Part II: Meeting Silence in Desert and Mountains - Peru and Bolivia 2005

Part II:


Meeting Silence
in Desert
and Mountains

Peru and Bolivia
2005


Introduction

Travelling has always given me fresh eyes and a bigger perspective, it has challenged my thinking and my worldview. Before the Camino, I had never considered the bigger impact that travel had on my life, but I could often sense some shift in my awareness that felt important and significant. I never felt the same again after each adventure, even the smallest and shortest trips. There is truly something special about venturing out into the world, eyes wide open.
Even though I loved to travel, before the Camino it had never crossed my mind that the act of travelling itself could impact me in as deep a way as it did. Even as I planned to walk the Camino, there was little consideration of how the whole experience would impact my life. The details of planning absorbed me, and I lived in a state of unquestioning contentment until the time came to embark on the journey.
I experienced tremendous shock as all the elements of my first pilgrimage on the Camino absorbed me: foreign language, foreign culture, physical exhaustion, mental and emotional turmoil, and even the basic elements of nature. I was bombarded by an array of external experiences that filled my every waking moment, and often overwhelmed by the mental and emotional responses that came as a result. Having nothing else to distract and occupy me, I entered into a most intense period of living.
In the midst of that intensity, I felt things that were so wonderful and so terrible that I didn’t know how to respond. The most awful misery and suffering, the most awesome joy, the most intimate friendships. Though I was pushed to the very limits of my known ability on every level, I began to feel that I was finally living in full color, and up until the Camino, my life experiences seemed pale and bland and semi-present by comparison. It wasn’t merely because of the travel and adventure elements of the journey, though they certainly played a role. It was because of the shift in my own awareness. All of my senses became richer and more sensitive. My mind became both more focused and more flexible. My emotions were intensified and could no longer be conveniently contained. My body was strengthened and made more efficient and fine-tuned through thorough and extreme use. On the Camino, I discovered a way of living that touched me very deeply and finally made sense. I had also found a community that resonated with me. I could simply be myself and live each day as it came. While in the nearly six week course of walking the Camino I never truly felt like life was easy, I did feel that as the days went on, my life was becoming really right. I’ve been trying to recreate that ever since.

***

The Experiment:
A Long Walk

In the months that followed my return from Spain, I found myself longing to walk all day as I had done so many times on the Camino. I missed the familiar exhaustion, the sense of community, the feeling of being gritty, disgusting and content. I desired the feeling of being grounded that walking all day gave me. I craved the intensity. Though walking across Spain was the most difficult thing I’d ever done, I loved the experience. It pushed my limits. It burned out my mind. It left me feeling simple and whole. I began to wonder if I could recreate the experience at home, even for a single day.
One day while feeling especially nostalgic for my days of walking, I found myself surfing the Internet. I entered the words “long walk” into the search engine and waited to see what would appear. One of the first entries that appeared was The One Day Hike. It was sponsored by the Sierra Club, and just happened to take place along the C & O Canal Trail, which is about an hour from my house. I was thrilled, and decided immediately to do it. It was scheduled to take place at the end of April, and the participants could choose to walk 50, 80, or 100 kilometers in one day. The most I had ever walked before in a single day was 39 kilometers and that was after I had been walking the Camino for over a month. I still felt like a seasoned walker from Spain, though, and I figured that I would be up to the challenge.
The next day I called two good friends who were both avid hikers. I hoped that one of them would accompany me on this adventure, and Ginger agreed to join me for the 50K. In the months that followed, I managed to keep myself involved in a moderate workout regimen, but I didn’t have much time for long hikes or training. I trusted my body, and after walking across an entire country less than a year before, this flat, straight path seemed easy. One week before the walk, Ginger and I hiked a difficult trail to test our preparedness. After completing it in record time, we returned to the car feeling exhilarated. The One Day Hike would be no problem.
On the day of the hike, I awoke to a torrential downpour. The morning was filled with obstacles and I began to wonder if we would ever arrive at the beginning of the hike, but somehow Ginger and I made it to the designated parking area with about four minutes to spare. After a brief check-in, we were shuttled to the trailhead. Seated next to the van’s driver was a thirty-something woman. She was intense and planned to walk the 50K as fast as possible. She was using the hike as preparation for her trek along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in Peru. At that time, Ginger and I were both hoping to do the same trek, and our conversation was exciting. In the back seat were two unlikely participants. One was a corporate-type Asian-American woman who spoke quickly and wore a trench coat and leggings. She carried only a small bottle for water. Her companion was a loud, overweight man, possibly gay, who whined sarcastically for the entire ride. Oh, God, where the hell are we? This looks like deliverance country to me. I’m going to ruin my new shoes, do you know how much these cost? What the hell have you gotten me into? It was quite amusing to hear him go on and on, at least for a while, but as I considered the pair, I felt a little concerned for him. The Asian woman had walked the 80K before as well as the 50K several times. This man didn’t look like he had walked that much in the last year. He also didn’t seem to appreciate the outdoors, not even a little bit. I looked forward to seeing if these two would make it together to the end. I had my serious doubts.
After an hour of driving, we pulled into the parking area at White’s Ferry, where the hike would begin. The rain was steady but less intense than it had been during our drive. We would begin at exactly 10:00 a.m., which would coordinate us with the longer distance walkers. The 80K hikers had begun walking at 6:00 a.m., and the 100K’ers had been walking since 4:00 a.m. While waiting, I tried to imagine all those people walking in the dark while the rain poured down. The thought of being cold, wet and exhausted was too much for me, so I read the information I’d received during check-in. The cutoff time for the walk was midnight. The food and rest stops were spaced every five to eight kilometers but were open only between certain hours. There were also some bathroom facilities along the way. It all sounded very well-planned.
Finally 10:00 a.m. arrived and we began. There were more than fifty people walking in our category, and everyone was friendly and in good spirits in spite of the weather. I chatted briefly with an older man, an avid bird-watcher from Maine. He had walked the 100K before, and it had taken him several attempts to finish it. He eventually disappeared off the trail into the woods, and Ginger and I fell into step together. We were both starving, since neither of us had eaten any breakfast in the rush of the morning. Fortunately, the first rest stop offered food and beverages, and when I arrived I quickly ate three bananas and a cheese sandwich. After only a few minutes rest we headed back to the trail.
By this time the rain had stopped. Ginger and I walked together, chatting and not chatting for the next stretch of the path, enjoying the dense green of spring. The rain had refreshed everything without making the trail unbearably muddy, and the trees and vegetation were sparkling. Birds called out from the canopy, and the breeze was gentle. I felt content after having breakfast, and immensely enjoyed the pleasure of walking, as well as the companionship of my friend. We approached the second rest stop and I couldn’t wait to change out of my muddy socks into the clean pair I had brought. The kind man who was in charge of the rest stop offered me a folding chair as soon as I arrived and when I began to take off my shoes, he insisted that I sit back and allow him. He untied my mud-caked shoes and removed my socks gingerly, sitting them next to my chair. I rubbed my feet, giving attention to every inch of them. While Ginger chatted with two dazed 100K hikers, I talked with the man who was attending the rest stop for a while. When I was ready to continue, he insisted on putting the clean socks on my feet, and then he slid my shoes into place and tied them. I headed out only slightly behind Ginger.
During the third stage of the hike, I began to really feel my body beginning to wear down. I had already walked approximately twelve miles, a good day’s hike in itself, but my spirits were high. The hikers had finally settled into their paces, and the trail felt open and peaceful, much like the Camino, but with the added bonuses of cool weather and an endless canopy of trees. I felt my body’s desire to keep moving, for the momentum of walking would combat my exhaustion. Inertia could set in very easily and if I stopped for too long, I knew it would be difficult to continue.
I began to feel myself filling up with the beauty of the trail. The towpath meandered between the Potomac River and the C & O Canal, and though the river was difficult to see through the dense forest, the canal was teeming with life. The rain was gone, but the day remained gray. The coolness of the afternoon welcomed the wildlife from its respective shelters, and a chorus of frogs filled the air with music. Insects flitted about, and turtles appeared on logs that were adrift in the water. Ginger and I shared stories about our lives, our families, our history, our dreams. I felt immensely happy in spite of the growing ache in my feet. I felt connected to the earth, the sky, the water, the trees, the creatures everywhere, to my friend, and most of all, to my deepest self.
We began to walk in silence. Ginger’s pace was naturally faster than mine, and she moved ahead of me on the trail, but never out of sight. I enjoyed the aloneness as much as I had enjoyed the companionship. Soon, my feet began to ache more intensely. The distance to the next rest stop was farther than I had expected by about a mile. I began to feel the familiar sting of hot tears welling up in my eyes as exhaustion began to take over. I plodded onward. What else could I do? My mind began to wander, and as I walked that last mile, I tried to breathe deeply and keep myself connected to the beauty of my surroundings. Just as I trudged over a small hill, I could make out yellow canopies. At long last, the rest stop.
Ginger was helping herself to a bowl of soup as I arrived. She asked me how I was doing, and I managed a smile. I grabbed a banana and a cup of yogurt. Just as I was preparing to sit down and eat, a woman walked through the food area offering Healing Touch, a form of energy healing. I sat down on her massage table, took off my shoes and socks and showed her the areas of my feet and ankles that were causing me the greatest pain. The smoke of burning sage leaves drifted up from a mug beneath the table, and it was very soothing. I could feel the heat and vibration in her hands. She finished after about ten minutes and feeling refreshed, I grabbed my food and devoured it. I was tired but rejuvenated and I took a seat in a circle of chairs with Ginger and several other walkers.
Just as I was preparing to grab a second round of food, the day’s comic relief began. A woman who had been receiving energy healing after me came over to me quickly, barely suppressing her laughter. She bent close to me and discreetly pointed to the food area. “Look over there!” she directed me through her giggles. Toward the front of the food area was the man who was in charge of the rest stop. He was tall, tan, and very thin. He strutted around in a nonchalant, confident manner in spite of people giggling at him in every direction. He wore a turquoise t-shirt that didn’t quite match his fleshy-pink corduroy cutoff shorts. His cutoffs were so short, though, that his perfectly coordinated, skin-tight turquoise bikini underwear was hanging out of them, leaving nothing to the imagination. As he turned to walk away, we were all treated to a spectacular view of the wrinkles and creases in the place where his buttocks ended and his thighs began. The woman who pointed out Mr. Short-Shorts chortled and told me that he wears this outfit every year for The One Day Hike.
The atmosphere of exhaustion had been lightened by comedy and soup, and many of the hikers were sitting around chatting about painful feet and legs. Suddenly, I caught sight of a bright green shirt walking toward the rest stop. The man wearing the green shirt walked over and sat down in the empty chair right next to mine. His blue eyes were vibrant even though he had completed a significant portion of the 100K. He didn’t look too grimy in spite of having walked for many hours more than me. His madness to hike such a long distance was matched with a sparkling charm, and those few minutes of conversation with him gave me a burst of energy. Within a few minutes, Ginger was ready to begin walking again. My feet felt better than before and as I stuffed them back into my boots, I calculated the remainder of the walk. About fourteen miles. We had walked more than halfway.
I hadn’t eaten enough at the food stop because there were too many distractions. Mr. Short-Shorts had been followed by Mr. Green Shirt, and food had been the last thing on my mind. As I walked, my ankles ached, my thighs gripped, and my stomach began to churn. Ginger walked farther and farther ahead of me. My feet began to plod the ground with less and less grace, and my pace slowed. I began to whimper, and finally I was in tears. Oh, why am I doing this to myself? Did I learn nothing on the Camino? I took a few deep breaths and chose a mantra for myself. I tried to keep myself focused on walking in a meditative way, hoping that it might distract me from the misery my body was experiencing. I kept it up for a while, but the churning in my stomach made it harder and harder to breathe deeply. I hoped that I wouldn’t throw up. The sun would have been starting to set if the day hadn’t been completely overcast, and night would begin to fall soon. Ginger stayed ahead of me, though rarely out of sight. I whimpered and cried and tried to remain calm. I encountered no one during this stretch of the trail. I began to feel more and more spacey, like I was moving by some force other than my own bodily power. I felt numb, and even the pain in my feet became dull. My gaze became more and more distant. The woods were an endless reel of trees and vines and murky water, and my mind was becoming more and more blank. Walking became the only activity of my being.
After a time, I saw a table and some people ahead on the trail. Could it be? Did I make it to the fourth rest stop, really? I saw something unusual ahead of me on the trail. It appeared to be a giant stone carving of a head. I was too exhausted to focus my eyes, but the image did arouse my curiosity. Why is there a stone head on the trail? I looked again and it was gone. As I staggered toward the people ahead, dusk began to descend. I shook my head as I began to see the tables of food filled with cookies, brownies, and sodas. I hadn’t eaten sugar of any kind in months, and the table was laden with nothing but homemade sugary delights. The idea of food sickened me. A woman asked me if there was anything she could offer me, and I found it incredibly hard to communicate. My tongue was swollen, my mouth was dry, and I barely had enough energy to support basic speech. I must have managed to communicate to her that I would like to sit and rest, and she provided a chair instantly. I sat beside of Ginger, who was chowing down on brownies and cocoa. I took off my shoes and socks, and rested my feet on top of them. I sat in the chair and stared straight ahead of me.
A woman I had seen throughout the day came over to me. Her husband was walking the 100K, and she was meeting him at each rest stop for support. During the day she had been very supportive of everyone. I was happy to see her, though I could hardly speak. She asked me how I was doing, and I replied with a distant stare and hypnotic nod. After a few minutes, I began to regain my voice, and Ginger and I began to banter sarcastically about the day. I was feeling numb and exhausted and unsure of how I would continue when I spotted a bright green shirt approaching. It was Mr. Green Shirt! He walked right over and sat down again in the chair next to me. I felt myself come back to life as we chatted for a while. He told me a bit about his work in the computer field and the other extreme hikes he had planned for the year. We compared gear. Soon, he decided to continue walking. Before us remained the last seven miles.
Ginger and I pulled out our headlamps. I was thrilled to have an opportunity to use mine, since I had only recently purchased it. After chatting with Mr. Green Shirt, I had a lot more energy and Ginger and I talked about him for a while. Pretty soon we clicked on our headlamps. Since the trail meandered through dense woods with no artificial light, we decided to walk together the rest of the way to Harper’s Ferry. Ginger got ahead of me several times and would turn around to wait for me to catch up. Each time she did this, her headlamp flashed suddenly in my direction, startling me. After this happened several times, I found myself feeling rather strung out. Tree branches glowed a dull, ghostly white as they reflected our light, and from that point in the walk, I began to descend to the brink of madness.
The ghostly branches crowded in closer and closer, suddenly sweeping past my field of vision as if to grab me, but my complete exhaustion prevented me from feeling afraid. I felt very little, really. The branches lunged toward me. I kept walking. After a while, the full darkness of night surrounded us. My headlamp illuminated only a small spot on the ground in front of me and I began to hallucinate. I saw rain falling in front of me, but I felt no rain. For a moment I thought that I was seeing millions of tiny insects, but when I asked Ginger if she saw these insects, she saw nothing. I began to feel a little worried. What was happening to me? Ginger turned to wait for me. I jumped again. My chest began to tighten, and a sob formed deep in my chest. I attempted to take a deep breath to calm myself down, but the sob fought to escape. A ghastly sound escaped my throat and tears streamed down my face. Ginger stopped and asked me if I was all right. I struggled to breathe, and I squeaked to her that I wasn’t, that I was losing my mind. She tried to calm me down, telling me to breathe, breathing with me. I tearfully shared with her what I was feeling and seeing. The scariest part of all was when I realized that I was too exhausted, mentally and physically, to take care of myself. My survival instinct was failing me, and I wanted nothing more than to lie down on the muddy trail and slip out of consciousness. I communicated that to her as best I could in my state of incoherence. Another set of sobs escaped me, and I began to hyperventilate.
Ginger remained completely calm. She asked me to give her my hand. I offered it to her. I turned off my headlamp and we walked together by the light of hers alone. She talked to me to soothe my hysteria, reminding me to breathe deeply and slowly. The chorus of spring frogs in the canal was deafening, so loud that we couldn’t have heard ourselves talking had we been able to talk. It was overwhelming. At the same time, it was incredible to be small and human and completely surrounded by nature in its pure form. Had I been in a different frame of mind, I would have delighted in the experience.
My left hand remained secured in Ginger’s right hand. We walked. And walked. I splashed in puddles and didn’t care. The tears streamed down my face continuously. The night was cold, and I was shivering. Every few minutes, Ginger asked me how I was doing, and I mostly grunted or whimpered in response. I was a child, completely unable to protect or care for myself in those hours of walking in the dark. I trusted her strength completely. My rational mind was gone. I didn’t care if we continued walking or fell down in the mud. I didn’t care if I made it to Harper’s Ferry. I didn’t care about anything. I didn’t even feel me anymore. I felt walking. Walking was all there was. I thought nothing. I saw the forest, but felt no sense of what a forest was. Everything looked flat and I couldn’t interpret my surroundings. I breathed, I moved, both by a force that was not conscious within my mind. I was aware only of the hand that held mine, that guided me through the dark, that was my lifeline. I am certain that if Ginger had not been there to lend her strength and sensibility, I would have collapsed into delirium.
After what seemed like a year, Ginger pointed out some lights ahead to the left. “Harper’s Ferry,” she said. I couldn’t believe it, but it still looked so far away. I whimpered. To my right, a train was rumbling by. I couldn’t see it, but its chugging and whistle were unmistakable. A ghost train, a train of death, am I being taken by the hand to the train to the other side? Am I still alive? I had no sense of self preservation, no sense of self at all. My chest began to constrict, and another sob feebly escaped from my mouth. I didn’t have enough energy left to indulge any more hysteria. Tears poured down my face.
One foot in front of the other.
Breathe in, breathe out.
We passed under a highway bridge. The lights grew closer.
One foot in front of the other.
The trail began to look familiar to me. I had walked this part twice before. A familiar hill. The lights began to illuminate a picturesque town.
Breathe in, breathe out.
A second bridge appeared in the distance, the Harper’s Ferry bridge that led trains and pedestrians across the Potomac River. Ginger released my hand.
A single flashlight shone out beside the stairs leading up to the bridge. A disembodied voice called out, guiding us to the finish. Another flashlight, another disembodied voice guided us to the cobblestone Main Street of Harper’s Ferry. All that remained of The One Day Hike was a steep street. I hauled myself up the hill and began to return to my body. The steep hill felt good to my legs, which were exhausted from the completely flat path. I aimed for the flashlight at the top of the hill, making my way past the familiar shops of town. I was guided to a side street, and just as I turned down that street, Mr. Green Shirt appeared. He looked about as dazed as I felt, and offered me congratulations on finishing. I thanked him, feeling slightly disappointed that he was leaving so soon. I walked on, it was only a few more steps. Ginger was just ahead of me. A house appeared, glowing with cozy yellow light. A burst of cheering filled the night. Ginger had arrived.
After a day as long and grueling as this one, I had imagined the triumph of finishing. The One Day Hike was the longest hike I had ever done in one day. My previous record of 39K had pushed me over the edge into fits of crying. This hike had been seven miles longer. As I made my way up to the porch, I was showered with cheers and party horns and congratulations. I felt nothing at all. No thrill, no triumph, no joy, nothing. I found a free chair inside, sat down, and removed my shoes and socks.
The beautiful old Victorian house was owned by the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club. It was simply furnished and as cozy as it had looked from the outside. The room was filled with other exhausted hikers. A tremendous spread of food was provided. Salad, vegetarian chili, homemade rolls. Before eating, I pulled my way up the stairs to the second floor bathroom, the only one in the entire house. The door was closed, and I knocked. The woman inside informed me that she was getting ready to take a shower, that she’d be finished quickly. I was too tired to reason with her, but also too tired to walk back downstairs and come up again. I sat down stiffly on the top step and lowered my body to the floor, stretching out there to wait for the bathroom.
Once downstairs, I felt myself returning to normal. I ate two helpings of hearty chili and drank as much water as I could hold. We were hardly the last walkers to arrive. As I rubbed my feet, other exhausted hikers stumbled into the house. I saw the encouraging woman who had been following her husband along the 100K. I limped over to her and thanked her for her cheerfulness throughout the day. Her husband hadn’t arrived yet, and she was doing her best to spread joy to everyone else as she waited. Ginger had secured us a ride to our hotel, and we slowly made our way outside.
In the days that followed I considered my original question, can the Camino be recreated at home? Results? Inconclusive. Sure, the day had exhausted me and pushed me to my very limit, body, mind, and spirit. There had been some sense of community and camaraderie, and I had really enjoyed the spirit of the day. But the impending sense of deadlines didn’t feel right. On the Camino, it had taken weeks for revelations to occur and friendships to deepen. Not only that, but The One Day Hike was undertaken in the spirit of most sporting and outdoor events. A communal sense of the sacred? Not really. The experiment, though, was a success. I began to imagine another pilgrimage, and a second journey began to unfold.

