Originally published via Armageddon Prose Substack:
The Ninth Wonder of the World, my wife, insists that we visit the Eighth Wonder of the World.
There are about a hundred — maybe a thousand — things in Peru I’d rather do than subject myself to the South America’s largest tourist herding ground, having developed in my Bangkok days a strong aversion to tourism and tourists, especially Chinese ones, hordes of whom I see with great disappointment have flocked with their new middle-class money across the Pacific to get in on the New World tourism game. If I’ve noticed hordes of them walking the Lima streets, sticking out like sore thumbs with their ridiculous get-ups and selfie sticks and giant flags on fifty-person group tours — which I have — I’m positive Machu Picchu is crawling with them.
Related: You’ll Never Believe What the Chinese Are Doing to the Environment Now
But wife’s basic argument is that only an asshole would live here for longer than a week and not go, which I can’t argue with, I guess, because Machu Picchu is grand and mystical testament to Indian spiritual and architectural achievement or whatever.
So, off we go. Unless we’re killed by wild natives, I’ll be back in the saddle next week.
Having not taken this much time off since I started writing full-time about the political shitshow that is the modern world in 2020, I’m frankly thrilled about not reading any news items about the world falling apart for a week straight.
Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.
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