“But by then, we’ll have had the fun of exploring Machu Picchu while it’s almost empty,” Jesse answered. “Those trainloads of tourists won’t start arrivin’ for an hour. We got the run of the most beautiful sight on earth. C’mon. Let’s get a good head start on everybody else. So long, suckers.”

He led me away from the ledge. My waterlogged hiking boots squished every time I put a foot down on the stones of the winding pathway. It had poured every day since we’d flown in to Cusco—no surprise, given that it was rainy season in the Andes. But now the sun had burned off the layers of mist and fog that had shrouded Machu Picchu as we’d hiked in through the Sun Gate. We didn’t speak for what felt like ages, and then Jesse said. “It’s gonna take Diego and every- body else a donkey’s age to catch up with us here.”

“Where . . .” I started to ask, but the question died on my lips. As we’d walked, I’d kept my eyes on the stone pathway, still slick with rainwater. Now that I lifted my eyes, I was breathless again. We were standing on the edge of the Inca city. On our left was a wall of perfectly fitted stone; below us, on my right, were endless layers of terraces, which resembled tiers of an epic cake. Ahead, there were more Inca walls, with triangular stone buildings perched atop them, row after tidy row. In the near distance, I could see another mountain, thin gray fog covering its peak like a veil.

“It’s beautiful,” I whispered.

“Told you it’d all be worth it, didn’t I?” Jesse surveyed the city with satisfaction. “We have it all to ourselves for a little while.”

He spoke too soon. A man’s voice swept by us, faint but angry. “You lied to me.”

“How dare you judge me!” The woman’s voice was shrill.

“I was trying to help you.”

“Leave me alone! I wish I’d never come back.”

Jesse rolled his eyes. “Apparently there’s no such thing as peace and quiet ’round here anymore.”

“Paradise lost?” I tried to smile. “Was it ever really as good as you remember?”

“First time I came here, we were still in college. I’d never seen anyplace so beautiful. I love the mythology of it, too. How the Spanish looked for it but never found it. How Hi- ram Bingham was led here by farmers in 1911. Wish I could’ve seen it then.” Jesse squinted, as if imagining the stones overgrown with vegetation. “You know we’re standing in an earthquake zone, right? This has been here for five centuries. Nobody can figure how the Incas built the walls, how they made them so perfect.” Jesse ran his hand over the stone wall. “You’re touching what they made, not a reconstruction of it.”