Machu Pichu by William W. Lamar

Rocks of the Ages

By William W. Lamar

The guy simply had to be taken out; but being unaccustomed to the task, it gave me pause. Scrutinizing the land, the rocks, and other places to shelter, I longed for a sniper’s scope, with crosshairs to make the job easier.

Ah, the man wore a red cap! Zeroing in, I tightened my grip and pressed my finger…GOT HIM! This was easier than I had expected and actually kind of fun. The fellow never knew what hit him; after he was out of the picture I expanded the search for any malingerers. Shedding that initial hesitance, I got in touch with brain stem me and became a voracious hunter of people; something of a predator, actually. And I grew proficient at the task. I cannot say how many folks—men, women, children, even grandparents—I have taken out, but the number is high, and I’m proud of it.

I draw the line at animals, however; one must have standards.

Of course this is about blipping images of tourists from my otherwise pristine shots of Machu Picchu. Did you think I would confess to actual sniping? Back in the old days, when I took some of these photos, we lacked the ingenious programs that do all of this automatically. And my first efforts there were on film, making matters more complicated. Now, thanks to sophisticated scanning and photo editing tools, I essentially have my own video game and can sanitize many images formerly written off. Ansel Adams would be proud. Vanity shots of family and friends aside, the only people I would ever want in these pictures are Incas, and so far none have been available. I’ve been to Machu Picchu many times during the last four decades and some of those outings were blessed by magical weather, astounding light, few to no tourists, and the ever interesting flora and fauna. All this photo cleanup work has vicariously taken me back for another visit to see Nature gone wild in a man-made setting.

Care to come along?

Male Andean Cock-of-the-Rock (*Rupicola peruvianus*), one of the most instantly-recognizable and glamorous tropical bird species. Image cropped: ©Pedro Alonso 2023/Creative Common license CC BY-NC 4.0 DEED

The first time I saw Machu Picchu was in the late seventies with my wife Nancy. Departing our Colombian residence to vagabond through the Andean countries on a shoestring budget, we reached Cusco, Peru, and made our way north to Aguas Calientes riding the so-called Indian train (complete with steam engine, chickens and squeaking Guinea Pigs!). White-capped Dippers (Cinclus leucocephalus) bobbing black-and-white on the rocks, and Torrent Ducks (Merganetta armata), red bills flashing in the sunlight, plied the waters while silvery bromeliads (Puya sp.) and towering Peruvian Century Plants (Agave cordillerensis) adorned the Urubamba River banks that border the tracks for much of the trip. Dashing through the Cañón de Torontoy, the watercourse falls from an altitude of 11,000’ down to 8,000’ in a span of merely twenty miles. At that time, Aguas Calientes, nestled alongside the foaming river by the base of Machu Picchu Mountain, consisted of its hot-springs namesake; scattered residences; a pair of sparse eateries; and a house where a bed, if available, could be had for $1.00 per night, payable to an affable señora.

When a stunning male Andean Cock-of-the-Rock (Rupicola peruviana) suddenly appeared, glowing blood-orange in the scrubby trees, I knew we were somewhere special.

Beneath a chill, white moon the next morning we followed the deserted tracks, and crossed the small bridge. Hiram Bingham, the Yale contrarian credited with the “discovery” of Machu Picchu, was much on my mind. No one, of course, needed to discover the ruins for the locals. After all, someone showed it to Agustín Lizárraga, who scrawled his name in charcoal on a temple wall in 1902, nine years prior to Bingham’s arrival. But it’s Bingham who gets kudos for recognizing its importance, clearing the forest, revealing the rockwork, and telling the world. I paused on the Urubamba bridge, stared through the swirling mist at the dark, rumbling waters and recalled Bingham’s visceral account of first seeing the ruins 68 years earlier.

Hiram Bingham III and a field assistant near the Espíritu Pampa ruins at Vilcabamba, Peru in 1911. Hand-colored glass slide by Harry W. Foote. Yale University Manuscripts and Archives/Public Domain.

Guided by Melchor Arteaga, a local who, according to Bingham’s journal entry, “[He] left the main road and plunged down through the jungle to the bank of the river. Here there was a primitive bridge which crossed the roaring rapids at its narrowest part, where the stream was forced to flow between two great boulders. The ‘bridge’ was made of half a dozen very slender logs, some of which were not long enough to span the distance between the boulders and had been spliced and lashed together with vines!” I’m no stranger to such crossings, so he had my sympathy. Passing through the deserted bus lot, we then hiked up the empty, moonlit Hiram Bingham Road with its 27 switchbacks. Another option, a nearly vertical trail that gasps up the mountain through dense forest, was too dark to negotiate.

