The Lost Inca City of Choquequirao

In 2008 my sister Natalie and I went to Peru, her to lend her skills as a nurse in the burn ward of an impoverished hospital, and me to teach English in a rudimentary elementary school. The floors were dirt, the air thick with dust, and I developed a lung infection from simply breathing classroom air, but that’s a different story.

The story today is about our 4 day hike through the Andes Mountains to a hidden Inca city known as Choquequirao. We had already experienced the magic of Machu Picchu, but the sheer volume of people made Inca Disneyland feel a touch less magical. We’re off the beaten pathers, so when we heard about a hidden Inca city nestled deep in the mountains that required a 4 day hike, necessitated a guide and cook, was devoid of tourists, yet held all the Inca intrigue of Machu Picchu, we were in. Natalie and I rounded up our friend Chris, hired a guide out of Cusco named Vincente, and set our sights on adventure.

After a long 4 am bus ride, we started out in some remote mountain village, our packs loaded with snacks, water, and false confidence. Chris and I even had a big bag of weed that we bought the day before from a respectable looking young man in a dark Cusco back alley.

Day 1 was relatively painless. Sure it went on and on. We walked about 10 miles. The terrain was up, then down, then up again, sometimes steep switchbacks, other times the trail would go straight up a hill, only to send you down again to deliver the good news that it’s time to go up again. It went on like this all day, the highlight being a farmer of some kind who, as he rode past us on horseback, stuck out a stick of raw sugar cane. Vincente grabbed it and stashed it for later.

We made camp that evening. Chris and I were in our tent waiting for the cook to prepare some kind of traditional Peruvian dish. I was hoping it would be my favorite, Lomo Saltado. With time to kill we got to investigating the big bag of weed. Chris packs a bowl and takes a hit. He notices a funny taste. He passes me the pipe and I take a hit. It tastes funny alright. More earthy than usual. Chris takes another hit to verify the earthiness, and the tent erupts in a brilliant fireball, the chinzy Peruvian liquor store crack igniter exploding in his face. Chris looks at the lighter, then at me, wild eyed and crazy. Upon closer inspection the “weed” turned out to be grass clippings from someone’s lawn, and Chris was missing a little piece of eyebrow.

Cusco had burned us. Twice.

Maybe the exploding shrubbery incident was an omen of things to come. In retrospect, the Universe had clearly signaled that it was time for us to be humbled, because Day 2 was a Peruvian torture march. Picture the scene. We’re walking 10 miles a day, at altitude. The trails are built with no consideration for human physical limitation. Our go-go juice turned out to be literal grass. We’re exhausted from Day 1, there was no goddamn Lomo Saltado, and no hint of any lost city.

The morning of Day 2 still gives me nightmares. At one point my legs shut off. I was still standing, but they weren’t working. Natalie fell behind and had to be half carried by Vincente. Chris was doing better. He went ahead at his pace, but he had forgotten that he had all of our water. Dehydrated, furious, and exhausted, my muscles burned with each step. We crossed some kind of rope bridge, found someone’s farmhouse and took a breather, but it was always more up, up, up. Oh yeah, then down, so we could go back up again, of course. I  honestly did not think I would make it.

By noon we had reached the lunch encampment. I collapsed, crawling the last bit of the way, and fell asleep in the dirt. Some brave soul woke me to notify that lunch was ready and that afterwards there would be a 2 hour hike to get to the lost city. Uphill, of course. Lunch had no joy in it, but luckily for all I was too exhausted to stab anyone.

With food in our stomachs, we braved the last stretch of the hike to Choquequirao. The anticipation and excitement grew as we made our way through a jungle that was surprisingly lush for 10,000 feet in elevation. The sun warmed our skin, burned is more accurate at that altitude, as Vincente talked about the city’s history.

An estate of the Inca ruler Patchacuti and his son Tupac Inca Yupanqui, the city is thought to be around 500 to 600 years old. Built in the same archeological style as Machu Picchu and seemingly undiscovered by the Spanish due to its remote location, the site is still mostly intact. There are high stone walls, underground dwellings, agricultural terraces, and an elevated ceremonial site overlooking the whole city. Archeologists believe that this was a highly spiritual location, a place where shamans and medicine men congregated as they considered it a truly sacred site of their Inca world.

Enter us delinquents.

We had the city to ourselves, a stark contrast to the ass to elbow bumping of Machu Picchu. Still mostly intact, we walked through doorways, into buildings, and around the common areas of a city that was once bustling with Inca activity. I felt like part of the community, just another trader, priest, or farmer come to the city to barter, teach, or sell my wares. Besides the missing thatch roofs, the city stands much as it did all those centuries ago, and the feeling of being transported through centuries of time was felt by everyone.

The magic of the lost city was palpable, and though we were exhausted beyond any of our wildest dreams, we were still riding a wave of energy. Vincente suggested we go to the ceremonial altar area on a hill overlooking the city, the valley, and the river below. He told us that it’s use was a mystery to archeologists, only that they believed shamans came from all across the Inca empire to perform ceremony in the exact location where we sat in a circle, tired but ready to uncover whatever mystery the city had for us next.

Vincente first pulled out the sugar cane that was gifted to us by the farmer and cut it into slices for us to suck on. The sugary treat was the perfect upper for our weary souls. He then pulled out a bag of coca leaves. He asked if we wanted to try to chew on them, and we all agreed whole heartedly. It was my first time chewing coca leaves and I was supremely curious. He showed us how to remove the stem before putting each leaf in the mouth, and he showed us how to organize a ball in our mouths so that we could maximize the juice while minimizing the size.

The next thing I remember was coming out of a foggy stupor, laying on the ground, coca juice dribbling into the grass. I looked around and all 4 of us had passed out right there in the ceremonial ring. Panic set in. Realization washed over me. This was to be an Incan sacrifice and these three passed out tourists are today’s special guests, primed and marinated in coca juice. Of course it just turned out that we were all equally exhausted beyond anything our bodies had known and the only reason we hadn’t passed our earlier was because we were running on the fumes of the Indiana Jones energy. Archeology is a stimulant, until you stop, and then it’s lights out apparently.

That night, back at camp, we rode the high of our experience, sleeping in our bags under the Southern Hemisphere’s stars. Vincente regaled us with Inca myths and creation stories. We learned about the Southern Cross and its importance to the Inca people. We chatted, laughed, and had the deepest sleep of our lives.

The rest of the journey was a blur. It was a combination of torture marching, Peruvian food, 4am start times to beat the sun, hiking in pitch dark, more torture marching, and we even got to see a Condor in the wild. The sheer size of it boggles the mind. But for all the happenings as we hiked back towards the town of our origin, I couldn’t shake the feeling of that experience at the lost city of Choquequirao. Something about that place was different, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

It wasn’t until later that I realized what feeling was haunting me. I had come in contact with Magic. Literal Magic. I couldn’t tell you what kind or what it did, but I felt it, without a shadow of a doubt. I don’t know if it was the combination of the fatigue, raw sugar, coca leaves, the residual energy from thousands of spiritual rituals, or if some kind of activation originated from deep within me, but something changed that day. For the first time in my life I was ready to notice Magic, ready to experience Magic, ready to create Magic of my own.

Choquequirao showed me that there’s still Magic in this world. It may break your back to get there, you may need a guide to find it, and you may have to self induce a meditation / involuntary loss of consciousness while gigging on a number of natural stimulants, but Magic is out there.

You just have to set your intention on adventure, deviate from the beaten path, and trust that the Magic is sure to follow. It will.