Cusco... All This Happened. More or Less.

All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five

Plaza de Armas, Cusco

I decided early in the planning of my summer trip to go to Cusco and Machu Picchu, simply because I was going to spend a huge chunk of time in Perú and not because I desired the experience. This is the point in my trip where I began struggling with the constant pick-up-and-go itinerary, and the disconnectedness of travelers with eyes affixed to their laptops, iPads, and smart phones.

While I was in Arequipa, I was "shopping around" to different tour agencies to find the best deal on an all-day tour to Machu Picchu because my itinerary was very tight, and I needed to be in Santa Cruz, Bolivia by a specific date, to fly to Paraguay. After arranging and paying for a tour in advance for which I thought I was getting a great deal, I found out shortly thereafter that all tours were booked. This meant that I needed to scramble the minute I arrived in Cusco to get this taken care of, otherwise I would miss out on an opportunity I otherwise cared little about.



I ended up arriving in Cusco around 6 A.M., acquired a taxi to take me to my hostel, and I began trolling the interwebs for agencies and deals within the city to arrange the tour. After spending a little more than an hour on spotty Wifi, I quickly decided that waiting was not going to pay off and I just needed to walk around, since I would find something at some point. However, while I was doing my research at the hostel, I took note of how many people were checking-in at the same time as me and/or sluggishly walking down to the common area to get breakfast. Nearly everyone, including people traveling in small groups, were staring at their devices and strategically staking out seats near outlets to charge their devices as they drained their batteries during use. I tried giving the benefit of the doubt to these people, that they were using it for the same purpose as I was. And then I was off on my independent and personal tour of the city.

I walked around for what seemed like 45 minutes before I found an agency. I was very impressed with the service, because they had to go to several places in order to purchase my entrance ticket, arrange the morning pickup, and the train to and from Aguas Calientes. It also involved me going there two additional times to bring various sums of money, complete paperwork, and wait. In between these visits, I kept returning to the hostel in hopes that they would allow early check-in, but this turned out fruitless. While at the hostel in these later times, the same people were still sitting in the common area and were still attached to their screens and not talking to other people. It was official-- I felt very alienated. While I was in Lima and Arequipa, this was also the case. People on their devices and not really talking or introducing themselves to fellow travelers. And most of these people happened to be French, and would only interact with other French people. This is hardly an exaggeration, because I recognized the faces of these French while in the previous cities. (I did meet several people, mostly British and Dutch in Arequipa, and we did do a few social things together... so it wasn't all pure loneliness)

I must have uttered something under my breath because a fellow estadounidense, Lynn, looked over at me and introduced herself. Lynn had been in Perú for a couple of months after quitting her job as a Nurse Practitioner in the Carolinas, and was on her own spiritual quest. The deeper in conversation that we got, the more I felt connected to another human being. She made the same observations that I did. People just disconnected from the world and each other, and acting as if digital relationships are equal to real ones. I ended up bonding quite a bit with her, and she introduced me to another backpacker she met, Lore. These two people were a light in my own personal darkness, and helped me to gain and maintain (as much as I could) perspective.




My favorite part of Cusco, and it was after Machu Picchu, was finding a trail leading out of the city. Had I committed to continuing walking down this path, I would have ended up back at my home in Quito. This trail was everything to me. Quiet. Not populated with copious amounts of people. In nature. I found these rather old ruins where nobody was lingering. I crawled into a nook formed by a couple of gargantuan boulders and found stillness. I listened. I closed my eyes. And all of a sudden, I

El Templo de la Luna

found myself looking at my three, late grandparents. It was the first time I saw their faces since before each of their passings... the first one being in 2003, and the most recent in 2014. It was the kind of spiritual energy and experience I needed to drag me out of my emptiness and loneliness. It is amazing what you will find if you take some time out to breathe, listen, and reflect. This is something  I forget to do, or don't make time for, after each school year starts. I've been slowly working on shifting my priorities to be on my own health and well-being since the start of this school year. It'll be a long and difficult transition for me to make, but it will help me with finding the balance I so desperately need in my life.