***

A New Journey

There were a few pilgrims that I met who had walked the Camino year after year. One old man had been continuously walking the Camino for twenty seven years, back and forth. He carried only his wine-filled bota and a stamp with his name on it, a way of offering his blessing to fellow pilgrims. He weighed almost nothing and was as ratty and tattered as any homeless man I’ve met at home, and he travelled with an equally lean and worn burro. But his eyes glittered in a way that I couldn’t understand at the time I met him. I could see that his joyful glow didn’t come from the red wine, but from something else, something indescribable. But when I returned home after finishing my pilgrimage, I could identify a similar radiance in myself.
I knew that I wasn’t alone in wanting to continue to live the Camino lifestyle. But something inside of me couldn’t imagine walking the Camino every year. It would be too difficult to relive such a difficult journey so often, and to me, it would have dishonored its importance in my life to reduce it to a familiar path. I knew that my heart did crave to live in the same kind of simple immediacy that I experienced on the Camino. As I began to sort through my Camino pilgrimage, the idea of creating my own sacred walking journey popped into my mind. Nearly as quickly, so did the thought of making a journey in Peru, to Machu Picchu.
I began to read about the Incan temples, and about the shamanic spiritual practices of the indigenous Andean culture. As I read, I began to feel a deep connection between the traditions there and the path my own spirituality had been following. I felt a wonderful sense of familiarity as I read about altars and stones and energy and shifting states of consciousness. These ideas and traditions felt much more tied to my own feeling of connection to the earth and to the sacred, much more than I had ever felt to the Catholic beliefs and rituals of the Camino. And while those rituals and beliefs were a part of the tapestry of the pilgrimage along the Camino, it made a lot more sense to me to follow the feeling of affinity with Peru, and Bolivia. I loosely planned a second pilgrimage.
At heart, my original plan involved a walk along the famous Inca Trail. It was only a four day trek, but it was guaranteed to be a rigorous journey, at times passing over 14,000 foot mountain passes. There was a limit on the number of people permitted to be on the trail at any one time. That meant that I would never feel overwhelmed by hordes of people, which had been one of my greatest sources of frustration during the last 100 kilometers to Santiago along the Camino. The Inca Trail encountered the ruins of a variety of structures that were both sacred and secular to the Incas, and ended at the greatest one of all: Machu Picchu.
In much the same way as when I had begun to discuss walking the Camino, people began to express their interests in joining me. Planning with one friend began, then fell through. A second friend contacted me, wanting to join me in the journey. She was prepared to make a commitment, and even flew to meet me so that we could begin discussing travel arrangements and our intentions for the journey. We set our dates, but had a hard time getting booked with a guide for the Inca Trail. We decided to abandon the prospect of walking the Inca Trail altogether, hoping to figure out a different route once we arrived in Peru. On the day before we had planned to book our airline tickets, my friend called me. Knee injury. She might need surgery. There was no way she could go.
I was crushed. The details of the journey were becoming difficult to negotiate. I began to wonder if maybe I just wasn’t supposed to go. After a few days of brooding, I decided to try planning on my own. After all, my first journey had been incredible, and I was never lonely. I also had experienced a depth of solitude that had been totally freeing, and had brought me to know and understand myself more fully. I began to reconsider the notion that I wasn’t supposed to go to Peru, but that I was meant to go alone. I meditated on that idea, and I began to feel happier and happier. Yes! I’d be able to experience the same freedom in Peru! Little by little, the details of my journey fell into place. I set my dates, booked a ticket, and immersed myself in the history, literature, memoirs, and cultural study of the destination of my next pilgrimage.
I struggled with my concept of the journey even as I flew to Lima. Largely, my whole concept of pilgrimage was defined by what I knew of the Camino: a religiously-inspired journey involving hardship and exhaustion as well as a touch of asceticism, combined with prayer and meditation in a variety of sacred places. The pilgrimage path was long and had been consistently trod upon for over hundreds of years as a path to the Divine in many forms and conceptions. My journey in Peru and Bolivia was similar in a few ways, but was largely a self-styled journey. In fact, as far as I had discovered, no other pilgrimage like the Camino existed.
I began to wonder what elements of the Camino had really been defining ones for me. After all, I wasn't Catholic or Christian, and felt little personal connection with Spanish culture. But the journey, for me and many other pilgrims that I met, was deeply personal and life-changing in spite of those apparent missing links.
What were the defining elements? Being someplace as far-removed as possible from my ordinary life. Foreign language and culture. Being stripped of the comforts, companions, and familiarity of home. Some kind of personal challenge. A lot of time alone to think and write. Carrying a flute to share my music even when languages were not an option for communication. Wandering around with openness and being free to spontaneously decide about the direction of my hours and days. In a moment of epiphany, it became obvious that all of those things, too, could become the fabric of my journey in Peru and Bolivia, and it wasn’t necessary for any culture or tradition to provide the framework for me. Indeed, the way of my culture is frequently “do-it-yourself” and “make-your-own-way.” It made perfect sense that I’d be creating my own pilgrimage path in Peru and Bolivia.
It was more than history and ruins and mountains and desert that drew me to Peru and Bolivia. Being of Native American ancestry, I had always yearned to learn more about that part of my history. Coming from the eastern band of the Cherokee, however, made it difficult to learn anything firsthand. My ancestors had escaped the forced migration along the Trail of Tears and hid in the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina, eventually intermarrying with the European settlers, and in my own family at least, making every attempt to deny their Cherokee heritage entirely. I had studied the Q’ero people of the Andes Mountains and was deeply drawn to their way of life, an indigenous path with its spirituality rooted in the earth and energy and shamanism. I felt, in some small way, that this was similar to my own heritage that had been almost entirely lost in the U.S. My journey was further blessed through a synchronistic meeting with a new colleague, was put in contact with a young Peruvian shaman who spoke fluent English: Puma.
My itinerary was vague, and consisted mostly of a starting point, an ending point, a list of possible stopping points along the way, and the phone number of Puma, the young shaman. I carried enough basic gear to feel prepared for almost anything, including a tent and sleeping bag, some basic maps and guidebook information, enough clothes for three days, and my favorite objects: my journal, my camera, and my flute. When I landed in Lima, I felt free, unencumbered, and ready for whatever the path presented to me.

***
Intentions

It had been important to me to not plan too much of my pilgrimage to Peru and Bolivia before leaving, as part of my intention to explore living more spontaneously, and allowing my intuition to guide me from one moment to the next. Having some knowledge of the cities and villages that I planned to visit in my six-week journey from Lima to LaPaz, I had photocopied some basic information from travel guidebooks, including maps and pertinent information about those places, but beyond that practical information, I had intentionally decided to let the rest of it unfold naturally.
As I sat in my window seat aboard the plane from Baltimore to Miami, I pulled out my journal. I had decorated its covers with clipped images from magazines and cards with beautiful images, and the first pages were filled with inspirational quotes and wise words from a variety of people, but I had not allowed myself to write anything personal within its pages before departing. Now, with the journal in my lap, I considered what my first words would be. In a flash, I knew that I needed to dedicate my journey by declaring my intentions for the experience. I began to write:

* I welcome this journey as an opportunity to open my heart, and to learn to trust my heart and feelings wholly, allowing that to be my guide, my truth.
* I offer myself in this journey in connecting with the earth, Nature. I am inseparable from Nature, and may this journey show me ways in which I can honor that connection most fully.
*I want to learn, through personal experience, about the light and energy that surrounds everything in the universe.
* I want to learn to trust my center, and to stay with that truth in all circumstances. People and situations will always come and go, but through connecting to my center, those encounters will not throw me off balance. I have begun to realize that on the Camino, I didn’t always ask myself what is best for me? I became influenced by my fears and desires. I want to learn to trust myself completely.
*I want to surrender my desire to please others, my fears of not measuring up, for those things do not speak my truth.
*I want to discover my truth and live that truth fully, in thoughts, speech, actions.
*I want to meet Puma, to play music with him, and learn about Andean shamanism.
*I want to learn to listen to the earth, to read nature, and to feel the mysteries of everything!

Content with my dedication, I placed my journal back inside of my backpack, where it remained until I landed in Peru, where I began to explore these intentions, and my primary intention of learning to live in the moment more fully.