Here is Bingham, tremulous from having just crawled, six inches at a time, across the slippery sapling bridge, on his ascent: “Leaving the stream, we now struggled up the bank through dense jungle, and in a few minutes reached the bottom of a very precipitous slope. For an hour and twenty minutes we had a hard climb. A good part of the distance we went on all fours, sometimes holding on by our fingernails.”

I’m also no stranger to tough ascents and harsh conditions; we had it easy that day.

Reaching the ruins just as the sun’s laser rays pierced the valley, we were singularly unprepared for the soundless, magical world that confronted us. Fog, having spent the night densely carpeting the river far below, crept up the slope and streamed, hoary, wraithlike, spiraling and sparkling in the light, through the incomparable rockwork. A murky penumbra of retreating Andean shadows carved the ruins like knives. It was, in a word, astonishing. We had Machu Picchu to ourselves during a spectacular sunrise extravaganza, with skies so clear we could glimpse the snowy summits of Choquetacarpo, and Nevado Verónica, through the ether.

The tourist train from Cusco (along with the daily dose of clouds) wouldn’t arrive until midday, so the morning was ours.

Pumasillo Peak in the Vilcabamba Range, seen center left and visible from Machu Picchu in clear weather, is a few whiskers shy of 20,000’ in elevation. Image: ©William W. Lamar 2023.

Machu Picchu viewed from the upper slopes above Huayna Picchu in 2008, rainbow arcing upper right to left over the top of Huchuy Picchu. Image: ©William W. Lamar 2023.

After dawn’s splendors had passed, I ascended Huayna Picchu, the iconic sugar-loaf pinnacle forming the famous northern backdrop to all the classic photos of the ruins (not to mention bearing their likely actual name). It also represents a bit of upper montane Yungas pluvial forest, distinct from the immediate environs of the sanctuary. The path up, unused for some time, was partially obstructed by vegetation, so reaching the top took some maneuvering. Apparently in so doing I ascended what they call “The Stairs of Death,” although I was unaware of this at the time. Neither was the stray dog that accompanied me. Eventually, having wound past labyrinthine andenería (Inca terraces), we perched at the pinnacle, a virtual crow’s nest, surrounded by blooming Brasolia dichotoma orchids. We were received by a buzzing procession of hummingbirds. The place is a peerless lookout and must have been used as such by Incas hiding in their secluded redoubt.

Machu Picchu in 1912 after preliminary clearing but prior to restoration. Image: Hiram Bingham III/Public Domain.

Machu Picchu in 1979 following restoration. Image: ©William W. Lamar 2023.

Black-and-chestnut Eagle or Isidor’s Hawk-Eagle (*Spizaetus isidori*) in Antioquian cloud forest, Colombia. These large, widely distributed but extremely rare Andean raptors are capable of taking sizeable mammalian and avian prey. Image lightly sharpened, brightened, and cropped ©Mateo Hernández Schmidt 2021/Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC-SA.

Half expecting and hoping for an Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus), I was stunned to see a magnificent Black-and-chestnut Eagle (Spizaetus isidori) instead. It soared close and eyed us. Or perhaps it eyed the dog; the bird was large enough to have taken it. Gazing west through the limpid morning air I saw the immense, snow-capped Pumasillo Peak, stark against the blue sky. Discovering the remnants of a trail that continued behind the crest, I followed what little of it remained and it led me, perilously, to a north-facing cave with some stonework. Pointedly, the dog did not follow. Later I learned this is called the Temple of the Moon. There is now a sign, complete with skull and crossbones, warning of danger, and the entrance is blocked. Stories about deaths on the peak are, like most everything regarding Machu Picchu, hopelessly entangled in myth. Access to the Huayna Picchu trail is now controlled and limited to 400 pre-registered people in two groups per day (!). I’ve ascended, dog-less, several more times, each a reminder of that incomparable first visit.

Garden in guest house at Aguas Calientes. Image: William W. Lamar 2023.

