Blog | Alex Strickland

In the immense fold of Machu Picchu, our tour guide, Edgar, was explaining the beliefs of his Incan ancestors and how they were manifested through the ancient civilization’s greatest archeological triumph. The temple of the virgins of the sun, the sacrificial altars, the great solar clocks. They worshiped the sun, he said. They were people of the sun. They came from the sun. He stumbled, searching for the words in English. They were, he said finally, children of the light.

It’s been two weeks since the top of Machu Picchu, though I suspect it’s one of those places where all of you can never entirely arrive or leave. From the crest of the Andes we found ourselves back in our Utah duplex in only 48 hours, a head-spinning lesson in our incredibly small world. Heading to the Cuzco airport we found ourselves once again in the company of a philisophical cab driver who was anxious to know how we felt about his homeland. It is beautiful, we told him, and it is difficult to leave. We spun through thick traffic and past parades that were springing up in preparation of the country’s independence day later that week. Past the hillside that lords above the city with the worlds “Long Live Glorious Peru” carved out of the dirt in Spanish, on our way out of what was once the heart of the greatest civilization for 10,000 miles in any direction.

You can always return one day the driver told us in Spanish. We agreed. Yes, it’s possible.

Do not cry, he said. Everything is possible.