***

Peru and Bolivia Journals

***

September 30, 2005
(Paracas, Peru)

There is an impulse within me to know where I’m going next, to get on with it, to create a plan. Especially with my last few weeks of school requiring me to structure every moment. But my only requirement is to be here. To be present, to live in the moment of now. Only that. I have this entire pilgrimage for that. But part of me is afraid that I won’t find those sacred experiences that will make this a pilgrimage, to validate this journey. But that is silly. I know in my mind that every moment is sacred, that every moment of my life, every breath, every step, it all is a sacred journey if I choose it to be. On this journey, I want to learn what it is to feel that truth in my heart. What a remarkable blessing that would be.

***


The Fox in the Desert

I arrived in Lima just before dawn. I had heard nothing promising about Lima itself. A big, dirty, modern South American city filled with people, and well known as a place full of crime. Not a wise place to be for very long if you’re a single female traveller. I left the airport in a taxi just in time to watch the sunrise. We sped through the sleepy streets, the dim blue morning sky beginning to illuminate the skyline. We rushed through one red light after another, and finally pulled up in front of the bus station. The younger man who drove the taxi took my money and went inside of the station while an older gentleman helped me gather my backpack. In a moment, the young man came back to the taxi, and informed me that we were at the wrong bus station, and we set off in search of the other one. Within an hour of having landed in Peru, I had purchased my bus ticket using my rather limited Spanish, and sat, sleepily, waiting for the bus to arrive.
I hadn’t been sure of where I would go first when I took off for Peru. While waiting in the Miami airport, I had discussed my ideas with a middle aged woman from Lima. Should I stay in Lima for a day, or head onward to Pisco or Paracas? I had read about the Paracas National Reserve, and wanted to venture into the desert, but wasn’t sure. The woman spoke excitedly about Paracas, assuring me it was tiny but wonderful, and that while Pisco was larger, it was also dirtier and less interesting. That was all I needed to hear to confirm my instinct: I was going to Paracas.
Contrary to the rumors I’d always heard about “Latin time,” my bus arrived exactly on time. I boarded, along with about ten other twenty-to-thirty-something backpackers and in minutes we were on the road. I pulled out the folder that was in my daypack, filled with my itineraries, my plane ticket, and the pages I had photocopied from various travel books. I found the information that I had on Paracas and read through. Yes, the Reserve was within a reasonable walking distance of the town of Paracas. My imagination began to wander. My fantasy had been to spend a few days camping alone in the desert, preferably near the ocean. I wanted to take some time at the beginning of my journey to shift gears from the busy workaholic days that had preceded my departure. I wanted to be totally alone, surrounded by nothing but the sound of the wind and the water, by rolling white sand and expansive blue sky. I wanted to sleep, to meditate, to contemplate the journey that lay ahead, and to be undisturbed by the world of humans for a brief time. I wanted to begin my pilgrimage with a silent retreat.
I wasn’t nervous at all, though I had never been camping. I had purchased a good tent a few months before, and had practiced setting it up on several occasions so that I would be quick and accurate even in the dark or a rainstorm. I had enough bottles to carry a sufficient amount of water for a few days, and though I didn’t have a camp stove, I planned to eat bread, cheese, and fruit, none of which required any preparation at all. I figured that all the details of my desert camping fantasy would come together once I had arrived in Paracas. I put the folder away and chatted briefly with the other people seated near me. Most of them were headed to Pisco, from where tours could be arranged to visit the Ballestas Islands, a smaller island chain with landforms and wildlife similar to the Galapagos Islands. Only one other couple, older and clearly wealthy, were headed to Paracas.
I fell silent after a few minutes and became entranced with the landscape that rolled by. This was a land like none that I had ever seen before. Desert and ocean and shantytowns, this was the Pan-American Highway. I pulled out my journal to write.

***

Dust, farms, scrub weeds, trash ... buildings like compounds - square, flat roofs, metal rods extending up toward the sky ... blue sky. Awnings of woven reeds, held up by thin wooden poles, bamboo? Piles of dust, three feet high. Much color, on buildings, not in the countryside. Reeds, white birds, grasses, palms. Eucalyptus trees. Aah, and the dunes. The dunes.
The trees are coated in a fine, powdery dust. More reed-awnings, but not for the sake of style, this is the way people live. Entire sheds of reeds - walls and ceilings tied together. This bleak empty landscape is lovely. Now a ramshackle collection of dwellings - tires, stones, so much trash. And shops by the road. It’s amazing to believe that people live there. The palms even look like they’re mostly dead. They dot the landscape, here and there.
Tires, tires, tires. Palm stumps. This is the Pan-American Highway. Dry. Dead. Dust. Dunes. Abandoned brick buildings, falling in. Who owns this land? Do the people in those reed huts in the desert own their land? Is that a concept here? Do they just build? And who would tell them not to in this barren place? The earth returned to light ... medium brown fading to white. Shades of yellow, red, shadows in form. What was this place like 1000 years ago? 5000 years? Even then it was a desert. What stories lie beneath these dunes? Mummies? More ceramics and textiles? Entire cities? The desert holds secrets, quietly, gently. The winds caress her sweet face, but she’ll never tell. Not everything, anyway. Her oases tempt humankind - hinting at the mysteries, a luscious green here and there, a drop of refreshment in a vast sea of the unknown.
A sign. Fruit for sale ... where?! Nothing here, only the sign and more desert.
Another shanty-village, laundry hanging on the line outside. There are electric lights on the dirt streets - everything is woven reeds, twigs, rough - bricked up. Some have plastic bags as roofs. Smoke - burning something. Brush? Trash? Bags of trash pinned down ... it appears to spell out something.
I guess the outskirts of a town are always the ugliest, not a good representation of the town itself. That was certainly true for Pisco. But these outskirts are also a true representation of the poverty of this place. I don’t think this kind of poverty exists in the U.S., not even in the slums. And yet, in the U.S., people feel like they’re owed something, like they deserve more, and someone better give it to them. Here, where people are so poor, their generosity is amazing. I’ve seen very few beggars, and people work hard and don’t complain. It’s remarkable, the difference. My heart is opened to this place and these people who have such rich lives in their relative poverty.
So far, I’d have to say that South American cities are more desolate than North American ones. I think it was Alberto Villoldo that wrote about the city being man’s response to the fall from the metaphoric Garden of Eden, the abandonment of paradise? This is a great illustration of that. At home, our cities are so far removed from nature, they don’t seem to be on the same page. Here, the city is still connected the earth. An interesting juxtaposition.

***

After a little more than three hours, the bus halted in front of a fancy Spanish-style hotel. The sprawling building was surrounded by a wall, covered in flowering vines. Bougainvillea. Palm trees bowed toward each other near the entry gate, framing it perfectly. The wealthy couple gathered their luggage and headed through those gates into the Paracas Hotel, where they had reservations. I strapped on my backpack, mounted my smaller daypack on my front, and strolled down the dusty road toward the center of town. A strange feeling filled my belly, a mixture of fear and excitement. Here I was in South America. In Peru. And somehow I had arrived in Paracas. I had no plans, no reservation, no idea where I was going. This is crazy! declared the voice inside my head, while laughing at the same time. The sun was hot, but the breeze was constant, and I stretched my face toward the sky. I’m in Peru!
I was snapped from my reverie when an old, rickety burgundy van pulled up beside of me. A man wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses leaned out the window and asked, “necessito hostel?” I nodded, and in seconds he had opened the side door for me and helped me out of my backpack. I sat on the floor of what was once, most likely, a love machine. The interior of the van was all covered in dark red velour, tattered and faded by the sun. From the rearview mirror, from which an image of the Virgin Mary was suspended. Some of the seats were missing, and everything was covered in a fine layer of sand. I loved it.
Within thirty seconds, my driver, who had identified himself as Jorge, stopped the van and got out to open my door. He pointed to a small, unmarked hostel and helped me to strap on my backpack. Just before he left, he offered me a tour of the Paracas Reserve, which I declined. He waved goodbye as he pulled away. I looked up for a moment at the wall that surrounded the hostel. It was painted peach, and was adorned with flags from around the world. I entered through the front gate, and was greeted by a young, well-dressed woman. She showed me to a tiny room with a private bathroom, and I arranged to stay there for two nights, which I hoped would give me enough time to figure out a way into the desert.
I spent my first day wandering around the town of Paracas, which was little more than two blocks of houses, markets, hostels, and restaurants. The town’s two primary industries seemed evident within a few minutes: fishing and tourism. I wandered onto the beach and inhaled deeply. Warm saltwater. Rotting fish. I took off my shoes and waded in the warm water, silently taking in my first experience of the Pacific Ocean. I spent my afternoon sitting in an oceanside cafe, writing my first impressions of Peru.
On my second day I awoke early and prepared my daypack for a long walk into Paracas Reserve. I hoped to find the tiny museum there, and to gather more information about where I could set up my camp. I wandered past the fancy hotel, past several estate homes, and the road ended near a strange building that looked like a ship, smokestacks and all, but was clearly built on land. I looked ahead of me. Nothing but dunes. Finally I spotted a tiny yellow shack off in the distance. I walked across an expanse of flat sand, littered with millions of tiny shells and stones. As I approached the shack, I could see a second road that came from the direction of Paracas, and which I hoped would lead to the Paracas Museum. I greeted an older man there, the gatekeeper to Paracas Reserve. Puzzled to see a young woman emerge out of the sand on foot, he inquired about my plan for the day. In my tremendously broken Spanish, I attempted to explain to him that I was walking to the museum, but that tomorrow I wanted to camp inside the Reserve. His reaction, though indecipherable to me, made it clear that what I hoped to do wasn’t typical. He waved me away without taking my entrance payment, telling me to pay when I came back to camp.
I wandered for a long time along the road. The ocean was occasionally in my view, but most of the time all I could see were the gently rolling sand dunes on either side of the road. Occasionally a sticky, dry plant broke the monotony of the landscape. Once or twice I discovered tiny animal tracks, about the size of a cat’s paw, leading away from the road. What kind of creature made those? I wondered. Every fifty meters or so, there were signs posted along the side of the road, warning visitors that it was strictly prohibited for anyone to venture off the road into the dunes. For protection of a fragile ecosystem perhaps? I wandered on, my steps synchronized with my breath. The wind whistled around me, blowing dust into my eyes. I pulled the bandana from my hair to cover my mouth and nose and continued wandering in the baking sun.
There, walking through the sand, I had the distinct impression that I was on the moon. I had never seen a desert before. I had imagined that it would be serene, stark, and otherworldly. I considered the stories of prophets and saints wandering alone in the desert, fasting and praying. I considered all the biblical stories I had ever heard about crossing the desert, as well as the movies portraying cars breaking down in the American southwest. There I was, roaming that same landscape. I drank in the solitude and ethereal silence. Eventually, just as the road made a sharp left turn, I came upon the museum, a small, flat, square concrete building that blended into its surroundings almost completely. I was ready for a rest, and made my way inside.
I spent the afternoon sitting in the two rooms, carefully observing the exhibit. There were remnants of pottery dating back several thousand years, tools, jewelry, and a strange assortment of both shrunken heads and trepanned human skulls. I had read briefly about both of those practices in ancient Peruvian culture, and was awed to contemplate them from such a close perspective. The shrunken heads were perhaps the most unbelievable, especially considering that these were the tokens of a variety of personal battles that ended in death. It was believed that if you killed someone in battle, his spirit would hunt you and haunt you forever unless you were able to cut off the head and follow the preparation to shrink it. These strange, haunting skulls, called tsantas, were nearly black in color, and the dark black hair still remained attached. Feeling a bit too creeped out to stare at them any longer, I contented myself to sit on the concrete floor and sketch designs from the pottery.
While a few other tourists came and went, I lingered. The four young men who were the guardians of the museum began to wander past me. A couple of them leaned over my shoulder to see what I was doing, and were amused to find my mediocre sketches. Before long, I had been embraced in a friendly conversation with them, and the one who spoke some English translated what I couldn’t understand. One man began to strum his old, worn-out guitar, and I pulled my flute out of my backpack, excited to join him in making some music. We played for a while, and I was invited to lunch. In the course of our conversation, I approached the subject of my camping in the Reserve. Indeed, it was perfectly allowable that a person could camp, but they all seemed to agree that the idea was crazy. Was it safe? Yes, completely. Their answer satisfied me; however, I still had no idea how I would get into the Reserve and find an appropriate place to camp, especially with all the signs posted that forbade trespassing in the dunes.
I bade my new friends farewell as the sun began to sink into the dunes, and made my way back into the village of Paracas. Suddenly, the solution hit me. Jorge! The van driver who had brought me to my hostel, and who had offered me a tour of the Reserve. Perhaps he could take me to an appropriate place! When I returned to my hostel, I found the woman who had taken me to my room, and asked if she could contact Jorge about the tour. He agreed to include me in a small, private tour in his old, red van on the following day.