During the 1970s, tourism was managed nationally by the Peruvian government. Striving for tidiness if not aesthetics, they provided ugly, orange metal drums boldly marked “ASEO” (trash) at all locales under their watch, including Machu Picchu. Japan’s economy was growing explosively at the time and the two countries have interesting historic ties, so the midday buses disgorged a flock of Japanese tourists, happily clad in cheesy double-knits with broad lapels. Clutching their Kodak Instamatic® cameras, they lined up smiling to pose for photos…on either side of those obnoxious trash cans! Beauty truly is, as they say, in the eye of the beholder. Back then, buses descending from the ruins would pass a waving local youngster upon departure. After making the first long, hairpin turn another gesticulating adolescent would be seen at the edge of the forest, and the riders would respond in kind. By around the fourth or fifth such event, someone on board would conclude that it was the same kid, short-cutting the hairpins, so when the bus arrived at the Urubamba below, the laughing, applauding tourists would generously tip the runner. Of course he had careened, pell-mell, down the straight trail to intercept them each time. Bingham, having cleaned the mud from his nails, might have been amused. Unencumbered by departing train schedules, we remained in the sanctuary until late that day. As the sun set, our steep descent to Aguas Calientes took us through a haze of greens grading to blues and then purple in the gathering darkness.

Whenever I’ve made the pilgrimage to see Machu Picchu, I walked downtown through the nippy and usually drizzly 3 a.m. darkness of Aguas Calientes. I’d take a strategic position where the first bus loaded to cross the Urubamba River and head up the mountain. Leaping aboard to grab the front seat and rushing out the moment we arrived up top, I’d ascend the impossibly steep trail leading skyward. Almost invisible, it begins right by the commemorative plaque honoring Bingham near the entrance, and emerges behind a ruin called “The Watchman’s Hut,” where the ridiculously impressive and intensely photographed panorama (known to Quechuan speakers as Llacta de Macchupicchu) reveals itself. CLICK, CLICK, CLICK, I’d frantically snap as many shots as possible, all while changing positions on the precipice, before anyone wandered onto the grounds. On lucky mornings when clouds, fog, and mist are busy elsewhere, the crystalline air and piercing sunbeams creep down Huayna Picchu and reveal the importance of the site, cosmologically and perhaps aesthetically to its makers: It was all about sunlight, moonlight, and seclusion.

Well, that’s how it seems to me; there is no consensus about much regarding this enigmatic place, to be perfectly honest.

Foreigners are no longer allowed on the inexpensive “Indian train.” Passage comes from upscale Pullmans, complete with skylights, meals, and fashion shows. The lone modern structure up top, presently the five-star Belmond Sanctuary Lodge, sits slightly below the ruins (it was not in operation during our first visit). One night there at current prices would have bought us over four years of 1970s lodging down below; times have changed. And Aguas Calientes is now a bustling tourist town with fancy restaurants, the world-famous InkaTerra Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel, and a funky ambiance not unlike Kathmandu. No roads lead out, so the community is captive to the railway. A seemingly endless stream of zig-zagging buses hauls around two million tourists per year up the mountainside to see Machu Picchu, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage site and was recently voted, via global internet poll, onto the exclusive list of New Seven Wonders of the World.

I’m an arrogant, standoffish iconoclast so you’ll be hard-pressed to ever hear me recommend any much-visited spots, at home or abroad. Alas, these days it’s even congested at Angkor Wat, and on top of Mount Everest; I dislike crowds. But let me waive all of that where Machu Picchu is concerned. My attitude, plus the flawlessness of that first trip kept me away for years afterwards, but temptation and a perpetual craving for faraway places (fernweh to the Germans) eventually won out. So, I learned that even today, when multitudes, tickets, reservations, rules, and costliness have descended upon the place, it remains something to behold.

Written about ad nauseam, one can likely find all the Machu Picchu facts of interest on Wiki-whatever; that road needs no repaving here. The place is so ethereal it strains comprehension. Logistically a mute testimony to the endurance and resourcefulness of humans, it is a magnificent fortress, a prehistoric Inca eyrie perched high on a granitic arête; jammed amidst brooding, purple mountains; moated far below by a hairpin turn of the churning Urubamba; and hidden from the world. Sky and mountain appear to meld and energy seems to emanate from the very rocks. Don’t worry; my stroll through old images has me focused on the physical, so I will spare you most of my spiritual dreck, but not without stressing that the place has provided me with barrels of it.

WAIT! I’ll slink away from the mystical, but not without a Pablo Neruda (Alturas de Macchu Picchu) passage:

“Madre de piedra, espuma de los cóndores.

Alto arrecife de la aurora humana.

Pala perdida en la primera arena.”

(“Mother of stone, spume of the condors.
Highest reef of the human dawn.
Shovel buried in the first sand.”)

