Why I Travel, Part I (Peru Retrospective)

(On the Inca trail en route to Machu Picchu) It's the Brits more than the rest of us who see the hilarity of spreading Fanny Jam on their Bimbo brand bread, but we all laugh anyway, as we do almost constantly at every meal break. A young goat wanders our camp and sniffs at a mother turkey and its chicks. In the morning the chicks keep warm beneath the mother's skirt of feathers, she practically purrs out a tender gobble. A rooster, at 5am, an hour before sunrise ascends the steps leading to our camp, crows, and then struts back towards the farmhouse. An old woman crushes maize with a semicircular stone, rocking it back and forth over the corn. A gang of campesino men drink chicha, a corn beer, in a dark room.

Its chilly that night. I had forgotten a sleeping bag and I sleep fitfully in hour intervals dreaming in Spanish, sweet Peruvian dreams.