I'm seated cross-legged on a narrow terrace thousands of feet above the raging Apurimac River, the jagged silhouettes of the Peruvian Andes before me, the glowing stones of a 15th-century Incan wall warming my back.
And all I can think about is how insanely lucky I am to have this place all to myself.
Thirty miles away as the crow flies, thousands of sweaty, camera-toting tourists are jockeying for position in various lines at Machu Picchu: one to purchase a few squares of toilet paper; one to climb the sacred Huayna Picchu Mountain; another to board one of the smoke-belching people-movers that deliver roughly 3,000 pilgrims daily to the world-famous archeological site.
And all I can think about is how insanely lucky I am to have this place all to myself.
Thirty miles away as the crow flies, thousands of sweaty, camera-toting tourists are jockeying for position in various lines at Machu Picchu: one to purchase a few squares of toilet paper; one to climb the sacred Huayna Picchu Mountain; another to board one of the smoke-belching people-movers that deliver roughly 3,000 pilgrims daily to the world-famous archeological site.







