Our Group with guides and porters. © Andrew Maisel

My trip began in the metropolis of Lima that to my surprise is a burgeoning city with amazing nightlife – a great Doors cover band, restaurants – amazing ceviche, and enough neon lights to rival Las Vegas.  However the westernized and modern Lima was not the real Peru.  That realization however would only come later as I journeyed into the Peruvian hinterland.

As I trekked through the rural towns of Calca, Ollytantambo and others I saw the harsh realities of life for those living outside the metropole of Lima.  Through my guide I began speaking to local people who described the hardships that they have had to endure.

Machu Picchu and Wayna Picchu. © Andrew Maisel

The violence of the 1980’s and 1990’s at the hands of the Shining Path and government only exacerbated the legacies of sociopolitical hierarchies, exclusion, and marginalization that were already present before and have continued even a decade after the violence was subdued.  I talked to a local farmer named Cesar who described the lack of infrastructure in his town.  He described the promises that government officials have made in the past to give him and his community members land reform, schools, and irrigation but few of which ever come true.  Instead they make promises in order to garner each adult’s mandatory vote come election time.