Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time by Mark Adams

 

Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time by Mark Adams
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Around the World: 24 of 52 (Peru)

Mark Adams decides to trace the journey of the man who claimed to "discover" Machu Picchu, Hiram Bingham, and takes a very strenuous hike through Peru. This book chronicles that journey, as well as a return trip he took to hike the "Inca Trail."

If Adams had only written about his own journey, I'm not sure it would have been that interesting. He has worked in travel writing, albeit more as an armchair editor than a traveler, for years. He had connections to help him prepare, research, and advise him on equipment. He was never without a staff of cooks, guides, mule handlers, and hosts. Even though the conditions are hard, it isn't exactly a journey of self-discovery, which is what I prefer in travel writing. Nope. Adams is here to see the places that Bingham saw. And to learn important things like how you should wear two pairs of socks when hiking.

Luckily, Adams didn't just write about his own trek. He fills in the gaps with information on the Incas, the birth of archaeology and what probably happened with Machu Picchu before Bingham ever got there, and how the Spanish invasion of the 1500s and 1600s impacted the direction of history. There were some fun factoids that I enjoyed, like how there are other important mountain-top sites that might be even more interesting than Machu Picchu (but possibly not as breathtaking), that Tupac Shakur's name comes from an ancient Incan leader, and even learning more about the development of National Geographic.

There are two people mentioned in this book that I think have more interesting connections with Machu Picchu. The first is John, who has guided people through this area for decades (and some of his story is here). The other is Johan Reinhard, who has researched extensively about the meaning of the sites, and I plan to read his book, Machu Picchu: Exploring an Ancient Sacred Center.

No matter the tone or reason, this book makes me want to join the many who trek the Inca Trail. I'm not sure I'd ever be physically capable, but it is a nice dream!

The Storyteller by Mario Vargas Llosa

The Storyteller by Mario Vargas Llosa
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This was not an easy book to read, in fact I put it down frequently to read other books. The concept is interesting, about a Peruvian writer who goes to a photography exhibit of Machiguenga tribal members and is convinced one of the men is somehow his colleague from school. This story is interwoven with folk tales from the Machiguenga, as well as the story told from another perspective about storytellers in the jungle.

These elements were interesting, but ultimately were not woven together enough to form a cohesive whole. I felt like Llosa was fascinated by the Machiguengan culture, the folk tales he had heard, and also wanted an opportunity to make a political statement about cultural and religious indoctrination. I'm just not sure it works as a novel.

I also think the translation was awkward. In the beginning the word "pal" keeps being used, I think perhaps to indicate the more informal "tu" being used in the original, but this was incredibly grating. One does not use the word "pal" the way the Spanish "tu" is used. It read as condescending, not familiar. It just took me out of it every time.

On a personal note, it was interesting to have read a novel that included such a stern critique of the Summer Institute of Linguistics. Twelve years ago, I was very close to going to Papua New Guinea with this organization, and not surprisingly, it was because of the very issues Llosa brings up that made me uncomfortable enough to decide not to go. In the end, it wasn't the location (humid jungle with hundreds of unknown languages) that frightened me, but the purpose of SIL in the first place.

"Luckily we know how to walk. Luckily we've been walking for such a long time. Luckily we're always moving from one place to another. What would have become of us if we were the sort of people who never move! We'd have disappeared who knows where."

"You're going to bring on an apocalypse with your tantrum."

"Let's leave them with their arrows, their feathers, their loincloths. WHen you approach them and observe them with respect, with a little fellow feeling, you realize it's not right to call them barbarians or backward. Their culture is adequate for their environment and for the conditions they live in. And what's more, they have a deep and subtle knowledge of things we've forgotten. ... We don't even know what the harmony that exists between man and those things can be, since we've shattered it forever."

"Each man has his obligation. Why is it that we walk? So there will be light and warmth, so that everything will be peaceful. That is the order of the world. The man who talks to fireflies does what he's obliged to do."