***

I awoke early and packed my gear. I was excited and a little nervous. I hadn’t yet had any opportunity to discuss my desire to camp in the Reserve with Jorge, but trusted that all would work out. I returned my room key to the woman at the desk, and left my pack there, where Jorge planned to pick me up.
I wandered toward the center of town, having nearly an hour before my ride would arrive. I found a small market and purchased cheese, apples, and crackers. I had already stocked up with five liters of water, which would get me through at least two days in the desert. I took one final stroll around town, down the beach and promenade. Three large male dogs were chasing one tiny female, refusing to leave her alone, and she yipped fiercely at them on the few occasions she chose to stop running and fight back. I smiled, having already sensed a similar, yet more friendly dynamic between men and women in Paracas. I gathered a few tiny seashells, deep purple swirls with opalescent centers. Across the inlet, I could see the peninsula of the Paracas Reserve, already slightly obscured in a haze. The previous evening I had learned that Paracas translates into “raining sand.” The winds that sweep in from the sea cause the sand to blow all around, though I was told that it appeared far more dramatic in the distance than it would be once I was inside the Reserve.
As I slowly walked back to my hostel, I heard music off in the distance. I paused, seeking its source. In the center of a desolate, dusty field, a band of young uniformed musicians stood in an arc, playing tubas, trumpets, drums. As I watched, a young Peruvian joined me in watching. I asked him about the musicians. He told me that these were a group of young people who were preparing to enter the military, and they met on weekends to rehearse their music. Though the young man I spoke with was only fifteen, his charming forwardness was already advanced. Before I left his company, he had already asked my name, my age, my nationality, and whether or not I was married.
At 11:00 a.m. Jorge appeared, greeting me with great warmth and friendliness. He wore the same cap and sunglasses as when I’d first met him, and he hoisted my backpack into the van with ease. I briefly shared with him my hope of finding a place to camp. Even from behind his sunglasses, I could tell that he thought the idea was strange, but he agreed to take me to a secluded cove, La Mina Playa, which was the end of the road for vehicles, at the end of our tour.
It became clear to me that our tour wasn’t going to be much like the others. Hordes of tourists crowded onto small and large busses, their tour guides spoke into microphones, and recited scripts about the history of the Reserve. Jorge was unassuming and frank, sharing his knowledge of the Reserve, as well as personal stories and thoughts, all in Spanish. My companions for the day were a young French couple, whose names I never learned. The man, however, spoke some English and Spanish and kindly translated what he could. In our time together, I also learned that he had walked the Camino de Santiago as well.
We spent the afternoon rolling across the seemingly lifeless, otherworldly landscape. We stopped to inspect tiny animal tracks, to gather meteor stones, and to witness breathtaking vistas from high cliffs over the Pacific. There were red sand beaches and black sand beaches and we watched vultures consuming the remains of sea lions. We spent a short time hiking to one off Peru’s most famous natural landforms, La Catedral. A rugged cove that was almost completely filled with water when the tide was high, La Catedral was a fascinating sanctuary when the tide was out. Giant rocks filled the cavern, and we stepped gently from one to the next, careful not to lose our balance and crash into the sea below. Its extraordinary ceiling was sculpted like the dome of a basilica, and the acoustics were incredible. We lingered there for a while, feeling the power of the ocean as it pounded against the foot of the cliff and all around the far end of the arched structure that was firmly planted in the sea.
I stood on the furthest reachable rock and stretched out my arms. I closed my eyes and felt the enormity of the space, the strength of the sea. I felt my body gently rock in rhythm with the crashing waves. I felt connected to the earth and to the sea, and at the same time became aware of just how tiny I was in the universe. I became more and more happy as I stood there, absorbing the essence of La Catedral, and also became increasingly aware of my own connection to a vastness that humbled me, and felt increasingly powerful and strong. Perhaps La Catedral had been named for its stunning structure, and aptly so. But in those moments I also became aware of La Catedral as a powerful sacred space, a space that silently showed me my place in the universe. I bowed in gratitude and carefully climbed out of the cavern.
The beach was wide and long, and enormous cliffs framed the length of it. Tiny lizards scattered about, hiding under rocks. We returned to the top of the cliff by way of a steep, rocky trail and made our way back to Jorge and his infamous red van. We stopped here and there, and eventually ended at the only town in the reserve, Lagunillas. Jorge left the French couple to enjoy their lunch there, and beckoned me to come along with him. He told me that the distance from the town to the beach was five kilometers, and that I should be safe from the tide if I set up camp behind the mounted public trash cans. He also assured me that the beach would receive few visitors during this time of the year, so I would have the place to myself. When we arrived at a double post, he parked and opened my door for me, helping me to gather my backpack. I told me that I could get a ride to either Paracas or Pisco from Lagunillas, and if he happened to be there, he’d be happy to take me as well. With a nod, he was off.
***

Alone. Completely alone. In the desert. In Peru. Five kilometers from civilization of even the most basic kind. My belly tingled with anticipation. Part fear. Part thrill. I shifted my pack slightly, hoping to redistribute the discomfort. Five liters of water had added a significant amount of weight to my pack. Thank god for Jorge, who had made my process of camping in the desert a little easier.
I followed in the direction that he had pointed, walking along the edge of a high cliff. I took my time, allowing my body to shift from the intense mode of listening to a language I hardly understood to a less demanding state geared more for listening to the crashing waves of the ocean below. I noticed a small shack down a level on the cliff, nearer to the water. Just past it, a few small boats were moored. For fishing? I walked on, and found a small trash can mounted near the top of some sturdy wooden steps. I felt a surge of excitement. The cove! I descended the steps, and soon La Mina Playa was in sight. This little sheltered beach would be my home for the next couple of days.
I followed Jorge’s instruction to pitch my tent behind the level of the two mounted trash cans. Though the winds were strong, I managed to get my tent set up and staked with no problem. Having never been properly camping before, I was thrilled at the sight of my sanctuary, poised before an enormous cliff, with nothing but the Pacific Ocean before me. I was in paradise.
I hadn’t given much thought to what I would do once I arrived. Write. Meditate. Photograph. Explore. Wander. Sit. Sleep. I was so full of energy that it was hard to decide what to do first. I ventured down to the water’s edge and waded in the shallow surf. The water was freezing, but the day was warm. Never before had I experienced the joy of having a beach to myself, and I decided that it was a perfect time for a swim. I skipped joyfully back to my tent and unzipped my backpack, looking for my suit. Once I found it, I thought for a moment about changing. Do I really need to crawl into my tiny tent to change? I am, after all, on a deserted beach. I looked back toward the stairs I had descended. No one. I scanned the rim of the cliff. Not a soul in sight. I hurriedly slipped out of my dusty hiking clothes and pulled on my bathing suit.
I approached the ocean once more. The Pacific. I’d never before seen it in my own country. Just before entering the water, I lingered. Scanning my mind, I looked for the source of my hesitation. Fear? Well, I could certainly drown here and never be missed. I was an okay swimmer, but nothing fabulous, and what if I got pulled into a riptide? I took a deep breath and looked deeper. The Ocean is sacred. This is your Baptism. It made sense to me. Here in Paracas as I began my journey, I was on a retreat. A retreat within a larger retreat from my ordinary life. A retreat to explore the deepest parts of myself and my connection to nature, the earth, and what I conceive of as sacred. I was now being guided to enter the ocean and make a ritual of dedication and purification to consecrate my journey through Peru and Bolivia.
The water was freezing, and I slowly immersed my body, stepping gingerly in the loose sand. Once I was in over my head, I made a mental note of the nearest jagged rocks and then reclined backwards to float. As the water filled my ears I was totally immersed in silence. Breathe in. Breathe out. The blue sky above. The cliffs in the distance. Doing nothing but breathing. Floating. Being. That’s what this journey is about, just being.
A crazy though entered my mind: take off your bathing suit. Be naked in the water. I had never skinny-dipped before in my life, and it seemed both ridiculous and perfect to do it in that moment. I quickly looked around to assure that I was still alone, and slowly peeled myself free of all clothing. Once more the voice in my mind issued its doubts. This could be illegal, after all it is illegal in your state at home, and what if you get sunburned, these parts of you haven’t seen the light of day since you were an infant, if then! I pushed away those nagging thoughts and delighted in the cool water washing over my bare skin. I floated and swam until my skin turned pruny, and then made my way back to the beach. I spent the remainder of the afternoon reclining on my sarong, soaking up the warmth of the late September sun.

***

I sat quietly upon my rock, watching the sun set. Tendrils of gray reached across the sky, interrupting the blazing orange of evening. The Pacific shimmered before me, and the cliff wall behind me was awash in the golden light. The warmth of the afternoon faded quickly and I was grateful to be bundled in my fleece jacket. The winds of Paracas were picking up, and a chill shook me. I took out my apple and carved it into slices, pairing it with slices of cheese atop the slightly soggy crackers. It was sweet and good. Though it was barely 6:00 p.m., night was falling. I finished my simple dinner and made my way back to my cozy tent.
Earlier in the afternoon, I found myself encircling my tent with large stones that were scattered around the beach. I laughed at myself as I made my way back to the tent. I sure have been inspired to enact symbolic rituals today! I securely closed my backpack, pulling it inside the tent. I took off my shoes and placed them next to my entryway and zipped the screen door closed. In the last light of day, I made sure that everything that I could possibly need during the night was in a well-planned place. Headlamp in my pocket. Check. Food bag by my feet. Check. Travel information and journal by my side. Check. Camera by my head. Check. Extra socks and shirt in case I was cold. Check. Feeling fully prepared for my first night of solitude, I took out a couple sticks of incense and spent nearly ten minutes struggling to ignite them. Eventually they caught fire, and a warm, earthy scent filled my tent. I unzipped the door and placed them just outside. I sat there for nearly an hour in meditation, following my breath and becoming increasingly conscious of my entire body. Content and relaxed, I snuggled down into my cozy sleeping bag for a long night of sleep.

***

I began to stir after having been awakened by a strange noise. I blinked my eyes a few times, hoping that my contact lenses hadn’t become too dry during the night. It was very dark, the darkest darkness that I had ever seen. I couldn’t even see the sleeping bag that surrounded me, and I sleepily luxuriated in that realization. I was warm and cozy within my sleeping bag in spite of the fierce winds that rattled my tent. Wow, the wind must be strong! It’s rattling the plastic bag with my food, and that’s inside the tent! For a moment I felt a swell of gratitude for my sleeping bag and long underwear. Suddenly another realization hit me, purging any remnant of sleepiness from my mind. If the wind is so strong that it’s rattling into my tent, why is my face so warm? I’m not even slightly chilled.
I managed to unzip myself from the confines of my mummy-style bag and was sitting upright in seconds. Yes, my tent was surprisingly warm, and yet the rattling noise continued. A deep feeling of dread filled me, rushing into my hands and feet, filling my face and neck, and erupting in my stomach. My heart began to pound. Something is not right. I grabbed my headlamp from my pocket and turned it on. My blue plastic bag filled with food was right at my feet where I had left it. Just above, in the screen mesh of my tent, I saw a tear. There was a hole torn into the fabric, nearly two inches in diameter. A scream welled up inside of me, but I quickly realized that even if I did scream, no one would hear me. My heart pounded and the blood rushed in my ears and terror overtook my entire body.

There’s something out there...

My senses heightened, I attempted to get a grasp on what was happening. I could see very little in the deep darkness, and as I shone my light all around the tent, much of what I could see was my own light reflected from the rainfly of my tent. In the few inches of sand that were visible to me from behind my opaque fabric walls, I couldn’t see much of anything. I heard nothing but the constant crashing of waves, coupled with the wind. Suddenly my sense of smell sprang into action. I could smell whatever it was that was out there. I could smell it and sense it in my neck. There’s a wild animal stalking my food. What is it? How many are there? What do I do now? My mind swirled, but my instinct sharpened. I could almost sense how close the creature (or creatures) were, and I could smell them, along with the garbage rotting in the rarely attended receptacles, and I could even smell my own fear. It was hard to know whether the sounds from outside my tent were made by the wind or by creatures lurking close. Finally, my animal nature took over. Wwhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeee! Wwsssshhh! Wwsshhhhhhhhheee! I perched on my hands and knees, hissing like a pissed off tiger, ready to pounce on whatever came too close, even though I was blind in the night from within my tent. I continued my ferocious hissing for some time and eventually sat back down, still half wrapped in my sleeping bag. I pulled out my clock. It was barely midnight. The sun wouldn’t rise for another six hours.
Slowly, slowly, the adrenaline left my body. Still shaking, I considered my options. First, I could just go back to sleep. Almost immediately, I threw out the idea. Second, I could pack up and head back to the village. However, the village of Lagunillas was five kilometers away, and it was only a fishing village. No one lived there. There weren’t any lights on the horizon. Even if I could pack my things and the tide hadn’t come in too far for me to be able to safely reach the stairs to the top of the cliff, I would still be stumbling blind along these desert cliffs in nearly total darkness. And I’d be even more exposed to the creatures that were outside, roaming freely with their sharp senses and perfect night vision. Wandering back to Lagunillas was not an option.
Sitting there, alone in my tent, I felt both trapped and isolated. What had become of my perfect sanctuary, my silent retreat, my paradise? I was a sitting duck for whatever creatures lurked about in the night, starving, scavenging. No one but Jorge knew where I was, and he wouldn’t be looking for me. I was totally alone, the only human for miles, and completely vulnerable. I tried to control my panic by breathing deeply. What can I do here? Pass the hours until dawn.
My handy headlamp still shining brightly, I sifted through my things, finally locating the photocopied pages that I had brought, excerpts from a variety of travel guides. Perhaps fifty pages, it was enough to keep me occupied for a while, and also distracted my mind from mulling over the direst of outcomes of my night in the desert. By the time the first glimmer of light appeared, I had read all of my information twice through, and had made a variety of notes about bus routes, good hostels, and the locations of every Inca sacred site within the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes region. As the light grew stronger I gathered up my courage and unzipped my screen door and rainfly and surveyed the area. Nothing. I cautiously stepped outside, reminding myself to breathe. No, there were no creatures remaining there. As the sun rose, I slowly walked around my tent, just inside the circle of stones. I began my inspection near the end of my tent where the tear had occurred. Tiny footsteps, barely the size of my thumbprint. I looked closer and saw that these footprints had indeed encircled my tent once, but there was only a single set of tiny tracks. Then my memory returned to one of the conversations that we had shared with Jorge while touring the Reserve. These tracks were the same as the tiny ones I had seen en route to the museum, and the same as the tracks that we saw in the sand the previous day: el zorro, the desert fox. And judging from the appearance of these tracks, the creature was probably smaller than my cat. Feeling slightly foolish and significantly humbled by the whole ordeal, I crawled back into my tent and zipped up the sleeping bag, falling asleep in the brightness of day.

***

I awoke shortly after 9:00 a.m. Still feeling shaken by the night’s incident, I thought about what I would do from there. Stay another day and night? Every instinct within me declared that an unwise idea. Having read all of my travel information during the previous night, I recalled that a bus would leave Lagunillas for Paracas in the early afternoon. I promised myself that I would be on that bus. I lingered for a while in my cove, walking along the rocks that lined the cliff until they became unpassable. Glistening crabs and sea spiders scurried around in tidepools. The remains of sea anemones adorned the morning shore. I gathered a few shells and stones, and spent a couple of hours photographing the details of my sanctuary cove. Finally, I packed my tent and gear and made my way back up to the cliff.
My pack was slightly less heavy, since I had drained much of my water supply. The midday was cool and bright. The village of Lagunillas was visible for most of my walk, but not so present that I wasn’t often lost in the feeling of wandering in the vast desert. I was indeed wandering in the vast desert. The earth was pale and parched and hard. Dunes towered off in the distance, their depth illuminated in the shadows. The carcasses of birds littered the way, and nearer to the village, I could see vultures circling above. It seemed that Paracas was a place filled with the rhythm of living and dying. Surviving. Or not. But there was something about the place that I deeply understood, some strange vibe that resonated with me. It was stark. It was pure. It was stunningly beautiful and would swallow you whole without any warning. I feared the place, but also respected it. I loved it. Just like the previous day while visiting La Catedral, I realized that I had been invited into sacred space, but the lessons within weren’t comforting or easy.
As I neared Lagunillas, I passed by a beach filled with debris. Broken, worn wooden planks. Plastic bottles. Tiny shells. Rocks and stones. The carcasses of a few sea lions were being ripped apart by enormous vultures. Once more, I was reminded of the rhythm of life and death. My eyes fell upon a strangely shaped white object lying among the waste. I stepped closer and realized that it was a bone of some kind, bleached a perfect white by the harsh desert sun. I bent down and picked it up. It felt warm and smooth to my hands, and I felt the strong desire to take it with me. I wrapped it in a bandana and stored it in my backpack, and made my way into Lagunillas to catch the bus.
The town was bustling, filled with tourists enjoying lunch at one of the three or four small restaurants. One side of the cove was filled with small fishing boats, all returned from a productive morning’s work. I checked my clock, and I had nearly thirty minutes to spare before my bus arrived. I ordered a soda from one of the restaurants and headed back to wait. Thirty minutes passed. Forty. Fifty. Where was the bus? I attempted to inquire about the bus, asking one of the young men when it would arrive. He informed me that it had already come and gone! The next bus would arrive in three hours. Feeling overly tired and ready to move along, I began to wander among the tourists, hoping to find a bus that wasn’t full in order to catch a ride into town. All of the luxury busses were packed. Feeling stuck and frustrated, I walked over to a rickety, small bus. The driver, an older Peruvian man, sat inside, half asleep. I attempted to share with him my dilemma, and he came out to listen to me. Eventually the tour guide joined us, and I was able to share my situation in English. His bus was also packed. Sensing my desperation, he asked me to wait until the bus was full and hoped that he could find a spot for me. There ended up being just enough room inside the door for me and my backpack, and within thirty minutes we rolled into the center of Pisco. The guide refused my money, and I offered a few soles to the kind driver for his help. He nodded to me with a friendly smile, and I waved goodbye. I strapped on my backpack once more, grateful to have been delivered back to civilization safely, and strolled out into the central plaza, filthy and joyful.

