We didn’t stop to rest in that part of the mountain. Maybe it was the lack of rocks. I think the contradictory sensation of feeling claustrophobic on the side of a picturesque mountain pushed our steps onward. The air felt thick, though we knew it to be thin. The constant struggle of climbing, huffing along, along with the other-worldliness of the landscape made every step, every breath, significant. It silenced us, and in our silence I could almost hear the footsteps of those who’d come long before me, journeying on their rite of passage.
It was transformative, that revelation, and made me see this no longer as a climb up the mountain. It was a test of resolve. It was a rite of passage.
The thought must have spurred us along as it wasn’t far before the canopy gave way to a sight usually only seen in an airplane. We stepped out into a cloud. You could taste it in the air, the thickness of the thing, but more you could see it. Lack of seeing, I should say, as only through swirls from the light wind could we see anything.
The cloud hid the mountainside just as well as the foliage. But instead of mystery or foreboding, it created an atmosphere of wonder and excitement. In fact we all giggled at the sight and immediately sat down for a rest.
“It’s always a disappointment, being in a cloud,” I remarked as we sat.
“What, that it’s so thin?” Don asked.
“Exactly. It looks solid from the ground. But when you’re in it it’s just muggy.”
“It’s thicker here though,” Don noted, “You walk in clouds in the Scottish hills and the Andes. This cloud feels thicker.”
“That’s…improbable,” Freddy said, though he didn’t fully disagree.
I looked over the edge of the trail. It ended abruptly and the cloud hid the length of what I guessed would be a fatal drop. The cloud streamed up the edges, visibly, like the smoke from those cheap theatre fog machines used to make things more dramatic. Perfume-like in its wet, thick air, it cooled and swirled around my hair like I was swimming rather than walking and I heartily agreed with Don.
The cloud didn’t last long. Or maybe it never went away. We probably just got used to it. That or the next part completely distracted us from the mist.
“Oh my gosh,” Shelly said as I approached what looked like ancient steps leading up the mountain, “Oh my gosh.”
“What’s wrong?” Don asked his daughter.
“I don’t think I can do this.”
We had come upon a place where the trees completely ended and the jagged rock loomed before us. The steps were narrow, no wider than a foot or so across, and close enough to the edge that one could feel justified in shuffling. And they were steep. Good lord were they steep.
“It gets tough ahead,” one of the climbers coming down the mountain informed us.
“How tough?” Freddy, asked.
“You’ll want to use your hands for a bit. But it’s doable.”
“Oh my gosh,” Shelly repeated.
I enjoy heights. I went to the top of the Empire State Building. I love flying. I never flinch from doing anything involving heights. Being able to go to high places has nothing to do with whether or not I’m afraid of them. I go there. But good lord did standing on the precipice of a mountain scare the piss out of me!
The lump in my throat when I stared at those steps felt stiffer than the ache in my legs. I was physically capable of going on, yes. But while I had the capacity to move my foot forward, I began to sweat with consideration that I lacked the mental faculty.
I gulped down the lump, and took a step.
Shelly’s vocal apprehension made me feel better as it distracted Freddy and Don to the point that my sudden silence went unnoticed. I was in the lead and couldn’t stop. The steps were narrow. And I had to lead.
So I went on my hands and knees, shaking only slightly. One hand on the thin step of rock. One foot up. That was it. One hand up. One foot up. Step up. Step up. Bear-walking hand, foot, taking it one step at a time.
I’ve never been one to believe you shouldn’t look down. So I peeked over the edge. Yep. Mile long fall straight down. Just checking. Hand foot, hand foot.
Freddy was right behind me. He decided to walk around Shelly since she was going too slow. His foot was literally over the edge of the cliff as he stepped around her. He shuffled his wide legs with little care to the precipitous altitude and only huffed warily as he passed Shelly, tired but un-shaking. Thankfully it was steep enough that even he had to bear-walk behind me. Hand foot, hand foot.
