AMAR BENCHIKHA

Ports and Peaks, Rivers and Ruins

My father is a boor. A big lout that likes to travel. How the trips we took hadn’t changed or educated him in some way, God only knew. One of the first questions on his lips when we arrived somewhere was, “Where’s the nearest McDonald’s?”

And so, it was there, in the historical bosom of Peru and what was once the capital of the Inca empire, that Ernest Quattronuvole—i.e., my father—asked the taxi driver upon arrival, “There is a McDonald’s here in Cusco, isn’t there?”

One wouldn’t have thought the answer to that question to be so critical to him, else Ernest surely would have checked online before our trip. It wasn’t that he was lazy—with four car dealerships in his name in the greater Los Angeles area, no one in his or her right mind could call him that—or that he only thought about it upon arrival; it was that he knew wherever we went, chances were there would be one. So the question that came off his lips, tremulous as it now sounded, was really only asked for reassurance’s sake.

“Sí, señor. You want to go?”

“Perfect. I told you kids. It’s the mark of a civilized society.”

“¿Señor?”

“No. To the hotel.”

“Muy bien.”

Ernest—I keep calling him by his given name, at once to better characterize him, but also to maintain a separation between the two of us, for I do feel a wee bit of shame every time I am forced to call him my father—Ernest, therefore, is a rich man. But, to his credit, he’s never forgotten his humble beginnings, nor how hard it is to make a buck, so he always makes it a point not to spend needlessly. Consequently, the hotel we stayed at was neither opulent, nor shabby. My father—and here I break narrative consistency already because he is, and always will be, my father, no matter how different I wish he were—doesn’t believe in saving money at the expense of comfort, and three-star hotels are pretty much where his comfort level lies.

My mother, however, née Jill Drummond, is always urging him to spend. Were it up to her, we would have lodged at the Belmond Palacio Nazarenas or the Inkaterra La Casona, or some other deluxe establishment. We could afford it, after all. My sister Camila, aged 15 and two years younger than me, cared only insofar as the hotel we stayed at had decent Wi-Fi connection. She was particularly unenthusiastic about the four-day hike, three days hence, along the Inca Trail that would lead us to Machu Picchu.

“Why can’t we just take the train?” she complained back in LA. “I’ve read that it’s a gorgeous ride.”

“Ernie,” my mother said, “Camila makes a good point. Do we really need to trek through the mountains for four days when we can see the pièce de résistance without all the fuss?”

“Mom,” I chimed in, to prevent Ernest from being convinced by them, because in truth, I was the one who wanted to hike the trail, not my father. I wanted that experience—to be in the midst of nature for days, to feel the exertion in my legs and in my lungs, to see, after the effort spent climbing and descending mountains, the magnificence of the most remarkable Inca ruins on Earth through that lens of delayed gratification. Ernest? Pff, he had been all for the easy train ride until I persuaded him that it would make for great bonding. “Think of the majestic peaks we’ll get to see,” I told my mother. “And climb! You could boast to your friends about the beauty of these mountains, about having done something none of them will probably ever do. And Cami, think of it as an adventure! Four days in the wild, four days away from civilization, four days—”

“—without internet connection. I know.”

“And Dad,” I continued, “this’ll be like our trip to Yellowstone. Remember how much fun we had? How we connected?”

“Sebastian is right,” Ernest said. I was relieved, then, because in this family, my father, if he’s utterly convinced of something, will indeed have the last word no matter who’s trying to finagle or bully him. “It’ll be good for us, bring us closer together. The ‘no internet connection’ is the point, Camila. It’ll be great.”

So, it had been settled. I couldn’t quite believe it. Ernest, who ate burgers and fries daily and exercised once a week by driving a cart around a golf course. Ernest, who, that time the elevators between the ground and second floor of the Eiffel Tower were temporarily out of order, had refused to climb the stairs. Ernest, who considered the motorized boat ride on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon rafting. That Ernest was going to go on the longest hike of his life so we could bond as a family. It was laughable. He’d been duped. By me!

