All the Single Ladies

I don't believe Martha Washington slept here, since the hotel didn't open until 1903, but staying at the Martha Washington Hotel in Manhattan means checking into a little bit of women's history.  I'm visiting New York, solo, for a writing conference and couldn't pass up the chance to do just that.

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This hotel was, when it opened, the first hotel exclusively for women....or so say Wikipedia and the hotel's website.  I don't know if that's the first in the world, the first of all time, or just the first in New York in the 20th century.  Poet Sara Teasdale stayed here. So did actress Louise Brooks. It was headquarters for a women's suffrage group.

Men were allowed to come to breakfast, at least. These days, everyone's crowding into Marta in the lobby.

Apparently, the hotel back then was a no-nonsense place for serious women.  Brooks allegedly said, "I was asked to leave the Martha Washington, because people in a building overlooking the hotel had been shocked to see me on the roof, exercising in 'flimsy pajamas.'"

At the moment, I'm typing in my flimsy pajamas, tucked away in a room that seems the perfect sort of no-nonsense place for a single lady, train compartment-like with a single bed, a small desk and chair, and compact bathroom.

Earlier, I was having dinner at the lobby restaurant, Marta, and feeling lucky to snag an open seat at the pizza bar without much of a wait (an advantage of being a solo traveler staying at the Martha Washington). That space was designed by a female architect--Annabelle Seldorf. In this article, she answers one of the questions I had: Where does the smoke from the two wood-fired pizza ovens go?

Peril at Machu Picchu

A client sent me to Peru earlier this summer, to teach a presentation skills class. It seemed like the perfect time to visit Machu Picchu, and lucky for me, a friend was free to come along.

So we went parasailing off the cliffs of Lima.

We gorged on ceviche and fermented corn juice until we thought we would burst--but didn't.

We survived the high altitude and guinea-pig-on-a-stick in Cusco.

And after a 90 minute drive, followed by a train trip and Mr. Toad's wild bus ride up the mountainside, arrived at a hotel just outside the entrance to the famed ruins.

The next morning, we beat the crowd and caught the sun coming up over Machu Picchu. We went back to the hotel for a leisurely breakfast, then headed out to hike the mountain you see behind the ruins.  Huuyana Picchu.  I was very proud to have purchased advance tickets for this.  Only a couple hundred people are permitted to walk up each day.

The crowd, gathered to watch the sun come up over the mountain peak

Going up wasn't so bad, until we got near the top. There, on a narrow ledge, we saw two lawyers from Brooklyn who we'd met at dinner the night before.  They were on the way down, and they seemed terrified.  They warned us: Do not let them send you down the other side of the mountain. Tell them you have heart problems! Tell them anything.  Don't let them send you that way.

This didn't make a lot of sense to us at the time. We inched up to the top. And as we got higher, and the trail became narrower, I began to feel a fear of heights kick in.  No guard rails. No barriers. Just cliffs and free falls in every direction. I couldn't imagine how the other route down could be worse.

At the peak, we were ordered to creep across a big, smooth rock face that led to another cliff.  On the cliff, a sign pointed to steps. Incan steps.  My friend Billy took a look, then said, "I'll stand over here and let you make your peace with that." 

I looked down. Uneven blocks of rock, hundreds of them, stuck onto the side of a mountain with nothing to catch you if you slipped. Or fell. Nothing at all between you and the river valley below.

We made our way down those steps like we were climbing down a ladder. Billy went first, a calm voice just below me.  "You can do this," he said more than once.  "It's no big deal. Just one step, then another."

I focused on what was in front of me, feeling around with the toe of my hiking boot for a solid spot to stand, step after step.  Now I could see what the Brooklyn lawyers had meant.  But it was too late to do anything except keep going. I pushed my fear down. I took my time. And I marveled that they could find 200 people willing to do this every day. I guess you don't know what you're in for until it's too late.

The "good" steps. I'm almost to safety, with brave Billy (center) waiting for me.

At the bottom of the mountain, Billy and I signed our names in the big ledger. We were accounted for. And we were some of the last people to come off the trail that day.  We sat on a bench and shared a bottle of water and a granola bar.  With Huuyana Picchu behind me, I was feeling a little braver.

"I guess it wasn't that bad," I said, wiping my face with my sleeve.

"Are you kidding?" He paused for a beat. "We could have f---ing died!"

It was the first time Billy had let on that he'd been scared.  Back in the hotel that night, I Googled the trail--and discovered that it's one of Outside magazine's most dangerous hikes in the world.

Still, I think I'd do it again.