"Something is hidden. Go find it. Take a look behind the mountains – there's something lost there. Those lost things are waiting for you. Let's go!"
When I turned to this page, I was sitting in a seat on the train with my back to the direction I was going. The rainy season has arrived, the mountains are verdant, and the mud-laden Urubamba River is flowing rapidly. The railroad tracks and the river bend after turn, Andean women in big skirts flashed out the window, I looked at the white-covered mountain tops, and turned another page on my phone.
In 2011, Mark Adams published the book "Turn Right to Machu Picchu," which chronicles his journey through the mountains to discover Inca monuments in the footsteps of Hiram Bingham 100 years ago. When the poem titled "The Explorer" is quoted in the book, neither Bingham nor Adams has yet to reach Machu Picchu. Bingham remembered these lines at another site looking out at the vast Grand Canyon, and latecomers like Adams or I knew that behind the mountains where the train was heading lay the "discovery" that would make Bingham famous all over the world—Machu Picchu, the lost and eternal city of the Inca Empire.
From the "navel of the world".
"The Seven Wonders of the World" and "The Ten Mysteries of Civilizations", the itinerary I got described Machu Picchu like this. This means that even during the rainy season, Cusco is crowded with tourists looking forward to visiting the most famous sites of the Incas. They usually spend a night or two in the ancient Inca capital to acclimatize to the altitude of the Andes, and it becomes increasingly difficult to contain their excitement as they pass by Inca descendants dressed in bright traditional costumes as they travel through the old town.
In the Quechua language used by the Incas, Cusco means "navel of the world". The capital and rise of the Inca Empire, ancient roads led from the center of the city now known as the Plaza de Armas, to the four regions of the empire, with an extended network of roads covering the "Four Directions" – the Inca name for the vast empire.
The Temple of the Sun in Cusco was transformed into the Monastery of Santo Domingo. Photo by Li Jin
Standing in the crowded Plaza de Ararms, looking up at the Cathedral, which took 100 years to build – it sits on the site of an Inca temple that houses the Last Supper by Peruvian painters, and where Jesus and the saints feast on oiled guinea pigs – imagining that every ancient road in the Inca network leads to Machu Picchu, which is not too far away, 106 kilometers away from Cusco, but 106 kilometers beyond the mountains.
"I think walking on the Inca Trail is the only right way to get to Machu Picchu," I said, turning to my guide, Marco, "It's a pity that I don't have time this time, so I have to take the train." ”
Marco, who has half Inca blood, nodded: "Don't be discouraged, you can always come again." No matter how many times you go to Machu Picchu, it's worth it. Now, let's take a look at the even grander Inca stone walls. ”
He was right that although people always rushed to Machu Picchu, the most outstanding remnant of the Inca wall was the Saxehuaman in Cusco. It was a ceremonial fortress that was religiosally religent, and after the Spanish colonists conquered the Incas, many of the megaliths were removed for other construction, but a fifth of the ruins that have been preserved are staggering enough.
The alpacas of Saxeihuaman overlook the city of Cusco. Photo by Li Jin
Perched high in the mountains, Sacsayhuaman overlooks Cusco's red rooftops with a laid-back herd of alpacas. The 18-metre-high stone wall undulates along the mountain, and the massive, irregular blocks of stone are stacked so tightly that it is difficult to insert even a piece of thin paper. No one can say for sure how the Incas, who didn't even invent the wheel, transported countless boulders from distant quarries, but the rounded corners, the variety of stone connections, and the inward-sloping design of the walls all reflect their ingenuity.
The technique of precise stacking of stones can also be found in the old town of Cusco. The narrow cobblestone streets are flanked by towering stone walls, and the stones fit together so perfectly that I can't resist repeatedly confirming to Marco that this was really built during the Inca period. Thus we walked along the wall to the Temple of the Sun.