Sure, it was laughable. But also admirable for someone like him to think in those terms. Boorish as he is, he loves his family. I’ve got to give him that.

Three days we were supposed to stay in Cusco. Acclimation days is what they were. Because, you see, Cusco sits at over 11,000 feet. Imagine that. Going from sea level to that altitude, where the air is thin, oxygen lacking, and think of what that does to the human body. It’s called hypoxia, my friends, and if you arrive there and, the next day, go galavanting in the mountains for four days, you could be in for a rude awakening. Fatigue, shortness of breath, headaches, nausea, you get the picture. It’s the opposite of fun. We were, therefore, following the recommendations. First day, take it easy. Second and third day, we would tour the city. Then, we would go off on our father-sanctioned hike.

As we walked from the taxi to the hotel’s reception desk, Ernest said, in between short breaths, “Man, I don’t feel so good.”

It turns out Ernest was having the mountain sickness I just mentioned. Since I was the most informed among us, I told him he should rest a few hours and drink lots of water, as well as the local area’s coca tea, which was supposed to alleviate these symptoms. Then, I suggested we all rest until lunchtime.

Cami and I were sharing a room together, and she wasn’t so thrilled about that.

“I can’t believe Dad couldn’t fork over the dough for us to have separate rooms,” she said.

I didn’t know why she bothered complaining. It had been the same deal while we stayed in Lima. I tried to lighten the mood and said, my voice rising high at the end of the sentence, “At least you’ve got Wi-Fiii!

A couple of hours later, Ernest was feeling a bit better. Well enough that his appetite for unsavory burgers and fries had returned. At the McDonald’s, as I watched him gorge himself, I told him, “You know, they say that you should eat a low protein diet and larger quantities of carbs at high altitudes. The stomach digests food more slowly here.”

His mouth full, he answered, “Pardon my French, but fuck that.”

I shrugged as I ate my salad. “Just trying to be helpful.”

After lunch, it was Cami who began to suffer from a bad headache. When I began to tell her about the coca tea, she said, “I ain’t touching that shit.”

Cami had, obviously, inherited her foul mouth from our father, and more than a bit of his churlishness.

Coca tea or not, we all agreed to return to the hotel for a nap. When we awoke, neither my sister nor Ernest were feeling right. They decided that they would take the day off completely, and hope to feel better the next day. I asked my mother if she wanted to accompany me outside for a short walk, but she announced she would stay behind as well. Left to my own devices, I grabbed a map from the reception desk, and exited the hotel eager to see what the city had in store for me.

I traveled through the streets, making my way towards the Plaza de Armas, Cusco’s most famous square. On the way, as I turned a corner, I stumbled into a little old lady dressed in traditional Quechua garb. She was wearing a colorful embroidered skirt, a small multicolored cape around her shoulders, and a red hat adorned with black and white fabric. And she was holding an alpaca by its tether.

“¡Perdón!” I exclaimed in my limited Spanish.

What a beautiful, wonderful image before me. A real Quechua woman and her animal! Walking the streets of Cusco! I was charmed and walked away from them with a genuine smile on my face.

When I reached Plaza de Armas, after following one of the cobblestone streets, I was struck by how vast it was, nestled there in the mountains, with its Spanish colonial buildings on its outer border, and its two proud churches. I walked around a bit, examining the outer structures and the fountain at the center of the square. Then, I just sat there, on a bench, enjoying the day, the architecture, pulled out my diary and wrote some thoughts, a poem, and only once it began to get chilly did I grudgingly rise and make my way back to the hotel.

