Message #257896

[Cloud Warrior]

“Jefe, buenos dias — café?”

Startled suddenly awake, I thankfully greet a smiling Pancho, our camp cook, handing a cup of wake-up coffee through the tent door. Whew — I make a silent oath to myself to avoid the second round of piscos that we had passed around the campfire last night.

We are on our way back to the mysterious and magnificent mountain Inca city in the remote cloud-forested Andes of Peru that has been the focus of my research and explorations for many years and numerous expeditions.

I am traveling with an interesting group of ethno-botanists. Our objective is to identify plants and trees that may have been introduced by the Inca residents and may still live on in the tangled vegetation surrounding the recently cleared stone walls and buildings.

There is always something more to learn at the Inca’s second Machu Picchu.