Exactly.

As I continue to exhume old slides and memories (or find new ones), I may revisit this and add more about the place and its wonders. Herewith, a stab at a virtual tour of Machu Picchu via a rock-strewn composite of photos taken during dry-season browns and wet-season greens. Regardless of the goal, physical is the way any encounter with Machu Picchu begins…and with a bang. First, there is the setting, spectacular, expansive, yet precarious, like some place that should be helicopter-accessible only. There are few spots where tropical forest can be viewed as a surrounding panorama, and this is one of them. Draped across the shadowy Vilcabamba hills and peaks, cloaked in azure and green, shrouded in haze, it undulates toward the horizon like waves in a choppy Martian sea. The fortress is a veritable condor’s lair, shorn up by sheer cliffs; the slanted, vertiginous precipices festooned with burgundy bromeliads that glow carmine in the sunlight.

The urge to grow wings and soar is palpable.

Even the narrow road up is epic, given the number of gringo-stuffed buses it has supported over the past ninety years. Passage is punctuated by the lilac roadside flowers of Epidendrum secundum, an orchid known by Quechuan speakers as “Huinay Huayna,” meaning “forever young,” a reference to its continual blooming. They even named a village for it. Dark, riparian environs close to the river brace red and yellow bracts of Heliconia subulata, a widely cultivated Machu Picchu endemic. And the green is interrupted by blushing Andean Firebush or llama-llama (Oreocallis grandiflora), and lazy butterflies (Altinote eresia ssp. binghamae), thumbing their toxic, inedible noses at passing birds. The number of butterfly species recorded for this area is an astounding 377 and counting. Collections made by Harry Ward Foote, trip naturalist on the initial Bingham expedition, resulted in more scientific papers than the combined efforts of all other participants. Glinting soft pink, pearl, and pale blue like a giant blinking eye, the occasional (and clumsily named) Morpho lympharis ssp. descimokoenigi flits and flickers along the shady ecotone where road stops and forest begins. Bernard D’Abrera, the peerless lepidopterist, penned this about morpho butterflies: “These enormous creatures which advertise their presence with great flashes of blue or silvery blue light as their iridescent wings catch the sunlight, are hardly likely to be ignored in the forests or in collections, except by the criminally blind.”

Black-chested or Gray Buzzard-Eagle (*Gerranoaetus melanoleucus*) in Chile. Image: ©William W. Lamar 2023.

Forest eventually yields to bushy hedgerows and Inca terraces where Golden-billed Saltators (Saltator aurantiirostris) flash their bold masks and orange beaks; and Peruvian Sierra Finches (Phrygilus punensis) scratch for seeds. Along the lower terraces, singing Rufous-collared Sparrows (Zonotrichia capensis) work the sedges and grassy areas while Blue-and-White Swallows (Pygochelidon cyanoleuca) and the occasional White-collared Swift (Streptoprocne zonaris) carve the sky. Over 400 species of birds have been recorded at Machu Picchu and the surrounding Mandor Valley, but so strong is the urge to see the 15th-century Inca rockwork that I’ve never carried binoculars; so...many missed opportunities. Two avians that do not require assistance are familiar from my shivering days on lofty Colombian páramos: An imposing Black-chested Buzzard-Eagle (Geranoaetus melanoleucus) and a cinnamon-hued Variable Hawk (Geranoaetus polyosoma) soar in graceful circles over Inti Punku, the Sun Gate on the Inca Trail high above the ruins.

Such ruins! Bingham again: “It fairly took my breath away . . . I suddenly found myself in a maze of beautiful granite houses!” He continues, “They were covered with trees and mosses and the growth of centuries, but in the dense shadow, hiding in bamboo thickets and tangled vines, could be seen here and there, walls of white granite ashlars most carefully cut and exquisitely fitted together. What a marvel!” Indeed, the commingling of Inca creation and invasive Mother Nature simply enhances the impact of the place. Via audacious labor requiring consummate skill, formidable strength, and endless patience and suffering, the Inca masons deftly used existing stone in situ and quarried all else on the spot, honing and remodeling the mountaintop’s rocky spine to lapidary perfection with zero waste and an artist’s touch.

Shrouded in mystery, jealously guarded by circumstance, Machu Picchu gives rise to unproven (albeit learned) hypotheses and remains a mysterious enigma.