What was I doing, I suddenly asked myself. What was I doing on the side of a mountain? What was I doing three inches and a nervous twitch away from plummeting to my death? What was I doing in Peru?
Normal people don’t do such things. Normal people don’t fly to Peru on a whim. So why did I do it? Why did I come here?
My hand went one step further on the gray rock, heart in my throat the whole time.
Was it a sense of adventure? To what point? What was the purpose of such a thing when there was no reward save the mountain itself and some indigestion from eating poorly-prepared chicharones?
Crumbles of rock gave way with my hand reaching one step further. With robotic motions I climbed. My veins were filled with ice water about to boil and I grabbed hold of my nerves as hard as I could to keep my motions steady. Hand, foot.
Freddy followed, huffing and puffing with determination. I’d never seen him travel so far. I’ve never seen him do such a thing as what we were doing. He never went anywhere without planning. He never did anything he was unsure about, unless I was making him do it. So why was Freddy making this climb?
I looked back and saw Freddy steal a glance toward the top of the mountain. He huffed with exhaustion, taking a deep breath and pressing forward.
“It’s okay, dear. I’m here. Come on,” Don said, talking his daughter up the mountain, “See? You can do it.”
“No, don’t walk like that!” Shelly said.
“Like what?”
“Backwards! Turn around and walk.”
Don was placing a hand on his daughter’s shoulder as he led her up, taking the steps backwards as he did. “I’m fine, dear.”
“No, no, turn around.”
“It’s okay. Do you want to stop?”
“No, I want to go.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
We didn’t say anything. But Freddy and I exchanged a glance and agreed without words that we had no intention of joining Don and Shelly should they decide to abandon the climb. I have no idea why, though. It was instinct.
Again I recall the thickness, the significance. Something beyond my awareness was driving me forward. Or perhaps something was watching as I pressed onward, and I wanted to show it that I could.
“Yes, I can do it. Just turn around,” Shelly insisted. Maybe it was peer pressure. Or maybe Shelly felt the thickness of the air and wanted to drink it in same as I.
“See? It’s fine. It’s fine. Look I can skip.” Don hopped up one of the steps and Shelly nearly shrieked, unwillingly encouraging her father to continue his taunting.
Don laughed uproariously and continued to mock his daughter. I think his mockery actually helped, making Shelly laugh so that she could keep climbing. It certainly helped save me from being the only one who wanted to take the climb slow.
We got over the steps and I looked to the mist-obscured summit. You couldn’t see it. But you could imagine the top was there, a sort of sense that there was thinning mass in front of us.
The exhilaration died as we passed through a cut in the rock, rounded a corner, and I came face to face with my maker. Or at least that’s what it felt like for a millisecond as I stared straight out into air with absolutely no further visible path. It was like a doorway, an invitation into the hereafter and all one had to do was take a simple step forward. An easy thing, it made it look. Take a step, and off the world you go.
“When you come around the corner up here,” I called down to Shelly, “Go slow.”
&n
bsp; “Why – oh God!” Shelly said as she approached. She turned away and buried her face in her father’s shoulder as we all stood at the flat-rock platform.
“Oh come now it’s no big deal,” Don laughed.
The last part was another set of steps. Thin. Narrow. A sheer cliff face. The steps were so small and pressed so tightly against the rock they were near invisible unless you were standing right in front of them.
Freddy was behind me, looking like he wanted to continue. Don was behind him, looking to the top and his daughter. Shelly was wiping tears from her eyes and waiting for us to move. No one moved, but everyone wanted to go.
Why was I here? I saw it in their eyes. I saw what they were all thinking. I saw their true faces, saw them in the way no one else could and the way I’d never seen Freddy before. Gone was the nerdy chubby kid who talked too much about random trivia. Here was a determined soul with the color of a man who never gave up. Here was Freddy Baxter, a searcher for truth and one who would not be denied the knowledge the world had to offer.
