Something Fierce Read Online Free PDF

“Just over the hill there.” If you looked it up in the Rich Peru dictionary, the definition would read: “Marble room with gold taps and its own servant to keep it sparkling.” I’d been in a Rich Peru bathroom in Lima, when we’d gone to a fancy restaurant on our last night there.
    Cusco was bustling with activity. My mother had bought us a kids’ book about the history of Peru, and as we walked around town, I could see that the city was constructed on the foundations of Inca buildings destroyed by the invaders. When we got to the main square, I thought about Tupac Amaru, the native leader who had been murdered by the Spaniards here. They’d tied each of his limbs to a horse, and then each horse had galloped away in a different direction. Tupac Amaru had held on so tight, my uncle Boris told us, that the horses had had to use all their might.
    We spent the day buying oranges, grapefruits, apples, chocolate—for energy, Bob said—and lots of quinoa, the local grain. We were going on a hike, and I was pretty sure I was starting to get the picture. Chile was lined by the Andes from north to south, and the only way to get there was by crossing those mountains, the highest in the Americas. We couldn’t get into Chile by plane or bus or train or car, with Mami and Bob on the blacklist, so I figured we were headed there on foot. That night we redid our packs, making room for a few litres of water in canteens and a new pot to cook the quinoa in. At four the next morning, Bob woke us up, and we ran to the station and jumped on the train to the trailhead just as it was leaving.
    The Inca trail was actually about twenty thousand miles long, Bob explained, but we took the stretch that led right to Machu Picchu. Bob was happier than I’d ever seen him as we set off up the towering mountain, whistling with his pack, stopping to admire the unbelievable beauty around us while he took a sip from his canteen. We were covered in dirt and sweat within minutes. In places the trail was only a sliver, and one wrong move would send you rolling down into the river hundreds of feet below. Ale spent most of the day crying, with Mami calling encouragement from behind. We pitched our tent that night under millions and millions of stars. It made my mother very emotional. “These are our mountains, Carmencita, these are our stars,” she kept saying. As we hugged by the fire, I felt proud that I belonged to the Andes too. The Urubamba River shone like silver at the bottom of the world.
    We climbed and climbed for the next three days. Once I got lost, surging too far ahead of the others, but Bob rescued me with the help of two Quechua men. I wrapped my legs around his waist and he carried me, backpack and all, up the trail to where my mother and Ale waited. The night before we reached Machu Picchu, we camped in an abandoned Inca city made of stone, bonfires burning around us. Bob told us that the city had been deserted hundreds of years before, during the time of the Conquest. The courtyards and houses and stairways were now open to the stars, which were the size of light bulbs in the ebony sky. A group of Austrians joined us for a chat while a family of twenty Indians set a table with starched white tablecloths and gleaming silver forks.
    I’d been the first to spot the group that afternoon. Rounding a corner of the trail, I’d seen a little army carrying tables, chairs, mattresses and trunks on their backs, winding their way along the side of the mountain. Even the youngest, a girl about four, was carrying a pillow. Her shoes had no laces, which made her ankles twist. Like the others, she chewed vigorously on a ball of coca leaves. The oldest woman, who looked about a hundred, transported an enormous pot on her back, secured with ropes. She grunted as she climbed. One of the Indian men walked with a giggling Austrian woman in his arms, sweat pouring down his back in a perfect stream. The