Terra Nova Travel

Professional trip designing for the inquisitive, independent and intrepid

Macchu Picchu, Peru

Before the "Disney-fication" of the world is complete, Macchu Picchu, one of the Seven Wonders of the New World remains a sacred place. Over 50 years ago, Pablo Neruda, Chile's most famous poet, paid tribute to Macchu Picchu in his epic poem, "Las Alturas de Macchu Picchu", (The Heights of Macchu Picchu). On my recent visit, it was apparent that the vibrancy of the Incan culture has survived into the 21st century. The endurance of the monumental stone walls is reflected in the faces of the Incan descendants. Traditions have survived the generations, but the invasion of globalization does place the indigenous way of life on the endangered culture list. "Las Alturas de Macchu Picchu" resonates with the architecture and the people who labored in the quarries to construct such an awe inspiring site.

Pablo Neruda " Las Alturas de Macchu Picchu" (The Heights of Macchu Picchu) from Canto General 1950.

 

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  Stone within stone, and man, where was he? Air within air, and man, where was he?...
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  Time within time, and man, where was he? Were you also the shattered fragment...
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  ...of indecision, of hollow eagle which, through the streets of today, in the old tracks...
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  ...through the leaves of accumulated autumns, goes pounding at the soul into the tomb?
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  I question you, salt of the highways, show me the trowel: allow me, architecture...
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  ...to fret stone stamens of air into the emptiness, scrape the intestine until I touch mankind.
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  Macchu Picchu, did you lift stone above stone on a groundwork of rags?...
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  Coal upon coal and, at the bottom, tears? Fire-crested gold, and in that gold, the bloat dispenser of this blood?
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  Let me have back the slave you buried here!
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  Wrench these lands the stale bread of the poor, prove me the tatters...
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  ...on the serf, point out his window.
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  Tell me how he slept when alive...
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  ...whether he snored...
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  ...his mouth agape like a dark scar...
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  ...worn by fatigue into the wall.
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  That wall, that wall! If each stone floor...
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  ...weighed down his sleep, and if he fell...
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  ...beneath them, as if beaneath a moon, with all that sleep!
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  Ancient America, bride in her veil of sea, your fingers also...
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  ...from the jungle's edges to the rare height of gods...
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  ...under the nuptial banners of light and reverence,
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  ...blending with thunder from the drums and lances...
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  ...your fingers, your fingers also...
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  ...that bore the rose in mind and hairline of the cold...
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  ...into the radiant wave of matter and adamantine hollows-
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  ...with them, with them, buried America, were you in that great depth,
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  ...the bilious gut, hoarding the eagle hunger?
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  When, like a horseshoe of rusting wing-cases, the furious condor batters my temples in the order of flight...
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  ...and his tornado of carnivorous feathers sweeps the dark dust down slanting stairways, I do not see the rush of the bird,
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  nor the blind sickle of his talons- I see the ancient being, the slave, the sleeping one,
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  ...blanket his fields-a body, a thousand bodies, a man, a thousand women swept by the sable whirlwind, charred with rain and night,
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  ...stoned with a leaden weight of statuary: Juan Splitstones, son of Wiracocha,
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  Juan Splitstones, son of Wiracocha,
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  Juan Coldbelly, heir of the green star,
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  Juan Barefoot, grandson to the turquoise, rising to birth with me as my own brother.

 

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