So who was I? Why had I come to Peru? I couldn’t see myself, not yet. I had not come to Peru on purpose, but it was my decision to come here. I’d led the charge. And I was the one to lead us to completion. I was the one to lead.
I took a breath. The top was at hand. And I wanted to see the color of my soul. Hand. Foot. Hand. Foot.
That last time my hand crested the top of the steps a deep silence washed over me. Heightened awareness, a vague sense of mystery, an eagerness that contrasted with utter quiet to make me feel I’d suddenly entered a dream. Not the blurry way a dream looks, but the way a dream feels.
Through the silence I stood on my feet and looked up at a gazebo built in the clouds. “Guys,” I said, somewhat concerned I might break the dream by talking, but too eager to speak to contain my words, “We’re at the top!”
“Oh thank God,” Shelly said.
The gazebo didn’t seem real. The top didn’t seem real. With a wide expanse of earth suddenly safely around me I couldn’t resist the urge to run, run the rest of the way up the shallow hill to the gazebo. I ignored the pain of breathlessness and exhaustion and the terror of being on top of a mountain and pushed my legs to carry me up the grassy incline and to the gazebo at the top of the world where I threw my arms into the air and shouted “Yeeeaaahhh!” with absolute triumph.
“Yeah,” another traveler already sitting at the gazebo echoed.
The three other people who’d been relaxing at the top didn’t make fun of me for shouting. They sort of nodded in understanding. Freddy and my other companions didn’t run, so they came up shortly. They hadn’t heard my shout, either, as the clouds had muffled my voice.
We stared at the clouds rolling below and around us. Exhaustion, fear, triumph, wonder, and absolute beauty combined with the utmost extreme of emotion to where I felt I needed to thank God for every moment I spent on that mountain as we gazed at the awesome expanse.
The city of Machu Picchu lay invisible below the clouds, we invisible to the ground.
We hadn’t eaten lunch and even though it was near three o’clock no one was hungry. Still, I insisted we eat and devoured the granola bars I’d packed in a couple bites, taking gulps from my water bottle.
We sat on thin wooden benches that were sloppily assembled from bumpy pieces of cheap wood. They were the most comfortable seats in the world.
It was then that Freddy set off with a couple other strangers over a narrow, bridge-like walkway that led to another part of the mountain’s top. Where it led was lower in elevation, and I thought unnecessary to see. And that narrow gap suddenly terrified me as I realized a stiff breeze could blow me right off the mountain. Freddy ran across it without concern.
Because it represented a challenge I knew I had to defeat, I stood and steadied my constitution. In four steps the narrow gap was crossed. When I was actually on it I felt far less terrified than I had imagined.
The lower peninsula Freddy traveled to, invisible from the gazebo for the rolling clouds, was no more than eight feet wide. It hung over the mountainside where nothing could be seen, from its thin-grassed surface all the way to the city of Machu Picchu far below. A twenty foot pole, looking like a flag pole with no flag, stood in the center of the peninsula.
I walked onto that island at the top of the world and took hold of the pole as quick as I could. The pole offered stable support in a tiny platform that was open to wind and a mile-long fall. This was the first time Freddy realized I was fearful of what was around me. He smiled as I stood there with an arm wrapped casually, but firmly, around the pole.
“Joe, you making friends with that pole?” Freddy asked, grinning.
“It’s my friend,” I said, smiling back, “The pole is very nice to let me hold onto it. Isn’t that right pole? Yes, the pole is my friend.”
The pole didn’t respond. It did shake when I pet it, though.
Freddy laughed and so did I. I was very much aware of the irrationality of my fear. This meant I could overcome it but it didn’t mean it would go away. It’s not a lack of fear that defines courage, but the ability to do something you’re afraid of despite the fear. And that’s when I saw the flowers.
It was said that Machu Picchu the mountain was a holy place, a religious pilgrimage. Or maybe it was a place to prove manhood. Maybe it was a place someone had to go, had to see. Not because it was holy but because it was hard. Because to go there, to see it, would steel the nerves of all who came. The Incas knew this.