***


October 3, 2005
(Pisco, Peru)

I’m starting to feel really happy tonight. It’s funny! I missed the bus. Not in my timing, but it was sold out when I went there at around 4:00 p.m. The thing is, I just kind of shrugged and said okay. No irritation, really, I just accepted it and knew that whatever happens, it’s absolutely fine. And I wasn’t intellectually trying to convince myself of it ... I just felt it! That’s when I started to feel happy. I mean, why not be happy? I’m travelling in Peru, on the Pacific coast of South America! So what if I am in Pisco for one more day?! I have no plan, and this occurrence really helped me to sink into that.

***

I’m coming to some realizations about my trip ... the nature of this pilgrimage. To savor the pleasure of my own company without obligations and distractions. To enjoy every wealthy moment. To really feel everything I feel. To abandon my inhibitions and say, do, feel, be anything. To be saturated in each incredible moment of my experience and to stay present with it. If Santiago was a pilgrimage about walking, struggle, physical/emotional release, and pushing on with intense resolve, this journey, so far, seems to feel quite different!
I’ve been feeling some internal conflict in the last few days, the conflict of trying to make this experience sacred, a pilgrimage. I realize now that that’s silly, trying to force the situation into a box ... what would make this experience more sacred? My own perspective. I’m responsible. If I am awake to the sacred in every moment, then it is a sacred experience.
Pisco is my first true town experience in Peru. It’s noisy and most of the buildings are in a state of disrepair, either half built or falling in, its hard to know which! It’s lovely, though. I met a great Canadian guy, Robert, my first night here, and we had dinner together. At the end of dinner, a band of Peruvian musicians appeared, playing panpipes, quenas, and guitars. They were amazing, just in Pisco for a week from Lima. In my broken but growing Spanish, I told them I am a flutist, and at the end of the performance, I played a bit on my bamboo flute ... what I could remember of their music.
I ran into the band in the streets later in the evening, and the musicians introduced themselves to me. The main flutist was Oscar, a forty-something man with long, curly hair. I asked him if he would teach me, and we agreed on a meeting time the next day. I met him in the main plaza and he played music for me from all over South America, and taught me several tunes. I also played for him. We were teaching each other, and it was incredible. That was yesterday, and last night, the band came into the restaurant where I had just finished dinner. They greeted me and invited me to join them on the drum. I drummed one tune with them, and then they told me to play the flute, too! I didn’t really know their tunes yet, but I just played harmony by ear as best I could, and it was so incredible to be in the middle of such an incredible group of musicians! I ended up playing with them in the street last night, including El Condor Pasa, the one Peruvian tune I remembered from my lesson with Oscar!
In about an hour I’m getting on a bus to Nazca. This wasn’t at all part of my original plans, but it has become increasingly clear to me that on this journey plans are only obstacles. Limitations. I’m taking it a day at a time, talking to as many people as possible, and loving every minute of it!

***

October 4, 2005
(Pisco, Peru)

Atahualpa, a Peruvian jewelry maker that I met in Pisco, very attractive, wearing feathers and crystals and flowing pants. Long, black hair. We talked about the Nazca lines, I told him I was going there today. He asked if I was going to fly over the lines, and I told him, “no se.” He said that he hadn’t been to Nazca since he was five. I asked him if he’d flown over the Nazca lines and he hadn’t, it’s too expensive to pay S./150 ($50) to fly for thirty minutes. I feel like that’s pretty telling about the state of things in Peru, and that makes me both sad and uncomfortable. It doesn’t seem right that tourists should have the privilege of appreciating a part of Peru that’s unavailable to the country’s inhabitants! There’s something truly wrong there. Fortunately, Peru does make money from tourism, but I don’t know how that impacts the lives of the people. I definitely feel conflicted about it. It makes me feel like a “taker.” Tourism feels exploitive, like the traveller is an outsider who wants to remain on the outside. I hate that!

***


October 6, 2005
(Nazca, Peru)

I wandered into a little shop and ended up talking to a lovely woman, Nancy, in her late thirties. She asked if I had flown the Nazca lines,and I told her yes, how amazing it had been. I asked her if she’d ever flown, and she said no, that it was too expensive. I told her that I didn’t think it was fair that she couldn’t see something right here. She told me that her dream was to go to the U.S. to live, that there wasn’t much work in Nazca, it was hard to make money. My heart broke, and I was filled with love for her. It’s such a widespread thing here. Tourism is the only way to make good money in Peru, and that seems to really compromise the culture and its integrity and honor. I left Nancy and nearly cried.

***

October 10, 2005
(Cusco)

My first few days in Cusco were spent mostly in bed. Once I arrived in Cusco, I became increasingly sicker and sicker. I´d heard the disasters of soroche, altitude sickness, but since I’ve been higher than this before, I hadn’t thought too much about it. (Cusco is at 11,000 feet.) Perhaps being sick on the bus to Cusco weakened my immune system in addition to the high altitude. After about five days, though, I am beginning to feel well again. Not well enough to really eat much, but well enough to not sleep twelve hours a day.

***

October 12, 2005
(Cusco, Peru)

Today Puma and I spoke and arranged a meeting for this afternoon. He asked how long I’d been in Cusco, and I told him five days, but that I’d been sick for most of it, both with a cold and stomach issues. He laughed and said that my body was purifying, in reaction to the high vibration of the place, that it was good, that sometimes it’s a conscious thing to purify, and other times not, it just happens. We sat for a while in the Plaza de Armas. He told me that the energy here is very high, and for those of us who are open, we must be purified of heavy energy so that we can really experience this place fully. That makes those days in bed sound much, much better indeed! We arranged to spend Thursday and Friday together. On Thursday we’ll go to some of the sacred sites around Cusco, and on Friday we’ll go to his grandfather’s village, Chinchero, to perform a ceremony in honor of my pilgrimage. Today I also gave him a flute like my bamboo one, a gift of gratitude, and we’re going to play both those bamboo flutes as well as traditional Peruvian quenas.

***

Cusco is beautiful, but the heart of the city is very touristy. You can’t walk ten steps without a child trying to sell you a postcard or finger puppet or something. Currently, I’m sitting in the Plaza de Armas in the midst of a peaceful protest. There are flags, checkered in the colors of the rainbow, large speakers blaring music, and many different signs and drawings taped to the wall and sidewalk. From my limited grasp of Spanish, I gathered that this protest is about oil, coca, and anti-globalization. One sign said muerte Bush and beside it was one that said viva la and then had a picture of the three sacred coca leaves, used in divination and sacred rituals in the Andes. Essentially, these beautiful people are protesting the loss of their rich culture, and rightly so. As I walked through the walls of signs, I was overwhelmed by a sense of sadness. My thoughts all began to swirl. It really breaks my heart that my country is trying to control the whole world. This beautiful place with its pure resources, deep spirituality, amazing music, and incredible traditions is losing its identity. Bigger, wealthy, powerful nations are trying to tell places like Peru and Bolivia how they should live. What right do we have? How can the rest of the world allow the U.S. to do this? I can see how the American people allow it. We are lazy. We want what we want, and we want it now. To hell with the environment, to hell with other cultures, or the greater well being of the world. To hell with it all. The only thing my country cares about is money.
So, then, it’s no wonder that we gringo “tourists” are seen as nothing but money. No wonder I’ve been bugged by so many kids trying to sell me postcards and finger puppets. No wonder I’m harassed by every restaurant I pass. No wonder every market stall owner tries to rope in the pale-skinned, blue-eyed senorita. She represents the almighty green, the greatest power in the world. And maybe if they can get enough green, maybe they, too, will have a powerful voice in the world. Alas, isn’t that the loss, isn’t it the same? To lose a sense of authentic self, to give that away for something that seems stronger, something more worthwhile? And what is the solution? Once more, I’m ashamed of my country. What we’re doing in the world is wrong. But how will it ever end? I sit here in this square, once the heart of the Inca’s sacred puma. It is dominated by two glorious cathedrals and is as European as anywhere I’ve been in Europe itself. The tremendous craftsmanship of the Incas was lost along the way, and the city and outlying villages are built of crumbling earthen bricks. Is it unrealistic to hope that the world will someday lose its fear and we will allow each other our lives, traditions, values? To lose our self-interest in the true interest of peace?

***

My writing reverie was interrupted by two boys trying desperately to sell me postcards and an old Quechua-speaking grandmother begging money from me for more infant formula for her grandchild. It was more than I could handle, and I had to walk away.
It’s all connected. They see fat, white tourists riding in luxury busses, eating in posh restaurants. Of course they see all of us as money. I had to walk away to escape the barrage. It’s hard not to feel hardened to it, to maintain a sense of compassion. Honestly, though, I feel like screaming no mas! I want to know how to say I’m not wealthy, I’m not made of money, I’m a poor, wandering pilgrim and minstrel. Maybe not by their standards, but come on, these people can see the difference between a young, grubby traveller and a posh, first class traveller, right?! Well, maybe that’s why I’m targeted. I still have eyes, ears, and a heart.

***
October 13, 2005
(Cusco, Peru)

Tonight I’m going to try to wrap my writing around this day of profound experiences with Puma. I’ve spent the afternoon napping, and mostly it was a half-sleep. I can feel myself tingling with energy, and as I napped, I could feel myself absorbing, reorganizing, being saturated, percolating with the experience. I was totally exhausted by the time I returned to Cusco, and I found myself wanting to just sit and feel. It was such an intense emotional release, a powerful healing, yet not as powerful as it could have been, for I didn’t always let go fully. Why do I hold on? No worries, though, everything unfolds in its own time.

***

We began the day by driving for a while into the mountains above Cusco, until we were right at Sacsayhuaman. Puma pulled over for a moment. He showed me the jagged lines made by massive stones, pointed to a rocky outcrop that was once used for sacred ceremonies, ceremonies that are now prohibited. And a large circular area that was once a reflecting pool. The reflecting pool was a symbol of illumination and the zigzag represents several things - the head of the Cusco puma, a bolt of lightning, also a serpent, I believe. Why were ceremonies prohibited? Because this is such a heavily visited place, too many shamans had gone there offering ceremonies just to make money. It was a desecration of the place and those ceremonies. I asked him what the name meant, and he said “lightning to the head,” enlightenment. Puma told me that his grandfather had been surprised when he learned that ceremonies had become prohibited at Sacsayhuaman, but then told Puma that it wasn’t necessary to have a special place to have sacred space, that every place is sacred. Why limit oneself to performing rituals only in official sacred space? The concept of not limiting oneself was a theme throughout the day, and is symbolized by the condor.