The boulders of Saxehuaman fit together to form the walls of the fortress. Photo by Li Jin
The Incas were pantheists who worshipped nature, the sun god Inti was the supreme god, and the Inca emperor claimed to be the son of the sun god. The Temple of the Sun in Cusco was the most important religious shrine in the Empire, and the most expensive building in the Empire, with walls and floors once covered in glittering gold. In 1532, the Spaniards invaded the Inca, capturing the Inca emperor Atahualpa, who was forced to promise freedom with gold and twice as much silver that would fill his cell. To save the divine son of the sun god, the Incas sacrificed countless treasures, most of which came from this temple of the sun. But Atahualpa did not regain his freedom, and he was hanged by the Spaniards the following year.
After the collapse of the Inca Empire, the colonists demolished the temple and built the monastery and church of Santo Domingo on its ruins. The Incas retreated into the mountains to resist, while the Spaniards continued to raid and destroy Inca cities, and finally in 1572, the last Inca emperor, Tupac Amaru, was captured and executed, and the Incas submitted to the Spaniards completely.
But the Spanish colonizers never visited Machu Picchu, and the ancient city deep in the mountains became a legend.
The Temple of the Sun in Cusco, after being converted into a convent, is still an Inca stone wall at the base. Photo by Li Jin
Go behind the mountains
The train stops at the town of Hot Waters, which is the gateway to Machu Picchu. The sky changed rapidly during the rainy season, and the torrential rain suddenly flooded the town, and the Urubamba River was full and fast. We changed cars by the river, and the more than 20-minute drive continued to rise on the winding mountain road, the clouds and mist floated on the top of the mountain, and the yellow-brown river flowed lower and farther away from us.
The end of the bus is the ticket gate in Machu Picchu. The site was so popular that it had a strict time-sharing rule, and as we waited at the door, Marco pointed to the towering mountain ahead and told me it was a sacred mountain. He said it several times, but I still couldn't remember the name of the mountain, and I couldn't quite tell which direction we were facing at that time. Machu Picchu has a sacred mountain range in each direction, which makes it even more extraordinary.
The rain poured down, making the already rugged stone steps even more slippery and difficult to navigate. The crowd formed a slow line in the wet mountain forest, climbing up the stairs to the heights. By the time I walked around the Guardian Hut, I was out of breath. It's a restored building with a thatched roof, which is obviously a great shelter from the rain, but Marco doesn't intend to stop us there for a while, but to keep going. Walking up the terraces, a blocked stone staircase emerges into view, which stretches into the unfathomable, dark jungle. "This is the Inca Way, take a picture of it. ”
The Guardian Lodge of Machu Picchu Photo by Li Jin
The Inca network of roads stretched throughout the empire, and the four-day hike along one of the rugged ancient roads to Machu Picchu is the most famous hike in the entire South American continent. The 43-kilometre journey involves 3 passes, with breathtaking scenery from the highland snow-capped mountains to the cloud forests, as well as a number of archaeological sites along the way. On my train, passengers got off at a suspension bridge and walked to the end of the trail to Machu Picchu along the Inca Trail.
A few steps further along the stone path paved by the Incas from the side of the ancient road, my vision suddenly opened up: surrounded by Andean peaks, the Vajina Picchu directly opposite, the Urubamba River winding in a distant deep valley, the lush rainforest above the river, the cliffs along the cliffs to Machu Picchu on the ridge, and the rain and mist that gave the "Lost City" an eternal sense of mystery and sacredness.
The mountains are silent, and the sounds of people and shutters in the rain seem to have disappeared. No matter how many times I've seen the standard photos of Machu Picchu, I can't help but be immersed in the incredible sight before me.
Machu Picchu has an awe-inspiring location and setting, surrounded by peaks and meandering canyon rivers. Photo by Li Jin
On July 24, 1911, Hiram Bingham, led by the locals, walked almost on all fours through a dense cloud forest and climbed high on a ridge, where Machu Picchu was revealed. Since then, Bingham's name has been forever associated with the "discovery" of Machu Picchu, and he has become one of the great explorers in history.
At that time, the ancient city was almost completely obscured by vegetation, with vines and roots clinging to the surface of the stone walls, and branches and leaves protruding from every hole in the building. When I came to my senses, Marco showed me an old picture of Bingham standing with a local kid with Machu Picchu, almost engulfed by the forest, right around them. He had only been in Machu Picchu for a few hours that day, and he had not been able to figure out what the site was, but he carefully made detailed records.
