are often so uneven, so rugged and precariously laid that your feet,
your ankles, your shins, your knees and your hips take a constant
pounding, a pounding that might go on, with only occasional relief
when the path flattens out, for several thousand feet. I had never
before been so physically and emotionally challenged.
As I slugged on to the camp, I started thinking about that man. He
said he was a guide, but oddly enough, he was alone. There is no reason
I would have immediately noticed his sudden appearance on the top of
that pass. I was transfixed, as I said, lost in anxious thought, almost
literally frozen, and nearly at my wit's end from exhaustion and worry
about my nephew. There is also no reason to wonder about his
disappearance after I had taken a few steps toward the camp and then
looked back. I've been in enough cities with friends who have
disappeared, seemingly in the
blink of an eye, on a crowded
street, to imagine that the
man just vanished into thin
air. Still, he appeared with
advice just when I was feeling
most desperate, advice that
was more like a command to a
child than advice to an adult.
The encounter began to
seem strangely more
curious than ordinary.
The further I find myself away from the actual experience, the more
I have begun to wonder about that man. The Incas worshiped those
mountains. Could he have been a spirit of the mountains? Could he
have been a guardian angel? I was so grateful to reach our camp that I
didn't even tell our guide about my encounter. I got into my tent and
changed into dry clothes. I did not take a shower, although nothing
would have been more welcome. The shower was a pipe sticking out of
the wall and spouted freezing cold water. My nephew arrived, safe and
sound, about an hour later. The man never showed up again. I will
always wonder exactly who he was.
Kipp Matalucci
The author reaches the prize! Machu Picchu at last!
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