***

Puma and Sacred Cusco

There is powerful energy ins Cusco. And while the archaeologists and anthropologists talk about lost cultures in the Andes, the traditions of living in deep harmony with the earth and the cosmos seem to be alive and well here. I feel so deeply honored to have been welcomed as an outsider into sacred places and ceremonies, and Puma freely shared his knowledge. He’s radiant, full of love, brilliant, a spontaneous poet. This is proving to be a much different journey than the Camino, and I’ve begun to understand why I needed to experience that first before I could come here and be ready for this kind of knowledge.
We spent the much of the first day wandering the hills over Cusco, beautiful, mostly bare mountains. In spite of their being the second highest mountains in the world, the Andes are surprisingly welcoming. One can free climb rather easily up steep, inhospitable looking mountains due to either the Inca steps or the natural rock formations.
After we parked the car, we began to climb up a steep trail. Puma led the way, sharing that this first destination was a very special place, a place that most foreigners never experience. I found myself in a cavelike room, mostly round, with the floor sparkling with swirls of minerals. In the far wall was a window-like opening. It looked out over the most lovely rock walls and a river. Puma asked me to offer my music there, and that he’d try to follow along. Almost as soon as I began to play, I was in tears. At times, our music was unbelievably beautiful, and by the time we were done, I was very emotional. He encouraged me to let it out. He told me to stay there for a while to offer my music and connect with the place. In this space, he also shared with me his knowledge regarding the three layers or worlds, and their power animals. The serpent represents the lower world, the unconscious, mysterious level that we can’t consciously access. The puma represents the middle world, the physical realm, the here and now. And the condor represents the upper world, the transcendence of limitations and true freedom.
Puma stood atop a giant boulder at the edge of the cavern down below, just visible from my window. I exited the my sparkling cave and followed the trail down to the river, which I’d seen from above. I clumsily made my way along the stepping stones as Puma had gracefully done. His radiant smile beamed at me from his place on the boulder, and he extended a hand down to me. It had been a while since I’d been on a hike, and I was feeling out of touch with my body as well as my ability to move within nature. The river rushed around the rocks, and I found myself feeling tense. Where the hell are we going? God, I hope I don’t fall, I don’t have health insurance ... can a shaman heal a broken leg? I reached up and took Puma’s hand, and before I knew it, I stood beside him on the huge stone. The river flowed into the cave, and ahead, it appeared that the cavern was triangular in shape, ending at a point in the rocks. I had my doubts. What business do I have entering this cave? Puma, always a poet, encouraged me to enter the cave as a ritual. As we stood on this giant rock, guardian of the cavern, he told me to offer up my pain, my suffering, my problems, my struggles, to surrender them to this place, so that I could emerge from the cave refreshed, renewed, reborn. Before we entered, he reached into a small tapestry pouch and withdrew a handful of leaves. Coca! I had read about the ritual and sacred uses of coca, but until this moment, I had only seen mate de coca in restaurants. My attention was completely focused on Puma’s every move. He asked the spirit of the cave for permission for our entry, speaking in a mixture of languages, and then offered his handful of leaves to the cave. They fluttered down around us, drifting to the surface of the river. Puma leapt from the high stone and landed on another small rock below. He guided my path as I stumbled and slid down our massive stone and followed him into the cave.
The cool darkness within was soothing and peaceful. We paused at a point that seemed to be halfway between the entrance and the innermost point of the cavern. Once more, Puma encouraged me to embrace this opportunity to release heavy energy and negative experiences, to sacrifice them to this place. I stood beside him on the little riverbank, and he began to play a simple tune on his flute. The hollow melody filled the upper reaches of the stone chamber, and I felt myself begin to relax, to release my concerns, my desire to be in control, to know what was coming next. The bright light of day filtered into the cave, a game of light and shadow dancing across the rough walls of the cave. What ... is ... that? I began to look with intense curiosity at the wall. No, it couldn’t be. On the opposite wall of the cave, just above eye level, was the clear image of a face. I looked away, sure that the exertion and altitude were affecting my perception. A moment later, I allowed my gaze to drift back in that direction. Surely enough, I could clearly make out the image of a stony face ... a sloping forehead that gave way to creased eyes, a sharp, well-defined nose, and a broad smile. Puma’s ethereal flute melodies coaxed me out of my attachment to linear thinking, little by little, and a broad smile spread across my face, too. Hello, spirit of the cave, thank you for welcoming us into your space. I felt quite happy to have met the spirit of this cave, though my “voice of reason” was kicking around in the back of my mind in protest.
I breathed deeply, my eyes closed, connecting to the spirit of the cave for a while, as Puma continued to play the flute. Eventually, I opened my eyes, and was surprised to discover a second face peering out from the wall of the cave ... suddenly, the entire wall was filled with beaming stone faces!
We wandered along the river as it led inside the mountain, and then emerged from the other side. We crawled into a tiny quartz-lined cave, we wandered in incredible rock formations that had been carved into temples and caverns, some adorned with pumas, serpents, and condors that were sculpted into the bare rock surface thousands of years ago. Two especially powerful places were the Temple of the Condor and the Temple of the Moon. In each of these places, Puma shared with me his wisdom and knowledge about the Andean mystical traditions and we played our flutes. It was powerful, emotional, expansive experience. One of the most incredible things that he showed me, though, was a carving in one of the rocks. A condor and an eagle. Symbols of South and North America. Beside the condor was a small puma, standing, tail straight up. Beside the eagle, a large puma, lying down, asleep. This carving was created thousands of years ago, long before either continent held their current identities. And yet, there it is, predicting that North and South America will come together, also showing that North America is a much greater power than South America, but that we are asleep, spiritually. We have the power to make great change in the world, change beyond bombs and money and “progress.” Will we wake up? It is difficult to convey the power of seeing such an oracle, but it made a deep and lasting impression with me.

***

On my second day with Puma, I was whisked away to his village, Chinchero, which is about half an hour from Cusco. We were joined by his brother and grandfather, who about 100 years old, has only one tooth, speaks only Quechua, and is a master shaman and healer. In the car, Puma and I played our flutes, and soon we were higher in the mountains, surrounded by snow-capped peaks on all sides. The day was beautiful and hot, and we climbed to Puma’s favorite spot. Both Puma and his brother helped to get grandfather up there, too, when he couldn’t walk up the steep hills himself. Once at the top, Puma told me to climb another hill and lie on the ground, and to return when I heard him playing the flute. When I returned, he presented me with a bundle, and kept one himself. We spent a few hours making sacred offerings to Pachamama, Mother Earth. Inside the bundle were many things: seeds, crackers, candles, colorful candies, glitter, confetti, minerals, stones, silver images, a llama fetus, a piece of llama fat, sequins, seashells ... I can´t even remember all of it. And of course, the sacred coca leaf, the most important part.
As a part of their training, shamans are taught to make a proper offering of this kind, and it becomes their sacred art form. Historically speaking, the average person wasn’t permitted to make such an offering. Puma told me that at this point in time, it isn’t so important how the offering is made, but the intentions of the person making the offering, so I was given the honor of creating my own! I put into it wishes and love for every one I know and love, as well as the American government, for Peru, for the world, for the greater consciousness and understanding of all of humankind. It was so much fun, and really beautiful at the end! Puma’s was really a work of art, though.
Both Puma and his grandfather blessed me and our offerings, which were tied into bundles once finished. We had a brief lunch and then drove to a cave in the side of a mountain. Wood was brought in, and a fire was started. When the fire was strong, we offered cervesa to Pachamama, and I placed my offering into the fire. We talked, we played music, but we did not look at my burning bundle. Bad luck.
Later, Puma read my coca leaves, a traditional oracle. He told me that I am a natural medicine woman, and that I may want to consider initiation into the path of paqo, or shaman, in the future. Grandfather told Puma that I was one of the strongest medicine women he’d met. Who knows where this will lead. What is most clear to me right now is that beyond the tourism, the modern, American-wanna-be young Peruvians, beyond the hunger for money too, is an ancient spirituality that is beautiful and mystical, and I resonate with it very deeply.
When the fire was nearly out, we made our way back to Cusco.

***


October 16, 2007
(Cusco, Peru)

A few days ago there was an avalanche on the train tracks heading toward Machu Picchu, which destroyed hundreds of acres of farmland. For a couple days I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to go to Machu Picchu at all. I think I’m going to work my way through the Sacred Valley, the valley between Cusco and Machu Picchu, and hopefully by the time I get to Ollantaytambo, the last town before Machu Picchu, it will be repaired.

***

The night before I met Puma, during the day of protesting,I met another group of Andean folk musicians. They are a much larger group than the one in Pisac, about nine in all, and they are mostly Indios, indigenous people, not mixed Spanish mestizos. They speak only Spanish, so spending time with them has been great for practicing my Spanish.
After I heard them play in the Plaza de Armas during the demonstration, I went right up to the man who seemed to be the leader and told him how much I loved their music, and that I am also a flutist. Before I knew what was happening, I was taken with them to their next performance. I followed them for several days while in Cusco. Each night, a few members of the group went to tourist restaurants to play and sell their CDs, all dressed in traditional clothes. What an incredible amount of insight this has given me. Not only into Andean music, though they are amazing. But also to the impact of tourism on their culture, their way of life. Many times, we went into restaurants and they’d play the most amazing music while wealthy, white, middle-aged tourists would eat expensive dinners and barely acknowledge their presence. Afterwards, I’d join them for a dinner that cost a tenth of what the tourists would pay. They’d consider it a good day if they each made S./20. That’s about seven dollars. The average tourist dinner costs that much.

***

October 18, 2005
(Pisac, Sacred Valley, Peru)

After ten days in Cusco, I headed to the Sacred Valley, which is the valley that leads to Machu Picchu. There are incredible Inca sites throughout the valley, and most of them require climbing up a seriously steep mountains. Pisac was the first village I stayed in. I was hit with another round of digestive issues here, but was stubborn and decided to climb to the sacred site anyway.
The Pisac ruins are extraordinary, some of the finest Inca stonework I have seen anywhere. It took two hours of climbing steep carved stone steps to reach the first of the ruins. I was so exhausted, I sat on the ground to meditate and ended up falling asleep. I awoke to a small boy trying to sell me woven belts.
The rain was closing in, but it didn’t look like it would be a bad storm, so I bundled into my parka and slept through it. The afternoon was beautiful, and I met two flutists on the mountain. A man who played the quena, which is a recorder-like flute, and a boy who played the sampona, which is a pan flute. The hills were filled with our music for most of the afternoon, and it was so much fun.
A group of children entered the ruins mid-afternoon, and suddenly I felt like a movie star. Every kid wanted to take his or her photo with me, the gringa with the blue eyes. I also met a man who had a bag of condor feathers, which he was selling for use in sacred rituals. One feather was two feet long and completely black, very beautiful. I spent the last part of my day in the Rainbow Temple, playing my flute along with the boy who played the sampona. What a beautiful day.

***

In the evening as I walked around Pisac, a little boy was kicking around two plastic cups like a soccer ball. The beautiful river is full of trash, the bank closest to Pisac. This river was sacred to the ancient people here. The Vilcanota, I think it’s called. It’s a gray river, the water filters down from the glaciers.

***

October 20, 2005
(Ollantaytambo, Sacred Valley, Peru)

I made my way on to Ollantaytambo, a lovely village filled with water channels that were part of an Inca irrigation system. The ruins here are also amazing, and since they are in the heart of the village, they aren’t as exhausting a climb. I spent the entire day in the ruins, walking through every part, playing the flute. The cactuses were in bloom, too! Some of the ruins were basic stone structures, some were incredibly well-carved, some were huge walls of stone, perfectly smooth and carved with the Andean cross. There was a small water channel carved into the side of the mountain, with niches and seats and altars carved into the face of the rock. The whole place is unbelievable. I took a nap in the sun during the afternoon, and had very interesting images in my dreams! One of the security guards was amused to find me unabashedly napping in the grass, and I managed to melt his strict composure by playing the flute.

***

October 22, 2005
(Machu Picchu)

Then, the heart of the pilgrimage. On to Machu Picchu. I spent two days there. The first day, perfect weather, and I walked two hours uphill to get to Machu Picchu from Aguas Calientes. I decided that I wanted to walk back to the Sun Gate, which is the first place along the Inca Trail a person can see Machu Picchu. I ended up on the wrong path, walking steeply up, hand over foot, for more than an hour, and I met no one. I finally realized that I´d taken the path up Machu Picchu mountain, and while it was beautiful, it was very difficult. I carefully made my way back down the path, and rested on the Funeral Rock for a while. I finally felt ready to enter the city, and as I made my way to the ancient doorway, the place was swarming with tour groups. A termite infestation, that´s what it was like. For much of the day, I struggled to find a spot anywhere to feel the sacredness of Machu Picchu. People kept asking me if I wanted to join their tour, and I found myself more and more
pissed off.

***
Disillusionment at Machu Picchu

If I don’t find a quiet place to escape to for a while, I’m going to lose my mind! I frantically made my way through the “prison sector” in hopes of finding an undiscovered niche, and to my great relief, I stumbled upon a tiny cell-like room that was completely shaded from the intense midday sun. I slipped inside, hoping no one else would notice me, and sat down on a long slab of stone just inside the doorway. I tossed my backpack aside and leaned against the cool stone wall. I could still hear tour guides shouting out in every known language, this is the Sun Temple, this is temple of the Condor, this is a place where llamas, or maybe virgins, were sacrificed to the Sun God. Anger and frustration had been building inside of me all morning, and now that I had a moment alone, I was overwhelmed with emotion. I found myself fighting back tears, and my mind reeled. Here I am in this Incan holy place, and all I can think about is how much I hate these people, and this isn’t the way it should be. I burst into tears.
Machu Picchu is probably the most visited place in Peru, if not all of South America. I’m not sure why I expected to find the image I’d seen on postcards, not another person for miles, the peace and serenity of the cloud forest lulling me into a meditative reverie. I’d imagined myself sitting quietly underneath the “Peace Tree,” the only tree that grows inside the Machu Picchu Sanctuary, meditating and contemplating my journey. When I arrived at Machu Picchu, I couldn’t wait to head for that tree. I learned the hard way, though, that it is strictly forbidden to walk on the grass anywhere near that tree. As I approached, a guard blew his whistle at me, finally tracking me down and informing me that what I was doing was prohibited. So, as I sat in that tiny chamber, tears of anger streaming down my cheeks, I was sure that the whole place had been cursed by the last Inca king, sending misery to Hiram Bingham, the twentieth century “discoverer” of Machu Picchu, and all who followed him. Maybe it would have been better if this place had remained hidden in the jungle forever.

***

Mid-afternoon, I wandered to the Intihuana, Hitching Post of the Sun. I decided that the only way I’d get out of my bad mood was by offering music to the place, and it completely changed things. It was powerful, it was meditation, and not only for me. I stopped playing after about fifteen minutes and one woman asked if I would please continue, that she hadn’t felt right in a month, but the music was taking her back to herself. As the hordes of people passed by the Intihuana, the atmosphere changed. I had never played like that before. In fact, I didn’t feel like I was the one playing, improvising, I was channeling an ancient music that needs to be here in the Andes. It was an honor to make music there.
I went back a second day, to climb the mountain that towers over Machu Picchu, called Huayna Picchu. When I first arrived at the Sanctuary, I went to the Condor Temple, one of the most important spaces in the Sanctuary, and was instantly inspired to play. A New-Agey American tour group came in and lingered and lingered. I eventually stopped playing, and two women insisted on giving me money. I accepted, and laughed to myself, here I am, busking in Machu Picchu! Honestly, the money came in very handy. I didn’t know that there was no money machine in Aguas Calientes, and I had begun to wonder how I would have enough cash to get back to Cusco and eat, too. These two women bought me dinner.
On the second day I took the bus instead of hiking to Machu Picchu, saving my energy for what promised to be a hell of a climb. And it was indeed quite a climb. One hour of steep, uphill, hand-over-foot climbing, sometimes with ropes. Once at the top, the reward was great! The view of Machu Picchu and the valley was unbeatable, and the atmosphere was very festive. I made my way onto a big rock, which is all there is at the very top of Huayna Picchu. Somehow in the euphoria of being there I forgot to keep my camera strapped around my neck and it tumbled from my lap down a hole in the rocks ... I heard it cascading down and I screamed, sure that it was gone forever. I handed my backpack to the first woman I saw and scampered as best I could down to try and find it. A really wonderful man was already ahead of me, though, looking for it, and he withdrew it from a cave. I was so happy to see my camera unharmed!
I spent a couple hours relaxing on the rocks, playing music and chatting with others. I made my way down with a group that had just finished the Inca Trail, and by the time we reached the bottom, all our knees were trembling like jello. I found a bench inside a restored hut to take a nap. Soon, it began to rain. It kept on for hours, and I continued napping. I was so happy to be there, I didn’t care if it rained. I felt content to have seen most of the site, and after it became clear that the rain would continue, I took the bus back to town.

***

October 23, 2005
(Cusco, Peru)

I returned to Cusco this morning, and will spend a couple more days here. I need to wander in the mountains here a little more. Then, on to Puno, on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca.