I was going to attempt to get my parents and sister to try some of the local food for dinner, but none of them were interested. They were going to order room service. Undeterred, I ventured back out, found a restaurant that looked authentic, went in and, against the advice I’d given my father earlier, ordered the Cuy Chactado—a Peruvian dish consisting of strongly spiced guinea pig with corn and boiled potatoes. As I strolled back to the hotel, I felt a touch of hypocrisy at the dish I’d chosen, along with a smidgen of guilt for having eaten an animal. Lately I’d been having this latter feeling on occasion. But I thrust it out of my consciousness, breathed in the fresh mountain air and thought to myself, “Not a bad day. Not a bad day at all.”

The next morning, Ernest and Cami both seemed better. After breakfast, we all sauntered out and headed for the square. As we followed one of the streets, we fell upon the woman and alpaca I had seen the day before. Cami and my parents became excited at the sight of them—they wanted a picture.

“Diez soles, por favor,” the woman said.

“What did she say?” asked Ernest, turning to me.

“She said it’ll cost ten soles for a picture.”

“No problemo!” Ernest said, using that Americanized Spanish phrase that I had told him countless times was incorrect.

He thrust 50 soles into her hand, and proceeded to take a number of pictures. Her and the animal alone; then me, Cami and Mom with the colorful lady and the alpaca. A number of family combinations followed and, with every click of that camera, I became sicker. The same woman and alpaca that had seemed so appealing a day prior, so authentic, now made me nauseous. There was nothing traditional about them. Just a plain old tourist trap. There was even a couple, to the side of us, waiting its turn!

We walked away from the animal and its owner, with Ernest gushing to my mother, and she just as delighted. Even Cami’s spirits seemed elevated after the encounter. I alone was blue, and in their exhilaration, none of them took notice or cared to ask me what was wrong. Not that they would have understood, but still…

Now, wherever I turned, I could see the fakeness of it all. At the plaza, tourists everywhere, snapping picture after picture. In the churches, herds of these sheep with their little guide books, being told where to go, what to gawk at, who to admire and who to spurn. Unable to abide this surfeit of tourist shepherding, I gave up, pretended to be suffering from mountain sickness, and returned to the hotel alone. There I lay down and asked myself why I was having this reaction now, when I had been to dozens of touristy locations worldwide without reacting so intemperately. Could it be that I was indeed suffering from altitude sickness, and it was coloring my judgement of the day’s events? I had, after all, had a wonderful day just yesterday. Or was it that some invisible internal cruet had slowly been filling up with all of my experiences as a tourist, and the alpaca incident had been the drop that had made it overflow? I didn’t feel fatigued, or out of breath, or have any of the other symptoms of the sickness, observation which, I realized, answered my questions. With that established, my thoughts turned toward the future. How was I going to confront the next day and, especially, the four days where we would be herded through the mountains? Where was the adventure, the spontaneity in that?

*

The next day I claimed to be ill again. I would be missing a number of things, including the famed Twelve-Angled Stone. I had seen only pictures of it, and had been looking forward to viewing it in person. But just the thought of stepping out of doors and braving the throngs of people with their cameras and smug attitudes expunged any desire or curiosity I’d preserved. And to think that up to yesterday I had been one of them!

I spent the day indoors, eschewing my numerous guide books and opting instead for the culture arising from daytime Peruvian television. I understood little, but did my best to grab onto the bits of Peruvian society I could glean through TV, while at the same time attempting to improve my Spanish. Dictionary in hand, I watched all day long, ordering room service when I got hungry, and going to bed early.

The next morning, we took the bus to the beginning of the trail.

*

There were eight of us tourists, one guide, two cooks, and at least fifteen porters, two of which were hired specifically to carry my parents’ personal belongings.

As we set off on the trail, I grimly looked around and noticed that the four other paying customers were a couple in their forties and two women in their thirties who I assumed were either friends or sisters.

The band of travelers was smaller than I’d thought. That leavened my spirits a bit. I had expected 15 or 16 customers in total, but it was March, so still the rainy season, which probably explained the size of the group.