Lip detail of *Brasolia* (*Sobralia*) *dichotoma*, a terrestrial orchid species that is conspicuous and abundant at Machu Picchu. Together with two closely-related Peruvian congeners, this species has the tallest stems of any orchid. In sheltered areas and in cultivation are documented to approach or slightly exceed 30’ in height with unconfirmed reports of even taller individuals. Image: ©Jay Vannini 2023.

Such rocks! Incomprehensibly ancient. Igneous, intrusive relicts of the Vilcabamba batholith, jumbled with metamorphic Paleozoites and sediments of Mesozoic and Cenozoic origin. Rocks indeed, yet they all seem somehow…changeable. Rising as exquisite ashlars from granitic chaos, laced with sooty fissures and diaclases, now brown, now yellow, now gray…now cool, now warm, now angry, now calm - I know they aren’t sponges but the way the stones shift color and tone makes one wonder if they aren’t absorbing and reflecting something. The default weather is rain-or-about-to-rain, and the perpetual ablutions amount to nearly seven feet of stone-washing precipitation per year. Machu Picchu is moody but holds no grudges…if her sulking monochromes are unsuitable, just wait a bit and all passes. It isn’t merely the light and mist that change, but the rocks themselves, or maybe it’s due to all the “bios”: The patina of biogenic pigments caused by biocolonizers and biodeteriogens—lichens, algae (Trebouxia), Bryopsidan mosses, and cyanobacteria—that inhabit their surfaces.

Perhaps there’s a wizard somewhere behind a curtain, manipulating controls? Mix in the lichens and mosses, add five-plus centuries of differential weathering, and PRESTO! we get the climax forest of rock gardens.

And in the distance, what mountains! Now green, now indigo, now mauve. Cloaked in mysterious tropical forest, beset by chasms, bristling and undulant, beckoning, intimidating. What secrets do they hold? Standing there in the swirling vapor and watching the recurrent changes between hills, rocks, and rockwork is akin to twisting a pre-Columbian kaleidoscope. Anyone with a camera confronting this spectacle could scarcely be blamed for suffering Parkinsonian tremors to the shutter finger; it gets me every time.

Snoozing Northern Vizcacha (*Lagidium peruanum*). Image: ©William W. Lamar 2023.

A few Llamas (Llama glama)—furry, rent-free, lawn mowers—make their home among the ruins, and, at my feet, a slick of rainwater on a terrace rock contained their scat. The vibrant masses of puddling butterflies that crowded this fetid soup included an exquisite Sylphina Angel (Chorinia sylphina), and an orange-and-black herd of noxious Heliconians (Altinote negra ssp. demonica), all intent upon extracting trace elements and minerals. With their proboscises frenetically inserted they looked like arthropod hipsters vacuuming coke from a Hollywood mirror. They were joined by a Shimmering Swordtail (Ancycluris meliboeus). Like the Sylphina Angel, this is a Riodinid, member of a mysterious family of metalmarks termed by D’Abrera as, “…possibly the richest marked and most chaotically variegated of butterflies in the world.”

Boisterous Inca Wrens (Pheugopedius eisenmanni) groomed the rocks in quest of insects and one crashed the butterfly party. A large Curtain-Web Spider (Linothele sp.) retreated into a crack in the wall. That initial run up the steep side of Huayna Picchu brought more forest dwellers into view. An outsized, fast flying Nymphalid butterfly with electric blue patches on its hind wings (Archaeoprepona chromus) darted from its tree trunk perch near a bamboo thicket. Among the tangled vines was a Poro-Poro (Passiflora pinnatistipula). I gazed at its soft pink blooms and wondered whether it grew there naturally. The plant, widely known as Granadilla, is cultivated in many countries as food, but it is native to the Peruvian Andes. I later found another, a fruiting vine among the ruins.

Spawn of watchman’s lunch?

A group of *Altinote negra* ssp. *demonica* probing wet ground for trace minerals in the Cosñipata Valley near Cusco. Image lightly cropped: ©Ken Kertrell 2013/Creative Commons CC BY-NC.

A nattily-attired juvenile Northern Woodland Racer, *Drymoluber dichrous*. Image: ©William W. Lamar 2023.