***

October 25, 2005
(Cusco, Peru)

After spending the day wandering in the mountains from one sacred site to the next, I almost couldn’t find my final destination. Q’enko.
Once there, I made my way through the first tunnel, a zigzag carved through the center of the rock. It seemed that most of the crowd went around into another tunnel, and I followed with as much distance as I could. The place was magnificent, from what I could see. There were smooth, carved altars everywhere. Inside the tunnel it was cool and dark, and to one side there were stairstep carved altars, and beside the path, a steep dropoff, a channel of some kind.
I sat on one altar beside the entrance and waited for a quiet moment. The guides went through, shouting information in Spanish and English. The atmosphere felt exactly like Machu Picchu had on the first day, but the space was much smaller. The guides said nothing about the sacred history of Q'enko, only shocking information about sacrifices mixed with the hypotheses of archaeologists. I felt very strongly inclined to play my flute, to allow the music of the space to flow through me and add a feeling of sacredness to this temple. Eventually I couldn’t contain myself and began to play very softly, so as not to drown out the guides. In less than a minute, I was interrupted by a security guard telling me that I couldn’t play there. I was stunned, and a surge of adrenaline filled me. I was shaking. I packed up my flute and tried to keep myself from crying. As I was getting ready to leave, a little Peruvian girl - one of the people I’d been asked to stop playing so as not to disturb - came over to me with her friends. They were much more interested in taking photos than listening to their guide, and they asked to take a photo with me. I was furious and emphatically told her no. I struggled out of the cave, past the herd of tourists, and approached the smug security guard who stood at the entrance. I proceeded, in a raised voice fed by my adrenaline, to tell him that I had played at Machu Picchu, Ollantaytambo, Pisac, and all the sacred places near Cusco, and asked why I couldn’t play at Q'enko. He only told me “no aqui.” I glared at him with my most evil glare, which I then gave to everyone else I passed. I sat down in the rocks, furious, and cried. I loathed him and I loathed the tourists that desecrate the place.
What has happened to a sacred place when music, once an integral part of sacred rituals, is no longer permitted? So that people can be loud, take photos, and gawk at a place with no respect? It goes hand in hand with sacred ceremonies not being permitted at Sacsayhuaman. Peru still has a living sacred tradition, but it is clearly in danger of being destroyed by money, by tourism, by archaeology. There seems to be little respect for the indigenous people and their culture, only the reproduction of Inca and indigenous culture for the sake of tourism. That is truly blasphemous, full of disrespect. In this moment, I am grateful for my horrible experience because it has given me a much greater understanding of this problem. And by making me personally involved, I have much more fire for the matter than I may have had otherwise.
I knew that the only way to quickly release my anger would be to play. I sat among the rocks and played. I was then further incensed by a little boy who came over to me while I was playing and didn’t even wait until I was finished to beg for money.

***

October 27, 2005
(Puno, Peru)

I took the early bus from Cusco to Puno, and though the journey was scheduled to take five hours, we arrived after eight excruciatingly slow hours. Our bus was considered direct, but it stopped in every little village along the way. Not to pick up passengers, though it did sometimes give rides to women with baskets of vegetables or 100 pound sacks of rice, but to allow women onto the bus, selling gaseosas, empanadas, chompas. (sodas, cheese pastries, sweaters). It was awful. The bus rarely went over forty kilometers per hour, and I was dying to walk, to be free of the cramped bus, to be out in the glorious countryside. Somewhere along the way, we entered the Altiplano, the high altitude dry, bare plains, rimmed by dry, rolling mountains on all sides. The vegetation was mostly tufted grass and prickly, thorny scrub plants. The plains were riddled with footpaths, used for tending flocks of sheep or alpacas. I craved to wander so desperately. Alas, the bus choked along the highway. I tried to sleep.
After what seemed like days, we pulled into Juliaca, the town nearest to Puno. The town was hideous. I have never seen more trash scattered around. It smelled like burning trash, raw sewage, and diesel, and there was nothing redeeming in the town. Flat, adobe buildings, dusty roads ... the most depressing place I’ve ever been. The bus motored around the town for ages. We didn't pick up any additional passengers. I don’t even understand why we were there at all. Eventually we hit the road again, and in thirty minutes, we pulled into Puno, on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca. I burst off the bus as quickly as possible, grabbed my heavy pack, and set off walking. I wasn’t sure where the center of town was, but I turned down every bicycle-rickshaw-taxi that offered me a ride. I asked over and over for guidance to the Plaza de Armas, and eventually a nice Peruvian man led me to the hostel I was looking for. For the first time in weeks, I had a private bathroom with really hot water, and I was content.

***

October 28, 2005
(Puno, Peru)

I booked a trip to Sillustani, an ancient cemetery on the banks of Lago Umayo. Pre-Incan in origin, the Kollya people created Sillustani and they buried the important people of their community in these towers. The tallest ones are twenty or more feet high, but most have crumbled partially or totally. My tour was during the afternoon, and during the first half of the day, I had the opportunity to explore Puno. I walked to the lake, but in Puno, the waterfront is mostly taken over by the fishing industry and huge boats. Not really attractive. The smell and bustle eventually got on my nerves, and I wandered back to the center of town.
There was nothing to do in Puno. No sacred sites, no interesting places to visit, no cafes with atmosphere. There were dives offering fried chicken, shops that sold Catholic ritual objects and memorabilia, markets that sold sodas and candy, and during this morning in Puno, I was bored out of my mind! The traffic was constant and chaotic, the cars constantly were blowing their horns, diesel fumes were horrid, and the whole town had a feel of scattered mania. I was grateful when my ride to Sillustani arrived. I was informed in the van that we would have only one hour at the site even though I had been told it was a three hour tour. I was more frustrated than ever with Puno.
First, we stopped the van by the side of the road to take photographs overlooking the city. Puno is not an attractive city, and I didn’t even get out my camera. There was an older Peruvian couple, though, that took photos for fifteen minutes: one of the traditional woman with her decorated alpaca, another of the city, then of each other. I wanted to scream! This was cutting into time at Sillustani! Finally we got underway, and after forty five minutes, we arrived. The guide wasn’t great, and I decided to leave the group and wander on my own.
The place was amazing. Situated on a high peninsula overlooking the lake, crumbling stone tombs were scattered everywhere. There were flocks of sheep grazing, blooming cactuses, and the strangest landscape that I’ve ever seen. I was grateful to be on my own. I offered sacred coca leaves at the most compelling of the tombs, and some even had tiny entry doors that a person could crawl inside. Some were made of rough stone, held together by mud. Others were intricately carved stones, held together by a feat of engineering. The previous were thought to be Kollya, and the latter, Inca. An extraordinary, quiet, eerily beautiful place. In the last few minutes of our hour, I found a quiet place in the grass and played the flute. I felt the desire to play for a long time, but the guide beckoned.
On our way back to Puno, we stopped to see a traditional house of the area. It was very interesting to see this simple structure, basically four rooms, all separated from each other in the corners of a square, walled-in piece of land. Dirt floors, clay fire stoves, one inside for the rainy season, and one outside for the dry season. The animals roamed freely about the house, and in the back was the guinea pig area, the animals are raised for food for special occasions. Though I was grateful to see how these people live, the tour really felt invasive and disrespectful. Most of the people in the group were snapping photos without asking, prowling about, and I was so offended by the group, I left and sat beside the road until we were ready to head back to Puno. In retrospect, it would have been worth it to pay a lot more for a taxi, and experience Sillustani for the entire day.

***
Amantani

Primary colors swirled before me in the dim light of the community hall, as men and women danced in circles. The image was beautiful on many levels; men and women from all over the world had donned the traditional garb of Amantani Island, and were led by the locals in learning their traditional folk dances. Men wore brown and tan hand-woven ponchos and woolen caps. Women were attired in skirts of red, blue and green, white blouses, and black shawls, all adorned with hand-embroidered flowers. In the darkness it was nearly impossible to identify who among us were travellers and who were the local people of Amantani. During the dance language and cultural differences didn’t matter at all. Everyone joyfully surrendered to the celebration.
I sat on a low wooden bench and watched. I could barely hold my head up. Exhausted by a continual cycle of illness during my travels, I had awakened that morning with another terrible cold. My nose was stuffy, my chest ached, and my fever soared. The day began with a two hour boat ride to the Floating Uros Islands, made entirely of the totora reeds that grow in Lake Titicaca. After a brief tour of two of these reed islands, our journey continued across Lake Titicaca for another few hours to Amantani Island, a large but remote island on the Peruvian side of the lake. By the time we had arrived at Amantani, I felt very weak and quite miserable, but was determined to make the most of the experience.
Amantani had no running water or electricity. Other than one small stall that was closed during our arrival, there were no shops or restaurants of any kind, nor was there a hostel or hotel to accommodate guests. There were no animals kept on the island, not even dogs, and therefore, the diet of the islanders was largely vegetarian. The primary crop grown on the island was the potato; I was told that nearly 200 varieties of potato are grown there. The visitors to Amantani were housed in groups of two or three with families, which provided a fantastic insider’s view into their way of life. Their homes were made of stone, very basic in design. The house I stayed in was owned by one of the town council members, where he lived with his wife and children. I never totaled the number of people living there, but I can safely estimate that there were at least eight or nine, including their children. The main living quarters of the house were centered around a small stone courtyard, and the ground level rooms all had dirt floors. The second story was reached by a rickety wooden ladder, which was where the guest quarters were located. We were each provided with five woolen blankets for warmth at night, as well as a candle for light.
Meals were all served in the small kitchen, located at the front of the house in a building that was separate from the living quarters. The kitchen also had a dirt floor, and the food was cooked in a clay oven over an open fire. Meals consisted of rice and potatoes prepared in a variety of ways, occasionally with other vegetables as well. Meals were followed by an infusion of a mint-like herb found in abundance throughout the high Andes region. Though I was sick and had little appetite, the simple food these wonderful people shared with me was wonderful. Probably the most delicious and memorable food I had during my entire journey.

***


Temple of the Sun

The silvery gray leaves fluttered over my head, illuminating an invisible current of wind, and drifted gracefully to the dusty path. I shook the remaining leaves from the pouch into my hand and blew them into the wind. As I watched the final fragments of coca float to the ground, I was flooded with bittersweet feelings. Sadness, for this would be my final sacred offering of coca, here on a steep, barren hillside overlooking Temple of the Sun on Isla del Sol. Joy, for I was filled with the memories and good energy of all the other sacred places where I had scattered coca leaves. For a while I stood motionless in the early morning sunlight, my body and breath were my prayer to the place. Quiet. The place was utterly silent.
Isla del Sol is unblemished by the noises of progress and development. There are no roads or motorized vehicles on the island, no television, very little electricity, and virtually no running water. And on that morning, the only sounds I heard were my own breath and heartbeat, occasionally accompanied by the wind whispering around the edges of the Temple. A moment of disbelief sprang up within me. My god, I’m standing on Isla del Sol! A smile began to spread across my face, then radiated into my depths. In this final offering of coca leaves, I offered Pachamama my gratitude for offering me this incredible journey, the opportunity to spend these weeks wandering in ancient sacred places, learning to listen to the earth and to my own heart. My prayer was wordless, an offering of felt joy to the universe. I stayed with this radiant feeling for a while longer, allowing my gaze to sweep over the holiest of Inca sun temples one final time, and then turned around to follow the path.

***

November 1, 2005
(Isla del Sol, Bolivia)

Yumani, here in the south of Isla del Sol, is a much bigger community than the island’s north village, Challapampa, near the Temple of the Sun. Many more people, more buildings, everything is more in Yumani. Many hostels, many tiendas, many restaurants. Challapampa was tiny, only one restaurant, two or three hostels, only a couple of pedestrian streets. But there are quite a few things that Challapampa has over Yumani, for sure. Running water, hot showers, better food, more tranquility, less people, and Temple of the Sun. Yumani is trying to expand to accommodate local tourism, but is only doing so in a superficial way. It’s trying to offer more than it can handle well. Challapampa, on the other hand, is very basic and simply is what it is. It doesn’t appear to be trying to expand for tourism. It’s more loyal to its identity.
Yumani’s labyrinthine streets mostly go nowhere. Many lead to someone’s enclosed yard, or patch of dirt, as the case may be. The whole place seems to be full of stuck energy. The streets, the excessive number of partially built buildings, all the closed-up businesses. It’s a between place, not sure of its identity, and that makes the energy here uncomfortable. So what should Yumani do? It clearly won’t go back to the way it used to be, but it will never be a city, there’s not even running water! No roads. Nothing that could really allow the place to expand. And thank God! That would be the death of this place. No more peace, clean air, serenity. But the energy here is different from the rest of the island, it’s already been disrupted. I’ve become mentally caught up in the stuck energy here. I need not continue that.

***

Tonight music will play all night in Yumani, and all over Peru and Bolivia, I imagine. A vigil of prayer for the dead. At five o’clock in the morning, the people will walk to the cemetery and make offerings and prayers. A friend from Portugal asked if it was possible for us to join in, but that’s not an option. Day of the Dead is a private matter in Yumani. No gringos.

***

November 2, 2005
(Copacabana, Bolivia)

I’m in bustling Copacabana. I love being here, with the deep blue sparkling water, and tons of Bolivians and Peruvians strolling by. It makes me so happy to feel the authenticity of this place, to know that it isn’t here to please wealthy foreign tourists or to make big bucks.
I feel like my challenge on Isla del Sol was to accept the moment. To accept what is, not struggle. I did that unconsciously on my first day, en route to Challapampa. But once I returned to Yumani, nothing seemed to suit me. No hot water, no good food, trouble with currency, one thing after another seemed to bring me problems. But they were only problems when I struggled against the situation as it was. How many times will I be faced with this kind of situation before I learn?

***

A gringo kid just turned over his chair while playing around. His non-Bolivian parents weren’t paying close enough attention, and he fell and hit his head on the ground and began wailing. My first response was of irritation, shut him up, he’s not hurt, he’s being a whiny kid. When his mother picked him up and began to comfort him, I felt further irritation. She was coddling this three or four year old kid. I suppose the whole thing seemed even more absurd and annoying to me because I have yet to witness this kind of overprotective, sentimental parenting even once here in Peru and Bolivia. Little kids here are much more independent, self-sufficient, everyone has to work so hard, there isn’t time or energy for coddling. And the children seem much better for it. Not whiny, not begging for things, not expecting so much, not like so many of the kids at home. What a huge difference! I do have issues with sending young kids out to work,but there is such a great sense of family unity here. Every member is needed to help with many things. In the States, being a kid is assumed to be the party years of life. Here, a kid has responsibilities in the family and must attend to those duties. When did Americans become so lazy? So convinced that we don’t have to work hard? That money is easy, that we deserve something for nothing?