As we walked in cloudy weather, I tried to stay upbeat, but the smallest of details affected me. Seeing the couple take pictures of the Urubamba River, and watching Ernest photograph one of the occupied villages we hiked through, almost had me screaming. Why were we so obsessed with cataloguing everything? What was wrong with letting our memories recall only the most memorable images of the trip? Did we really need to remember every instant? When the porters began passing us, I almost quit right then. There were these men, loaded down with up to 44 pounds of weight, trekking past us amateurs and our light day packs like we were walking still. We were using these men. Yes, sure, they were working and being paid, but still, shouldn’t we have been carrying more and have the division of labor be more equitable? Did it all have to be so obviously transactional?

While I brewed over these considerations, Cami grumbled to me, to herself, to whomever would listen, about the hike and, later, about what seemed to be a developing blister on her left ankle. Ernest and Mom were used to us, wouldn’t judge us for our glumness, but to the guide and the other four customers we must have seemed to be the quintessential moody American teenagers. But what did I care? I could judge them right back—goddamn tourists!

When we arrived at camp, we were shown to our respective tents. Predictably, Cami griped about having to share one with me. Inside, she showed me her ankle.

“You really ought to have Manu take a look at it,” I said. “That can get infected quickly, and it’ll hurt a whole lot more tomorrow.”

“You think?” she said.

“Definitely.”

She gingerly stepped back into her boots and went out in search of our guide.

I woke up from my nap to some tapping on the tent. I looked around and saw Cami sleeping next to me on top of her sleeping bag.

“¿Señor?” said the voice outside the tent. I unzipped the opening and there was some hot water for us to wash up with, as well as two cups of coca tea.

“Muchas gracias,” I said.

Cami sipped the tea without comment, not asking what it was, nor complaining about the taste. Compared to hiking for hours with a boot continuously rubbing a blister, she must have felt that this was heaven. After drinking the tea and washing up, she and I made our way to the kitchen where the rest of the group already was.

“Ah, so you must be Sebastian and Camila!” said a woman with an Australian accent.

We sat down on the canvas chairs.

“We are,” I answered.

“We didn’t properly introduce ourselves at lunchtime today. I’m Chrissie,” she said. “And this is Kip,” she said, pointing to the fit man I’d seen the back of most of the day. All day he and Chrissie had been at the front end of the group, with the guide. Very much unlike my parents, who gave new meaning to “bringing up the rear” so far behind did they fall.

“We’re Pauline and Simone,” said one of the two other women.

“Hello everyone,” Cami said.

I looked over at Ernest—he looked bushed. Mom didn’t look so bad. Unlike him, physically she could count on her Pilates and going to the gym religiously twice a week with her friend Charlotte. She had stayed in the back with my father out of loyalty. He would have been so embarrassed had she followed her own pace and left him to trudge up the mountain on his own.

“We should be eating soon,” Kip informed us. “We’re all famished.”

As he said that, I realized how hungry I was.

“Sebastian,” Chrissie said. “Your father tells us that this four-day trek was your idea.”

“Well, there were so many reasons to attempt the hike,” I said. “Spending time as a family, fully experiencing the outdoors, and, of course, seeing Machu Picchu at the end, as a reward for all our efforts.”

“You don’t seem so convinced anymore.”

Had I been that unconvincing? The words were the right ones, but my demeanor must have been all wrong.

“No, yeah, sure I am,” I said.

She looked at me with squinted eyes, as though she knew I was lying.

“How about you guys?” I said, not wanting to get into the reason I was having doubts about the trip. “What brought you here?”

“Kip and I are having marital problems, and our therapist thought that taking this type of trip could do us some good.”

That she’d been so forthright and honest surprised me, made me feel grimy for having just lied to her and to the group.

“This is our third week traveling,” Kip added. “We were in Iquitos and the jungle for a week. After that we hit up Lima, of course, as well as some of the coastal towns. Then Cusco, and now this trek.”

“And is it working?” I asked.

