Of Pisco and Peru: Machu Picchu Pt. 1

Machu Picchu

Ingredients:

2 ounces of pure pisco

4 ounces of orange juice

1/4 ounces grenadine syrup

1/4 ounces creme de menthe

Ice

Preparation: In a long glass, add about 4 ice cubes.

Pour in 1 ounce of the pisco, the orange juice and the grenadine. In a cocktail shaker, combine the remaining pisco, creme de menthe and three ice cubes and shake well (this will lighten the creme de menthe so that it floats on the top). Pour on top of the orange juice mixture in the tall glass and add a straw, but don’t stir or the colors will blend together.

An early flight to Cuzco. Tethered to my seat, I sip a Cusqueña beer and scan the pages of my favorite childhood book, “Pig Pig Grows Up”. Its simplicity soothes my mind from the flight jitters. My problem is the raucous high schoolers flanking me.

The banter starts out funny enough. Awkward flirting. Unexplained laughter. Silly monologues leading to nowhere. It’s like eavesdropping on myself thirty-odd years ago. But when the pimply nerd brays ‘Nobody puts baby in the corner’ for the dumbteenth time, hoping to impress the cute faux-emo girl across the aisle, I close my book and turn to Auntie M, who is burrowed deep underneath her red jacket.

She could sleep on a bed of nails at a rock concert inside an erupting volcano. Is it narcolepsy? A Xanax addiction? So much for some light conversation on this hour-and-a-half flight.

From the first few steps off the plane and into the thin air my chest feels like it’s caving in. Everything’s groggy with a dull, blood-throbbing bass line bursting through my temples. Auntie M slows down in front of me. She’s feeling it, too. Time to take it easy and acclimatize to the sounds of our hearts bursting through our lungs.

We slowly loll about the airport, wandering through a myriad of small shops selling travel trinkets. Dodging an endless variety of wayward travelers, I turn to a giant mural. It’s a wide shot of the perfect gringa familia posing happily for that epic selfie on Machu Picchu: the daughter and father gleefully unaware as the mother stares in horror at her teenage son hunkering down in the ‘I’m tossing my cuy’ position.

I tug on Auntie M’s jacket and point. Her placid smile blends to a frown, “Soroche.”

I dip my head down. “Huh?”

“Altitude slickness.” She turns and melts away to find the luggage carousel. I linger at the mural. Even with all the harried passengers darting around me, pressing to catch their late flights, I can’t help but think: Yeah, it’s supposed to be funny but. . . poor bastard. My trip will be better, I hope. Aside from a little breathlessness, I’m fine.

After playing baggage carousel hide and seek, we step outside the airport terminal. Auntie M slides on her sunglasses, admiring the blue skyline marbled by chalk-white clouds. “Doesn’t the eh-sky looks like the ocean?”

The eh-sky looks like the ocean? Hadn’t thought of that one. Then again, I live in Portland, where the clouds living above us constantly poop rain, hail, snow, sleet and ice down on us mere mortals.

Say something pithy. “It certainly does.”

Auntie M looks at me like she wants me to say something more pithy. . . er? All right. I’m locked and loaded. A slow, profound gaze upwards into the wild, teal yonder. “It looks like one big. . . sky. . . aquarium.”

That doesn’t sound right.

Squealing tires and honking.

A taxi screeches to a halt in front of us and the cabbie pokes his head out of the driver’s side window, showing off his wide grin and short, spiky hair. “Heeeeey-yah!” Maxim gun style Spanish. Auntie M returns fire in kind.

After a few more short bursts, Auntie M shrugs at the metallic grey four-door Toyota. “¡Vamonos!”

We blast off in a whirl of directions, knowing immediately that this is a driver to be reckoned with. His name is Leor and he drives fast, thinks fast, and talks even faster. As we plunge uphill past signs marking Peru’s political season, he and Auntie M exchange volleys of español before he looks back at me in the rearview mirror, finishing in English.

“. . . Yeah, seven years here. Older brother’s in Lunahuana with his wife. Just retired.” He grins and pops the collar on his squash-colored shirt. “I know seven languages: Quechua, Spanish, Italiano, Ryussian, I learned Japanese in three years on the computer, Portuguese, and, uh. . . uh, dang it, there’s one more. Uh. I always. . .” A millisecond later he points up. “English.” He looks back at me and beams. “Hahahaha.”

The roads narrow, with the distinctive Incan stone-lined water channel cutting down the middle.

“Are you sures you know where es you’re going?” Auntie M looks petrified.

Leor gives a hearty thumbs up. “Don’t worry, ma’am. Whoops. Wrong turn.” He slows down and looks around at street signs. “Don’t you worry about this little maneuver here. I can correct that. So, where you from?”

I point to myself. “Me?”

He tugs the wheel for a turn and honks at a tuk tuk. “The one and only.”

“Portland, Oregon.”

From the rearview mirror it looks like he’s bit into a tart lemon. “Orygone? That sucks.” Then he turns around and smiles. “Just kidding. Nice place. I kiteboarded in Hood River once. ¡Ya Pues!”

Confused, I peer over at Auntie M. “What’s ¡Yah Piss! mean, again? Ah!”

The car rears to a halt, slamming my head against the passenger’s seat. Leor’s already gotten out, and popped open the trunk before I realize we’ve made it to our rustic hotel. I’m walking in molasses, spilling my heavy luggage onto the empty lobby’s polished stone. Auntie M trails a few paces behind me, also breathing heavily.

#

LINK TO NEXT PART:

https://readmedium.com/of-pisco-and-peru-896a7d5e2edf

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