Jun. 4, 2014:  Let me begin by urging you to follow your lifelong dreams, the earlier the better. I could call the collection a bucket list, but that has rather dark implications. Top dream of mine, a trip to Machu Picchu in Peru.

My younger brother went there long ago, and the stunning picture he took and gave to my parents served as a constant reproach every time I eyed it. But somehow, the altitude, my lack of Spanish, and the expense of the trip justified delay.

Finally, in April, the stars aligned.

To ensure that the excursion would be as comfortable as possible, I signed up with Orient Express, now infelicitously renamed Belmond, to spend eight days in Peru, including an overnight at the Sanctuary Lodge, the only hotel perched right next to the famed site. Belmond has made a heavy investment in the region, building or renovating deluxe hotels in Cusco and the Sacred Valley as well as the Lodge, and top-drawer railroad cars, decorated to the hilt and serving gourmet food, which wend their way from Cusco to Aguas Calientes, sitting at the base of the road up to Machu Picchu

My choice of travel company proved to be both fortunate and unlucky, as I came down with a nasty cold just before my departure. Idiotically lacking travel insurance and reluctant to see all my money go down the drain, I soldiered on, arriving in Lima quite the worse for wear.

However, the pacing of the trip allowed me to acclimate in a reasonably gentle way before arriving at Machu Picchu's almost 8,000-foot elevation on the fifth day of my journey. 

After checking in to the ultra-glam Lodge, my guide took me for a first view of the ruins, and what a view it was! You see nothing from the hotel itself, nothing as you walk 10 minutes in on a dirt path, and then, suddenly, there Machu Picchu is in all its lush, layered glory, surrounded by steep, perfectly shaped Andean fingers. A complete wow and probably the most amazing sight I've ever seen!

My guide, Carlos, urged me up enormously spaced stone steps as I coughed, snorted, and gasped and was otherwise fairly repulsive. With each gain in altitude, the view became ever more stunning. And, despite the large number of fellow tourists, the area was so spread out that I was able to feel spiritually in touch with the mystical effect of the place.

So many contradictory surmises about Machu Picchu exist that it's hard to know where to begin. The conventional story is that a young Yale lecturer, Hiram Bingham, stumbled onto the spot in 1911 while looking for something else, the Lost City of the Incas. As the story goes, the site was concealed by jungle overgrowth so that its precious archeological contents had been left virtually intact. Fine. But it seems that two different Europeans may have visited the place more than 50 years before and that the area, far from being hidden, was actually being farmed by local Peruvians and serviced by a road that took Mr. Bingham a mere hour and a half to travel.

Bingham returned the next year, accompanied by a team from the National Geographic magazine, which dedicated a whole issue to the ruins in 1913. The Peruvian government allowed Bingham to remove thousands of artifacts and to ship them to Yale, on the subsequently forgotten condition that they be returned to the country when an adequate repository was constructed. In recent years, lawsuits have resulted in the return of most to a museum in Cusco.

As to the Inca themselves, they are shrouded in mystery because, inter alia, they had no written language. Machu Picchu was constructed sometime around 1450 and was abandoned for unknown reasons one hundred years later. The Spanish Conquistadors never seem to have known of its existence, which was a lucky break, as they destroyed or mutilated most sites they found. Machu Picchu has been viewed alternatively as a religious spot, complete with human sacrifice (virgins, of course), a summer palace for Incan royalty, a way station for pilgrims, and, more simply, a securely located city for Incan citizens. The virgin sacrifice idea is out now, as skeletons unearthed there have been found to be 50-50 male-female. The jury is still out on other hypotheses.

What is most notable is the skill with which the city was constructed. The spot lies between two geological fault lines and, given the steepness of the terrain and the heavy annual rainfall, subject to frequent earth and rock slides. A mudslide stranded 2,500 tourists in 2010, requiring helicopter evacuation, and an early 2014 rockfall blocked the precipitous road from the train arrival point in Aguas Calientes to the site. 

The integrity of the building, and the reason for its endurance for over 650 years, is due to remarkably well-conceived engineering. Terracing helps to prevent soil erosion. Sixty percent of the construction lies in foundation work underground, complete with an advanced drainage system. And the stones of the structures are exquisitely carved to fit each other, obviating the need for mortar, which would have degraded over the centuries, collapsing the buildings. In other words, a marvel, and worthy of being both a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.

If only I had possessed more lung power, been ten years younger, and an unmentionable number of pounds lighter, I would have taken some of the even more fabulous trails, but this was not to be. So my advice to you is go, go soon, go young, go healthy. Just go!

Pictured here:  Adrienne Smith atop Machu Picchu.

Photo by Carlos, the author's guide