On a ceaselessly scenic rail line that flowed like a vein toward the heart of the Inca mountain empire, Kilometer Marker 104 did not look like anything special. There wasn't even an actual station there; just a ditch, where we stood all of 30 seconds before the train pulled away from us.
As we would do throughout our two days tramping around one of the world's most-photographed historic sites, Machu Picchu, we jumped when our guide Sebastian said jump.
A Quechuan native _ essentially an Incan descendant _ Sebastian somehow located my friends and me at sunrise that morning in a little lodge in the mountain town of Ollantaytambo, along a narrow street where no cars can go. He found us even while saying my name about as well as I pronounced Ollantaytambo.
Sebastian earned our trust again at our secluded train stop. He led us over the tracks to a rickety walking bridge across the Urubamba River, where we met up with the Inca Trail and our first ruins of the day, Chachabamba, a water temple cut into the hillside.
There, our short, smiley guide sat down with our group of five hikers and made an introductory confession that endeared him to us even further. Turned out, Sebastian wasn't entirely trustworthy.
"Only about 50 percent of what I'll tell you is probably true," he said.
After a few guffaws and a fake news joke he didn't seem to get, Sebastian explained himself. For all their fame and historic designations and National Geographic TV specials, our final destination of Machu Picchu and the surrounding Inca ruins sites are still being studied, still the subject of as many theories as facts.
The mountaintop ruins weren't even discovered by the Northern Hemisphere until 1911 _ "discovered" a word Sebastian used with the same eye-roll as an American Indian on Columbus Day. Machu Picchu also didn't become a major tourist destination until earning UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 1983.
Our guide seemed apologetic about the uncertainties, but those lingering mysteries only added to the mystique and awe as we started our trek into the Andes.
And anyway, Machu Picchu's most relevant and best-known trait proved to be 110 percent accurate: It truly is stunning to see in person.
You know it's amazing from all the photos, but you don't know just how far and swift a drop it is from the tiered temple buildings and stone walls into the canyons below. Or how the changing sunlight atop the mountain seems to alter Machu Picchu's dimensions every half-hour or so. Or how the mountains around it seem to cradle it like protective big siblings (which saved it from the Spanish).
"Congratulations, you made it," Sebastian ceremoniously told us after we finally walked into what he rightly assumed was a bucket-list destination for all of us.
"And congratulations that you didn't get here the lazy way," he slyly added.