I imagined an Inca youth, a young man maybe my age but probably younger. In his hand he held a flower. And he kept this flower with him as he climbed Machu Picchu. Through slippery rocks, cavern-like jungle, narrow steps he went, facing each fear with growing resolve. Perhaps before this he had come from a foreign land. Perhaps before this he had faced dangerous locals. Perhaps before this he had stayed at poor quality inns, ate strange food, and survived travels over water, desert, air and crazy disco-playing cab drivers.
And then, finally, at the top, one thing remained. There lay a small, flat stone. It rested at the edge of the peninsula, overhanging a mile-long fall through mist and wind. Flowers of those who had come before rested on its surface. It was this youth’s duty to place his flower on this stone; only then could he have conquered the mountain. Those below would know if he’d succeed, for they could tell, see it plainly on his face. For this act would let the man see the color of his soul.
“Freddy,” I said and let go of the pole, “Take a picture of me.” I bent down and picked a tiny yellow flower that was growing beside the pole.
“Okay,” Freddy said.
“No, with my camera. It has to be with my camera.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“I’m going to put a flower on that rock like the others. Take a picture of me doing that.”
“Kay.”
I gulped and got on my hands and knees. There was a shallow hill, no more than a single step, between me and that tiny stone at the edge of the world. It might as well have been a hundred foot drop for my fear of it as I approached it from a sitting position, laughing at myself.
Freddy thought it comical to watch me crawl infant-like toward that stone. I ignored him.
Tiny flower in hand and an ever-present awareness of the danger around me, I felt my heart pounding its way through my chest with every moment, the surge of life itself rushing through my veins as I stretched toward the rock. Slowly, pausing to ensure I was doing this right, I lowered the flower.
An instant, a moment, my hand touched the stone at the edge of the world and briefly, just briefly fell over the side to open space so high and so hidden by clouds that my body itself evaporated and the only thing in existence was this moment in time that stretched for eons where I could feel I’d seen the rise and fall of the world in a heartbeat to where the earth and I could see each other as brethren with me a man who was in possession of a soul the color I could look into and become more completely aware of tha
n I’d ever known possible. My flower joined the others. And I pulled my hand away.
I sat there only two moments longer before crawling back to the pole, grasping its safety as I’d done before. “Did you get a picture?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Freddy responded.
Freddy didn’t hold onto the pole. But he never went down the slope to the flower-covered rock either. I guess he’d completed his journey of self-discovery in some other way. Or perhaps his was still to come.
After that it wasn’t so scary to walk across that narrow gap back to the gazebo. We lingered long, the four of us, and snapped pictures of the city below in the brief intervals when the clouds would clear. The knowledge of a soon to come descent lay sharply in our minds and we wanted to ensure we were well rested before setting off.
Pretty soon the time for leaving had come and we traveled back down the path, to the narrow last bit of stairs. Here I worried it would be harder climbing down than up, and proclaimed that I would slide my way down.
When you’re going up, it’s normal to crawl on your hands and knees, as gravity helps make this the more efficient method. Going down, it makes you look like an idiot. I knew I looked like an idiot. But I also knew my limitations and told Freddy he could bite me as he laughingly passed, walking upright. It’s okay. He can take the lead going down. I’ve seen everything already.
The path went into the dense jungle that seemed hot compared to the wet chill atop the mountain. When we broke through the enclosure of bush we passed through the thin trees and boulders that had begun our journey. It was easy going, gravity doing most of the work. In perhaps forty five minutes’ time we’d made it back to the guest book at the bottom of Machu Picchu the mountain and signed out, noting that it had taken us about the full three hours we’d expected.
There the two formerly humping llamas waited, watching us sign out of the guest book.
“What’s that? You thought we couldn’t make it up the mountain?” I asked the llamas.
The llamas chewed grass in response.
“Well we made it. That’s right,” I said, putting my arm around Freddy, “We did it.”
Joe Stevens Mocks a Llama Page 11