Kip and Chrissie laughed, then she turned to Mom and said, “He doesn’t beat about the bush, does he?”

Mom smiled apologetically and said, “He can be a bit forward at times, yes.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Don’t worry about it, Seb,” she said, using the nickname I hated. But her honesty had somehow bewitched me, and I let it slide. “Kip and I are indeed reconnecting thanks to this trip. We’ve felt closer during the past couple of weeks than we have in months.”

“The thing,” Kip said, “is that we’re both worried about what’ll happen when we get back to our lives in Australia—back to our routines. How do we bottle up the discoveries we made here and carry them back with us?”

Later, in the tent, in the dark, I thought about what Chrissie and Kip had shared with us, how the power of such a trip could renew a couple’s relationship. They obviously weren’t just regular visitors—they had a legitimate reason to be traveling. In my book, they didn’t fall under the umbrella of mindless, bothersome tourists. Still, this trek felt commercial, and I reminded myself once more that I wouldn’t go on such trips anymore. That was settled. My plan was to get through to the end of the hike, fly back to LA and never again follow my parents to touristy destinations, no matter how appealing they might sound. The traveling I would do from now on would be unique, uncrowded, to places off the beaten path where outsiders were sparse.

My eyes closed, and I widened my lips into a slight smile as I envisioned our return to LA just a few days away. Oh to be away from this spurious experience, this sham! On that last thought, I felt myself slip away and drift to sleep.

*

The second day on the trail was a toughie. Not just because it was the hardest hike out of the four days, but because I just didn’t have it in me to keep going with this farce. The hike was known as the “Gringo Killer,” because we were to trek up from 9,800 feet to Dead Woman’s Pass at just under 14,000 feet, then make it back down to 8,700 feet where we would camp for the night. It was not a day to be suffering from the blues. Each step up took an effort almost beyond the mental strength I could summon. Cami, with her ankle wrapped up by Manu, quickly outdistanced me, and I fell alongside Ernest and my mom, struggling to keep pace even with them.

“Mom,” I said. “I’ll walk with Dad today. You can go ahead and catch up with Cami, if you’d like.”

Her face lit up.

“Ernest?”

“Sure,” he said. “Why not? Sebastian and I will keep each other company.”

With that, Mom told us she’d see us later, accelerated like she was turbocharged and went off ahead of us.

“Thanks,” Ernest said. “She’ll appreciate going at her own pace.”

“No sweat.”

We hiked on, him limited physically, and me psychologically. Thankfully, the day was partly sunny. I couldn’t imagine trekking up that mountain under rain. I was so close to quitting, to crying, that inclement weather would surely have broken me, and then I would have had to confess to my parents that my heart wasn’t into it anymore, that the cruet was full, no matter what sights awaited us at the summit.

There were times when the dark clouds in my head cleared a bit—when I fell in a sort of trance at the rhythm of our steps and of our breathing. And then, some tourist would pass us and the spell would be broken, my feet heavy again with the awareness that what we were doing was not special, not one bit. Manu had told us the prior evening that only 500 people a day were allowed on the Inca Trail at one time. He’d said it like it was something to be proud of. 500 people! With the number of hikers who passed us, I could definitely believe that.

When Ernest and I reached the summit, people cheered for us. Not just folks in our group, but also some of those same strangers that had walked past us. Ernest smiled and walked over to Cami and my mom, visibly proud. But all I could think about was: How many times had that scene played out before?

Chrissie came over to me and patted me on the back.

“Is everything okay, mate?”

“Sure, yeah. What a view, huh?”

We were above the tree line, and the view was indeed amazing. Nearby peaks surrounded us, clouds so close we could almost touch them, and the valley so far below us it was a testament to how far we’d come. I let myself enjoy the scenery, flashed a smile or two, had a picture taken with my family, sat down to rest for a bit, and felt normal—tired, but blessedly normal. Then, a couple of minutes later, I heard it again—the cheer for hikers summitting Dead Woman’s Pass. How many times indeed? And the momentary joy and satisfaction I’d felt dissipated.

