Condor Steps in Time

Time and Time Again

This time, every second was painful, every step a step back in time.


I love fun and games, adventure and sunshine, the beach and coconut trees,

so...

...what was I doing in the freezing cold Andes, walking along a trail into the clouds?

A trail so Ancient that even the Inca's had a legend for that place, the birthplace of the Empire.

Decidedly a timeless place!

Back to those steps...

the altitude sickness made my vision blurry, the ice cube between my eyes seem to grow as I went higher, only the thought that I had to make it to the top and that it would get better when I started to go down again, on the other side of the mountain kept me going...
that would be in...





six hours.

Time really took on a new dimension, and my body started having a heated conversation with my mind:

"Come on, rest now, I can't take it anymore!"

"Have to keep going, if I stop, it will be more difficult to start again."

"Please, muscles I didn't know

Beauty
Natural magic

existed are strained to the max"

"No. We can do it together, breathe and keep chewing."

Then, I looked up and saw people resting everywhere on the never-ending zigs and zags above me...

"I can still do it,
I know I can, despite the pain, the prize will be greater at the top and my private intention will be even stronger."

That was when I passed a resting horse.

Alberto, a mask reflecting my own inner encounter, always in step, our sand dunes smiling at us from the heat of Santa Cruz...Mother Earth timeless and beautiful as always, our training a testimony to achievement through small steps.

The top, pause-less was really breathtaking, after we caught what we could of it!

We were higher than when we sky-dived!!!!


The descent was still grueling, as different muscles were called in to action and that ice cube in my head took its own sweet time to thaw.

Eventually, paradise began to reappear, in the beautiful cloud forest, full of butterflies and orchids, wild strawberries and thermal waters.... all in preparation for the...

Final Steps!

Steps up to see from high above a Condor!

A condor of a city...

Machu Picchu!

Now I could really feel like a bird, touching the sky...

...like a condor, the prize for all those steps!

Thank you... Sulpaiki, Apu Salkantay

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