeks trekking in remote
Nepal, an experience that
included a close look at the butchering of a goat.