In the years that followed, Bingham returned to Machu Picchu twice to clean up and investigate, and to bring some artifacts back to Yale University, where he worked, causing a long-standing controversy between Peru and Yale. He gradually came to believe that he had found the legendary "Bir Kabamba".
The legend of the "Lost City".
In 1909, when Bingham first set foot in Peru on his expedition, he heard the legend for the first time: after the Spanish invasion, the successor Emperor Manco led thousands of Incas to flee to the castle of Bilcabamba in the clouds, carrying with them the greatest treasures of the empire, and when the last man died in this refuge, the secret site was forgotten, and the fast-growing cloud forest obscured the lost city.
This wondrous story is well-known in Peru and enduring. Until I came to Machu Picchu, in addition to the "Seven Wonders of the World", there were still descriptions of the last fortress of the Incas, and Mark Adams wrote in "Turn Right to Machu Picchu" that the earliest book to record this legend was the "Moral Chronicle" written by a Spanish monk in the 17th century: Bilcabamba was so hidden that the monks could not see it for three weeks, and the guide Marco did not forget how sure Bingham was that this was the land of legends as I struggled to climb the stone steps.
Bingham, however, believed that the treasures of the empire were not gold and silver, but "the sacred virgins of the sun," who were "educated from an early age to serve the temple and meet the needs of the Inca emperors." Bingham's analysis of human remains exhumed from Machu Picchu concluded that "the vast majority of bones are female", which became evidence of his conviction that Machu Picchu was equal to Bill Cabamba.
However, this evidence is false. Modern scientists have re-examined the remains, and the ratio of men to women is equal, perhaps just because the relatively short, slender size of the Andean indigenous people has caused Bingham to misunderstand. Modern archaeologists also disagree with Bingham's conclusion about Machu Picchu, and studies of excavated artifacts suggest that Machu Picchu was not the last city of the Incas, but may have been built in the early days of the empire as the residence (most likely a summer residence, given its altitude and climate) and the place of religious ceremonies for the first emperor Pachacutic.
The ruins of Machu Picchu have preserved countless fine, sturdy stone buildings. Photo by Li Jin
Terraced fields, living quarters for farmers, residential quarters for city dwellers, ceremonial areas, prison complexes, sacred squares...... Marco showed me the pattern distribution of Machu Picchu as he walked me down. Placed in its fabulous location, walking through the massive, fine stone complex, I could understand why Bingham had such absurdly wrong but extremely romantic imagination – nearly 5,000 meters of high cliffs, granite canyons more than 1,600 meters deep, glaciers, tropical jungles and dangerous turbulence separating the Inca city from the territory occupied by the Spanish colonizers, and if I were an Inca surviving war, I would definitely flee here for refuge.
It's just that Machu Picchu may have been forgotten by then, and some researchers hold this view. The reason why the Spaniards did not come here is even more obvious, the Incas did not flee to the abandoned palace, and the Inca road leading to it was not only difficult, but probably also abandoned in oblivion.
Marco also had his arguments, which were perhaps quite popular among these Peruvian guides. He made me look at the steep Vajna Picchu behind Machu Picchu – a knife-like peak with terraces, roads and temples, apparently an ancient Inca settlement – and then he turned his photograph 90 degrees to the left, which was the same as the view in front of him, and the Vajna Picchu and the mountains on either side of it formed the profile of a man's face, with its tall nose. "It's amazing, right, that's one reason the Incas built Machu Picchu here. ”
There are so many speculations about Machu Picchu that after watching several documentaries and books, only more and more questions have popped up. Eventually, I came to the same conclusion as Lonely Planet wrote in South America, "Whatever the facts, the surprisingly high quality of stone work and decoration here tells us that Machu Picchu once had a place of considerable prominence as a ceremonial center."
