Urubamba to Machu Picchu

Up early, carefully selecting what will be in my small day pack and overnight bag since we send the main luggage back to Cusco with our driver, Jose. I feel fairly well and so happy that my gross headache has departed. My arms still tingle, but so what? A bit of breakfast, and a precautionary lie-down which turns into savasana, yoga corpse pose, with legs up the wall. Bliss! Then to the bus for the train station in Ollantaytambo, named for a Quechan warrior who aspired to marry the Inca´s daughter and finally suceeded after a battle, of course. We go to the home of local people who show us their one room complete with a gaggle, cache, warren or is it herd of guinea pigs which occupy a corner of the home. These are raised for the family´s consumption on very special occasions. They are considered a delicacy. One pig per person, please, as they are very expensive if ordered in a restaurant. To make up for a dearth of buying yesterday, I purchase some post cards from a street vendor and a few gifts from the woman at her home. We dine al fresco today for lunch with a musician playing a variety of Peruvian intstruments and later kick ourselves for not buying his C.D. Quickly to the train station and on to our hotel. We check in, take 5 minutes and hasten to the lobby for our bus to Machu Picchu. We make the most of our time there with Angel showing us the significant religious aspects of the city and seeing vistas impressive beyond imagining. I think the Quechuans were right to believe that the mountains were sacred and they certainly built a city deserving of the setting. It´s a marvel of engineering, astronomy, physics and city planning. How they constructed windows to perfectly reflect their openings onto the ground exactly on the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice remains a true mysetery. It is hard to imagine such a people with not writing. Many speculate that this was destroyed by the Spanish along with much of the Quechuan culture when they came to capture Peru. We left MP near sundown, coming down those switchbacks at a speed daunting in the fading light. Just time to shower before our Pisco Sour making deomonstration in the bar. Okay, it´s Peru´s national drink. I had to try one. Three shots of pisco, plus other good stuff and I was damn near on my ass. Could not finish the thing as I do appreciate being coherent when I try to converse. Off to our room to nurse our enlarging and heat radiation no-see-ém bites which prefectly illuminate all those areas where we´d failed to apply DEET.