I'm spending the week in Peru, with Son 2. Yesterday we went to Machu Picchu. There's a story behind how this happened, and I'll probably tell it in a minute if I have the time and energy, but right now I'm trying to understand a basic question:
Why do we travel?
Don't get me wrong; in many respects the trip has been amazing. It's the first time I've been to South America, for example. And how often do you get a chance to see Machu Picchu? Only, ... why is it that the chance to do that is so enticing?
Is it the chance to see new things? I don't suppose I actually saw anything yesterday that I couldn't have seen in a book. I don't suppose I learned anything about Machu Picchu that I couldn't have read in a book. In fact, I had to keep referring to the tour book I brought to understand what I was looking at.
Is it that being in the presence of legendary places makes us feel awe? C. S. Lewis makes this suggestion (glancingly) in The Abolition of Man, and again (through a negative example) in The Great Divorce. But I was just getting over a 24-hour bug at the time (fever, diarrhea, the works -- you don't want the details) and everything I did at that altitude wore me out. Machu Picchu is at 8900 feet -- that's 3700 feet higher than Denver. Mind you it's downright coastal compared to Cusco where we went first because it has the only airport in the area: Cusco is at 11,000 feet above sea level, or more than two miles. But even climbing up six or seven stairs was enough exertion that I had to bend over with my hands on my knees and rest for a minute before I could go on. Did I mention that there are approximately fifty-nine thousand stairs at Machu Picchu, because the whole city is built into the side of the Andes which are the only mountains in the world that rise straight-up vertically from sea level? (Sorry, I'm getting carried away.) My point is that I felt physically crappy. I kept trying to overpower my physical discomfort and exhaustion by telling myself "Hosea, you're at Machu Picchu for God's sake! Try to appreciate it!" But if the reason we travel has something to do with hoping to generate a certain kind of feeling then we should really think harder about it for a minute or two because plenty of times that just ain't gonna happen. (At least I didn't have to fight jet lag on top of everything else: Peru is on Eastern Time, as if it were New York.)
I asked Son 2 this question today as we were walking to a museum in Lima, and his first two suggestions were something like the two above. I replied as I have replied here and asked him to think harder. His third suggestion was that we travel in order to generate memories -- which we can't do from books and which have only a little to do with how we felt at the time. (That part is true: I already feel better about visiting Machu Picchu than I did yesterday when I was actually there.) I was about to ask him to flesh out this idea a little farther, but then I stepped sideways on a crack in the pavement and fell down, hitting my head squarely on the sidewalk. To the everlasting credit of the city of Lima, I was immediately surrounded by a crowd of bystanders who asked me if I was all right, if I had been overcome by the heat, if I needed a doctor, ... everything. I had to explain (through Son 2, since he speaks Spanish and I don't) that no, I had just twisted my ankle. But in the time it took me to say that little, somebody had produced a cotton swab soaked in rubbing alcohol for me to sniff ... "in order to calm down and feel better." They were very kind, and in a few minutes I had climbed back on my feet and we went on to the museum. But in did kind of derail the conversation.
Anyway, I'm not actually griping about the trip. I jumped at the chance to take it, and I don't regret the choice. The thing that puzzles me is, I don't understand why I feel the way I do. What is special about being there? Why do we travel?
Suggestions are more than welcome.
Why do we travel?
Don't get me wrong; in many respects the trip has been amazing. It's the first time I've been to South America, for example. And how often do you get a chance to see Machu Picchu? Only, ... why is it that the chance to do that is so enticing?
Is it the chance to see new things? I don't suppose I actually saw anything yesterday that I couldn't have seen in a book. I don't suppose I learned anything about Machu Picchu that I couldn't have read in a book. In fact, I had to keep referring to the tour book I brought to understand what I was looking at.
Is it that being in the presence of legendary places makes us feel awe? C. S. Lewis makes this suggestion (glancingly) in The Abolition of Man, and again (through a negative example) in The Great Divorce. But I was just getting over a 24-hour bug at the time (fever, diarrhea, the works -- you don't want the details) and everything I did at that altitude wore me out. Machu Picchu is at 8900 feet -- that's 3700 feet higher than Denver. Mind you it's downright coastal compared to Cusco where we went first because it has the only airport in the area: Cusco is at 11,000 feet above sea level, or more than two miles. But even climbing up six or seven stairs was enough exertion that I had to bend over with my hands on my knees and rest for a minute before I could go on. Did I mention that there are approximately fifty-nine thousand stairs at Machu Picchu, because the whole city is built into the side of the Andes which are the only mountains in the world that rise straight-up vertically from sea level? (Sorry, I'm getting carried away.) My point is that I felt physically crappy. I kept trying to overpower my physical discomfort and exhaustion by telling myself "Hosea, you're at Machu Picchu for God's sake! Try to appreciate it!" But if the reason we travel has something to do with hoping to generate a certain kind of feeling then we should really think harder about it for a minute or two because plenty of times that just ain't gonna happen. (At least I didn't have to fight jet lag on top of everything else: Peru is on Eastern Time, as if it were New York.)
I asked Son 2 this question today as we were walking to a museum in Lima, and his first two suggestions were something like the two above. I replied as I have replied here and asked him to think harder. His third suggestion was that we travel in order to generate memories -- which we can't do from books and which have only a little to do with how we felt at the time. (That part is true: I already feel better about visiting Machu Picchu than I did yesterday when I was actually there.) I was about to ask him to flesh out this idea a little farther, but then I stepped sideways on a crack in the pavement and fell down, hitting my head squarely on the sidewalk. To the everlasting credit of the city of Lima, I was immediately surrounded by a crowd of bystanders who asked me if I was all right, if I had been overcome by the heat, if I needed a doctor, ... everything. I had to explain (through Son 2, since he speaks Spanish and I don't) that no, I had just twisted my ankle. But in the time it took me to say that little, somebody had produced a cotton swab soaked in rubbing alcohol for me to sniff ... "in order to calm down and feel better." They were very kind, and in a few minutes I had climbed back on my feet and we went on to the museum. But in did kind of derail the conversation.
Anyway, I'm not actually griping about the trip. I jumped at the chance to take it, and I don't regret the choice. The thing that puzzles me is, I don't understand why I feel the way I do. What is special about being there? Why do we travel?
Suggestions are more than welcome.
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