***


November 3, 2005
(LaPaz, Bolivia)

The bus from Copacabana to LaPaz arrived in four hours, exactly as planned. The day was gorgeous and warm, and the countryside was stunning. I put on my iPod to listen to music for the first time on the entire trip, and was moved to tears by the beauty of the music. I began to feel that my heart has finally opened, I’ve come out of my head and can really feel the beauty of everything around me.

***

November 5, 2005
(LaPaz, Bolivia)

I’m glad to be here, having my final dinner in South America on the beautiful Plaza Murillo. A wave of sadness hit me as I was walking here. I really can’t believe my journey is coming to an end. And tomorrow the long journey home. But I think it will be good to return home, to allow my usual life and usual friends to show me what this journey has given me. The journey, the pilgrimage brings the transformation, the change. The time alone provides the silence and space for expansion and growth. But only going back to my life will show me what this journey has given me.

***

Robbed

Pizza. For a third night in a row. What pleasure! For nine months before my journey, I’d gradually been purifying my diet. I’d abandoned coffee, sugar, refined grains, processed foods, eggs, and dairy products, one by one, and within my first few hours after landing in Lima, Peru, I realized that this would be impossible to maintain in South America. Cheese had been one of my greatest food pleasures, and one of the hardest to abandon. While travelling, I had eaten cheese several times previously, but found myself in digestive distress each time. Through some dietary experimentation, I hoped to eliminate these digestive issues, but even after weeks without dairy products, I found myself suffering every two to three days. After a night of being violently ill, I had determined the problem to be undercooked vegetable soup, and with this revelation, my mission became to enjoy cheese as often as possible! Once I arrived in LaPaz, the final destination of my journey, I made it my mission to enjoy pizza every day. On my final night in LaPaz, I walked to Plaza Murillo and took my daily pizza from Pizzeria Napoli. I ordered a Sprite and a slice of cheese pizza, and spent an hour writing in my journal and watching the world go by. And what went by much of the time was dishes of tantalizing gelato. I decided that since it was my last night in South America, my farewell dinner, I would celebrate with a double scoop of Bolivian gelato, and I ordered vanilla and chocolate. As I savored the slightly bubblegum-flavored treat, I began to feel sad. Ending a journey is always hard for me, and I imagined myself boarding a plane the next day, being carried back to my country. America, land of huge cars, endless hot showers, almost obsessive sanitation, where everyone wants ... no, needs tons of money, and where people rarely know their neighbors. A world away from Peru and Bolivia. A sigh escaped me.
Feeling slightly bloated, but content, I wandered down Avenida Comercio. It was Saturday night, and there were hundreds of people milling about this pedestrian thoroughfare. Knowing that my flight the next day would offer no vegetarian food, I stocked my bag with water and chocolates. Unlike the more touristy Calle Sagarnaga, this street market was filled with unbelievably cheap goods intended for sale to Bolivians. In addition to packaged foods, there were books, magazines, pens, baseball caps (many featuring logos from American sports teams), sunglasses, sweaters, pocket radios, cookware, home electronics, and televisions at prices an American couldn’t even imagine. I wandered slowly, absorbing the bustling, yet casual atmosphere. In addition to the street market, storefronts offered great sales on clothing and shoes, telephone offices boasted the lowest rates on local and international calls, and every other shop offered fried chicken and french fries for mere pennies. Bright colors everywhere, muted in the darkness. Laughter and sexy Latin music filled the air, interrupted occasionally by a salesperson shouting an advertisement for their wares. The smell of deep-fried everything mixed with diesel fumes. The evening chill was comforting, and I zipped my fleece jacket to my chin as I meandered between the booths.
My hotel, Hotel Torino, was perhaps twenty steps away from Plaza Murillo, a beautiful, European-style plaza, complete with a grand cathedral, art museum, and several colonial-era government buildings. During the afternoon, I’d spent nearly an hour there with my camera. In the center of the plaza was a statue of someone important (I never bothered to find out who) surrounded by a stunning rose garden. A woman had tended each rosebush that day with great sensitivity. The plaza had been filled with Bolivian families enjoying the sun, and several enterprising women had packaged grains to sell to children to feed the pigeons. Angelic little girls tossed handfuls of maize, and were instantly surrounded by hundreds of fat birds begging for more in their gentle gurgling voices. Many times, at the exact moment when it appeared that there was no longer a sidewalk, only a sea of shimmering, cooing creatures, two or three little boys would run toward the birds, flailing their arms and screaming, and the pigeons would scatter like confetti. As I approached Plaza Murillo, I remembered the afternoon, the perfect, brilliant sun, the feel of luxurious relaxation that filled the midday, as men with umbrella covered ice cream carts rolled around, calling out “Helados, helados,” to the children. I was filled with warmth and joy, and as I reached Plaza Murillo, I stopped briefly to watch a man hold his daughter in his arms, lifting her high enough to play with the giant bell around the neck of the even more giant metal sculpture of a bull that dominated the corner of Avenida Comercio and Plaza Murillo. He smiled as he watched her trying to ring the bell. Several other children chased each other around the legs of the sculpture, playing and giggling. The bells of the cathedral chimed their melody, announcing the nine o’clock hour, pulling me back from my reverie. I turned right at the corner, a huge smile on my face, and walked past the art museum, past the chocolatier, and climbed the stone steps to Hotel Torino. A handsome, well dressed gentleman stood just inside the door, and as I approached, he wished me buenas noches and held the door open. I smiled at him, returned his wishes of buenas noches and went inside.

***

I took a deep breath and began to stir. Mmm ... time to get up to go to the airport. I fluttered my eyes open a little, and my mind filled with shadowy, dreamlike images ... a dark, stone passageway, a black, iron gate, a set of stairs leading upward. I felt my head resting against something hard and cold, and as my mind regained its coherence, I realized that I wasn’t waking up in my warm, cozy bed. What the ... I rocked my head side to side for a moment and then my eyes snapped open. Where am I ... I looked around me, and then my mind was flooded with memories of the evening’s events.
I sat up, recognizing the place where I had fallen as the entry foyer to Hotel Torino, the landing just outside the hotel’s fancy restaurant. I looked around in horror. I was totally alone. Images flashed into my mind. Three men. Forty-something. Well-dressed. Bolivian. I stood up slowly. Where’s my bag ... I looked around me for a moment, but everything I’d been carrying with me was gone. My new green tapestry bag, which held my bamboo flute, my camera, my journal, my bag of sacred stones, and the food and water I’d just purchased for my flight home. A visceral cry escaped my mouth. Also gone was my blue travel wallet, which had been strapped across my body and zipped under my coat, out of sight. The front door of the hotel was still ajar. I was completely out of my body at that point, so I have little memory of how I moved from place to place. I remember going outside of the hotel and coming to the realization that I’d been robbed. I began to scream as I stood on the front steps of Hotel Torino, screaming from my gut over and over again. The green-uniformed Bolivian street police appeared instantly, running, and I suppose that somehow I managed to communicate to them that I’d been mugged. I don’t remember uttering any intelligible words in any language, and honestly, I have no idea how they knew which way to run. But in the moment, I simply stood, howling and trembling on Calle Socabaya.
The entire experience and my reactions to it occurred outside of linear time. I have no sense about the order of the events that occurred in the hour that followed my return to consciousness. I offer my scattered memories and feelings in whatever order they occur to my memory now, from within linear time.
There was a bar a couple doors away from Hotel Torino, and people began to come outside when they heard me screaming. I looked in their direction, and then noticed my green tapestry bag, discarded on the sidewalk. I picked it up with an emotion something like joy and noticed that it was still zipped. I opened it, and to my great relief, everything was still there. Clearly, the men had discarded it as bulky and useless. I felt a rush of gratitude, for this bag contained all of my most sacred possessions, things that are irreplaceable. I was met by several people who had come out of the bar, a woman and several men, and I communicated to them the incident that had just occurred, still screaming and trembling. The woman, Laura, hugged me and tried to calm me. She accompanied me back to the hotel. She was Bolivian and lived in the city, and kindly translated the events of the incident for me to the hotel staff and police. Before she left the hotel, she gave me her cell phone number, insisting that I contact her if I had any problems the next day. She also insisted, on my behalf, that the hotel pay for my taxi to the airport the next morning, since the incident had occurred within the hotel.
While Laura was relaying my story to the police, we had been joined by Carolyn, an older Canadian woman who was living in Peru. At some point, I began to understand what had happened, and I began to cry. My body was rocked with sobs, and as I cried with abandon, releasing the horror of my experience, Carolyn held me in her arms. When the police had collected the information they needed for their report, they asked me to come with them to the tourist police station. Before I left, Carolyn handed me $50. She told me that she’d been mugged before in Africa, and that in her time of desperation, someone had been there to help her, too.

***

“Who is it?” I called, my voice trembling.
“It’s Nick, from down the hall.”
I answered the door, and greeted the tall, blond German man I’d met in the afternoon. I was grateful to have someone to talk to, for I’d spent the last hour sitting in my room with my arms wrapped around my body, as I rocked back and forth on my bed.
“I was mugged ...” I blurted out.
“What ... where ... WHAT?” he stammered.
I invited him into my room, and cleared the chair so that he could sit down. He took a seat, leaned forward, and listened to my story.
“I was returning to the hotel from dinner, just after nine o’clock tonight. I climbed the stairs to the hotel door, and a nice-looking, well-dressed, forty-something man held the door open for me. We greeted each other, buenas noches. There were two other men there, too. One was standing beside the doorman, the other was coming down the stairs, coming from inside the hotel. Suddenly, the doorman grabbed me by the neck, and I couldn’t breathe. I was lifted off the ground, and couldn’t struggle. He was too strong. I saw another man coming down the stairs, and thought that he was coming to help me. Though he clearly saw what was happening, he made no move to help. He was the last thing I saw before I blacked out. I awoke on the ground, alone, and all of my things were gone. I found my bag on the street outside, unopened, but my travel wallet was gone. My passport, my driver’s license, my student identification, my credit card, my bank card ... all gone.”
Nick looked stunned. “All this happened inside this hotel?”
“In the foyer. In fact, when I saw these men, they didn’t concern me in the least. They looked like nice men, and I thought they worked for the hotel.”
“Oh, my God. And they got your passport?”
“Yep. And my flight is tomorrow morning. I have to leave for the airport at five o’clock in the morning.”

***

“What do you mean, I can’t board the flight ... I am me, these photos are me!”
“I can see that, and I know that you are this person. But the U.S. Immigration Department won’t accept this form of identification, no matter what I say to them. They said there are too many Chinese and Puerto Ricans trying to use this kind of false identification to get into the States illegally.”
“What more do they want! Let me talk to them! Do they need to see the bruises on my neck?! Here, right here, you can tell them how my beaded necklace was imbedded into my neck, and now I have bruises to match!”
Tears began to fill my eyes, and spilled down my cheeks. I tried to remain in control of my emotions, but the shock and horror of the incident were too much. I tried to take a deep breath to calm myself, but began to cry harder, and in seconds I was a trembling, sobbing mess.
“Please, please. I can’t go back there! I don’t know what to do,” I wailed. “They took all my money, my credit cards, everything, and I can’t get in touch with anyone at home. I don’t know where to go, what to do ...” My words trailed off as I lost myself in fits of hysterical sobbing and hyperventilation. I wept uncontrollably at the American Airlines desk, utterly unselfconscious like a child.
The woman who had been helping me was quiet and thoughtful. My situation had clearly concerned her, and as I had spun into hysteria, her gentle, brown eyes had grown increasingly troubled. She tried to soothe and calm me, but I was inconsolable. I wanted nothing more than to leave LaPaz, Bolivia behind and be delivered to my safe, cozy home, my dear friends, my own language, my life. But that was not going to be possible for two more days. She (and probably everyone else in the LaPaz airport) could see that I was afraid, as well as greatly traumatized.
“Angela, don’t worry,” she said calmly. “You can come home with me when I’m finished working here. You don’t have to go back to that hotel. I’ll change your ticket, and everything will be fine.”
I looked up at her with my swollen eyes, tears still streaming down my face. I looked into her eyes and could see that she was serious. In my life, I haven’t found it easy to accept help and generosity. In fact, I had often felt inclined to reject help when I need it most. But in this moment, a moment of utter desperation, the part of me that is proud and independent was utterly broken. I nodded, unable to offer a spoken response. I stood there, crumpled onto the ticket counter, as she changed my flight. When she was finished, she slid my backpack across the luggage scale, and asked me to find a seat and wait for her to return, after the flight had taken off. Before I walked away, I managed to ask her name. Mariella.

***

I sat in my comfortable chair in the waiting area and tried to be patient. Brown chairs. Brown carpet. Brown walls. The television was tuned to international news, all in Spanish. If I really pay attention, I’ll understand a lot of it ... I decided against it. I looked around. There was a corkboard with notices about terrorist activity and cautions that American citizens should take when travelling abroad. Because you could be a target of terrorism anywhere in the world ... I managed to keep myself from rolling my eyes. My mind wandered to thoughts about the fear-mongering of the media, how America has become afraid of everything and disconnected from the rest of the world, completely self-absorbed and consumed with defensiveness. My internal rant was interrupted by the sound of my name being called.
“Angela ...”
I looked up, and the woman behind the window smiled at me and waved me over.
“You’re all set!”
I opened the passport to my new photograph. The purple and blue scarf I wore in the photograph covered the bruises on my neck, and I looked genuinely happy. With this new passport, I would indeed be able to fly home the next day.
“When you get back to the States,” the woman continued, “you can send in this passport and these papers and receive a permanent passport. This one is only valid for up to one year.”
Great, I thought. My old passport, with all its cool stamps, is gone. And now I can’t even keep this one! I thanked the ladies who had been so helpful, and asked them to call Mariella for me, to let her know that I was heading back to their house. I exited the American Embassy, passed through the security building to collect my bag, and stepped outside. I hailed a taxi, showing him the address for my new friends, Mariella and Fernando. He nodded and I got inside. He looked at the address again, and then looked at me with skepticism. He asked, in Spanish, where I was going, and I told him in my fractured Spanish that it was the house of my friends. He asked for their last name, and I laughed and told him that I had no idea. He looked at me with even greater skepticism, and asked if I had their phone number, and I provided him with that information on a small piece of paper. He picked up his cell phone and contacted his dispatch headquarters. I laughed to myself as he told the person on the other end that he had picked up a gringa who was trying to get to a private home of her friends, that I hardly spoke Spanish, and that I didn’t even know the last name of my friends. “Orrico,” he said as we pulled up to their gate. “The last name of your friends is Orrico.” I smiled and thanked him, happy that the day’s ordeal of replacing my passport was finally finished.

***