As a herpetologist by training, and bearing a lifelong passion for venomous snakes, Machu Picchu is of particular interest to me because it is the type locality for the Andean Toad-headed Pitviper (Bothrocophias andianus). That is a way of saying the species was described scientifically, based on a specimen from Machu Picchu. As with all early expeditions (and even today), lack of knowledge about venomous snakes led to much unwarranted anxiety. Bingham, buying into local hyperbole, comments, “On the road we passed a snake which had only just been killed. He [Arteaga] said the region was the favorite haunt of ‘vipers.’ We later learned the lance-headed or yellow viper, commonly known as the fer-de-lance, a very venomous serpent, capable of making considerable springs when in pursuit of its prey, is common hereabouts.” I’ve only seen one snake there, and it turned up the first time I ascended Huayna Picchu. Coiled by a rock in the wooded lower reaches of the trail lay a juvenile Drymoluber dichrous, a harmless species. Cusco Whorltail Lizards (Stenocercus ochoai) scampered over the rocks throughout the ruins and I glimpsed what appeared to be a different, stockier species but never got a good look at it.

There are few trees in the ruins proper but a distinctive, chirring call from one of them was made by a woodpecker that surprised me by flying out and perching on a rock. This terrestrial behavior revealed it to be an Andean Flicker (Colaptes rupicola), a new bird for me. Sometimes the stones, especially over in the quarry, seemed to be watching. Sure enough, the occasional one was a bit furry and had large, dark eyes. The observant rocks were members of a colony of Northern Viscachas (Lagidium peruanum), attractive granite-colored rodents in the Chinchilla family that look like a cross between a squirrel and a rabbit. Unless one moves, they are nearly impossible to detect despite sitting in plain view. Perhaps the endless procession of gawking gringos is entertainment for them; likely it keeps predators at bay.

Decorative inflorescences of the showy endemic begonia, *Begonia veitchii* var. *machupicchuensis*, stud the rockwork at the ruins. Image lightly sharpened, brightened, and cropped ©Andrés Aguirre 2022/Creative Commons CC-BY-NC 4.0 DEED.

Precipitation in the area can be mild and short-lived, although it does boast its gales. The ingenious Incas installed a flawless drainage system so getting about is mud-free. I got caught by gentle rain at the pinnacle of Huayna Picchu and sheltered in a rock structure that seemed made for the purpose. It passed, drifting south over the ruins and my descent began in sunlight on a slippery trail of drips. A rainbow materialized across Machu Picchu so I stopped to admire it. And that is when the unmistakable broad wings of a massive Solitary Eagle (Buteogallus solitarius) appeared as it skimmed the treetops far below. It perched so I waited, mesmerized, until it flew off; a regal bird well suited for the majestic setting. The ruins usually offer a raptor when I visit and this was only the second I have ever seen of this species.

And with a rainbow to boot!

Strolling along the rocky rows one day, I noticed the abundance of plants wherever a crack holds dirt. Most were tiny, either by design or because they had just germinated. Doubtless all were subject to weeding by the caretakers. Occasionally the red-orange blooms of a Begonia veitchii var. machupicchuensis, a sacred plant to the Incas, adorned the walls. Rosy flowers mark Begonia bracteosa, and the large plants stood out against the granite backdrop. A few places within the ruins featured a profusion of Andean plants, including small trees hung with the pendulous white flowers of Brugmansia arborea, “Floripondio blanco” to Spanish speakers and “Yurac Campachu” to the Quechuans. A brilliant red bromeliad, known locally as “Clavo del Cielo” (Tillandsia machupicchuensis) thrived there, as did the stunning Ñucchu Inca (Fuchsia sp.). A creeping Passionflower vine (Passiflora lingularis) draped itself over the Brugmansia and along the walls.

More red and orange…the stunning pleurothallid orchid, *Masdevallia veitchiana*, is an iconic species endemic to this region of the Peruvian Andes and is common at Machu Picchu and Cusco. This and a few closely-related red and orange-flowered species are known as *Gallos* (=roosters) in Spanish and *Waqanki (=*you will cry) in Quechua. They are famously associated with a romantic local legend that they sprang from the tears of an Incan princess denied the affections of a soldier she loved who was banished to perish in the jungle by her despotic father. The blooms are mostly 5-6” in height; exceptional forms can produce 8” tall flowers of fairly long duration. Popular in cultivation throughout the world where conditions permit, they are considered a national treasure in Peru. Image: ©Ron Parsons 2023.

In the tug-of-war between the rocks, ruins, and surroundings versus the flora and fauna, the former always wins. Perhaps this is because I’ve spent most of my life in tropical forests chasing after animals and plants, or perhaps it is simply that the physical features of Machu Picchu are so overpowering. Doubtless a concentrated effort would produce impressive lists of organisms and I keep telling myself I will do this...

…next time.