I decided, right then, that I couldn’t let the vicissitudes of life as a tourist throw me one way and then the other. It was exhausting to be feeling these extremes, and I knew that I had to steel myself, to stop feeling so much. Just do, I told myself, until I was back in LA where I would no longer be a foreigner, a stranger to the land, where I would no longer be an imposter, where I could return to real life.

I was so focused on steeling myself and on doing, that I spent that evening and the entire third day in a kind of haze. I was what-you-would-call on automatic. I smiled when other people smiled, chuckled when they laughed, and hiked when everybody else did. But I wasn’t thinking, or feeling, much of anything. When it came down that day, not even the rain bothered me. I was in survival mode, and heard only from far off, as from a daze, the guide talk and point at places like Runkuracay, Sayaqmarca, and Winaywayna. I couldn’t care less. Take me to the end of the trail. Then take me to the airport.

*

The fourth day was the last one, and I was still in my semi-meditative state as we took off toward our final destination. I kept my eyes focused on the ground before me, and did the necessary. I lifted my feet one by one and pounded that ground with my boots, moving forward, forward toward that famous Inca ruin that would signify the end of our trip.

I noticed, through my stupor, that everyone had stopped walking and was looking into the fog.

“That’s what we get for coming to Machu Picchu during the rainy season,” I heard Cami say.

“Yeah,” said my mom. “What a bummer.”

We stood there for what must have been a good hour, waiting, I supposed, for the fog to lift. When finally, the clouds began to thin out, and you could make out a rocky peak. And then a hint of color—green grass… Then, all at once, like a magician would, with a flourish, remove a drape covering a cage, the clouds disappeared and before us stood centuries-old ruins sitting there at 8,000 feet like they’d been waiting for us an eternity, as though it had been they who’d waited for the fog to lift. What a sight! What a vision! All of a sudden, my daze, my gloom, receded and was replaced with pure, unadulterated awe.

“Quick!” I called. “Let’s take a picture before the clouds return!”

My father handed Chrissie his camera while my mother and sister approached me and began to pose.

“No,” I said. “Everyone! Everyone in the picture!”

Everyone? What was I saying? Just moments ago I was lingering on the edges of the group, hoping the fog would never lift, that we could walk off, forget the ruin altogether. Fuck the ruin, I’d thought. And now this? A group picture? Yes, a group picture. I was having a good moment, and why not take advantage of it. I presumed that I would soon fall back into my prior stupor, so I might as well grab hold of normality while it was there for the taking. And as we assembled for the photograph, I felt this connection with them all. Felt as though an opportunity had materialized along with the ruins. I visualized my cruet, brimming with fakeness, and, with a nudge from Machu Picchu, I toppled it. I wished to see more of this world, I was now realizing. Ports and peaks, rivers and ruins. Places crowded and uncrowded. What about the tourists, I wondered, as the last drops of restraint fell from the overturned vessel? Well, weren’t they, in the end, just people? Each one with his or her own motives for wanting to travel? People like Kip and Chrissie who were working on their marriage. Or like Pauline and Simone who, I had finally understood, were really lesbians on a honeymoon of sorts. And what had been overflowing just a moment ago—I’m referring to that dang cruet—was now devoid of judgment and pretension.

After several photographs were taken, everyone began moving toward the ruins, wanting to explore them, to see those intricate, polished stones up close. But I stayed there surveying the ruins, watching the clouds drift through and around them, because, after days of having sunk into a mire of murk and my life altered undeniably for the worse, I wanted to remember that moment the fog parted. I don’t know… It seemed important, somehow, to memorialize what I had almost forsaken.

Amar Benchikha is an American writer born and raised in western Europe whose short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Pleiades, Pembroke Magazine, The Carolina Quarterly,and elsewhere. He currently lives in northern Italy and can be found at www.amarbenchikha.com