Magnificent, Eternal City
Although Bingham has always been known as the discoverer of Machu Picchu, modern researchers believe that this statement is also inaccurate, and his "discovery" is only scientific – he saw the ruins, established its importance, and began to study it. In his writings, Bingham explicitly writes that he was brought by local farmers, who had lived there for several years by three families who had cleared some of the terraces for the cultivation of tomatoes, corn, potatoes, and other crops. In this sense, Machu Picchu was never really "lost".
On a sunny day, the terraces are usually accompanied by alpacas, and the iconic animals and sites of the Andes make up the most photogenic and Peruvian images. But on rainy days, the alpacas don't move, only tourists wrapped in colorful raincoats walk with me along the stairs past the green terraces. These rocky platforms, which follow the mountain, are topped with fertile soil for farming, while the bottom is paved with hydrophobic granite. The ingenious design of the ancient Incas was able to effectively drain and consolidate the terrain from local collapses caused by heavy rains and earthquakes, and also to use rainwater for agricultural irrigation. Even after hundreds of years of torrential rain, the entire site was waterlogged.
The terraces of Machu Picchu Photo by Li Jin
"The Temple of the Sun, the finest stone building in Machu Picchu, we can't go in, but we can look inside from here", Marco pointed a short distance downward. Following the direction of his finger, I could not find the temple, which was unique and intricately memorable among the many stone houses that stood on the ridge.
The Temple of the Sun is made up of a straight wall and a curved wall of extraordinarily neatly cut stone, with two windows facing north and east respectively. Every year on the winter solstice in the southern hemisphere, sunlight shines through two windows to a large granite in the center of the temple, and the position of the projection is exactly in the center of the rock, forming a three-point line between the sun, the window and the granite. Mark Adams saw this spectacle with his own eyes, recorded in the last chapter of "Turn Right to Machu Picchu", and his companions believed that in the middle of the granite rock stood the golden statue of Pachacutic.
But when I visited Machu Picchu, it was early summer in the Southern Hemisphere. I can only console myself that when I go the same way as Adams and make the same trek to Machu Picchu, I may be entitled to the same "reward".
Temple of the Sun in Machu Picchu Photo by Li Jin
Beneath the Temple of the Sun is a natural cave with an intricately carved altar and shrine by Inca craftsmen, which Bingham called the "royal tomb". Further down the nearby steps, we came to the Sacred Square. The Temple of the Three Windows stands here, and it may have been the place where the Inca priests observed the stars and performed ceremonies. On the boulder walls, three trapezoidal windows face the mist-shrouded hills, overlooking the rainforest gorge and the rushing waters of the Urubamba River at the foot of the mountain.
One researcher interviewed by Adams suggested that the Urubamba River, which circles the site, mirrors the Milky Way in the sky, and that Machu Picchu resembles an Inca universe built on the earth. I kind of agree with that. I have never been to a site with such an amazing natural environment, and the Incas probably could not have found a more beautiful, more hidden, more sacred place, and looking at this mist-shrouded mountain, jungle and canyon from any outside direction, it is hard not to feel the desire to look behind the mountains and find some kind of wonder.
The Temple of the Three Windows in Machu Picchu Photo by Li Jin
Visitors to Machu Picchu were limited in time, and Marco soon said that we didn't have time to climb the Sunstone high above the site. It is located on the central axis of the northern and southern mountains, and the sun does not shine on the shadow of the stone during the autumn and spring equinoxes in the southern hemisphere every year.
I regret not being able to see the Stone, but Marco reassured me as always, "I can always come back, Machu Picchu is worth visiting again and again". The Inca Empire was a vast empire, but it only existed for about a hundred years. The Incas had no written language, history often turned into legends, and secrets were lost in time, but Machu Picchu was always here.
Look up at the sun-locking stone on high and say goodbye to Machu Picchu. Photo by Li Jin
Before bidding farewell to the ruins, I looked around the desolate, silent stone complex in the rain for the last time, and felt what Adams felt like when he was there: he was reminded of Kant's distinction between beautiful and sublime, the latter meaning "something infinite, an aesthetically pleasing giant entity, so great that it would damage the perceiver's brain."
Machu Picchu, it is the city of eternal magnificence.
Li Jin
Editor-in-charge: Yang Jiamin