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Published: July 30th 2006
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Shake, shake, left, fake pour out. Shake shake right, fake pour out, with quechua calls in betwixt. And it went on for some time. For Pachamama, mother earth, Gaya, our protector, our friend, our goe, our past, our present our future. She was the great diety which looms over this Andean land. The spirit that resides in the mountains, the huts, the potatoes, the springs, the rocks, and most importantly the people. The people like out porter who shook and sang as he showed us the sacrificial shuffle performed with canyeso.
And i felt good that night as our porter pranced and the canyeso pulsed in my veins. I should have been drinking this night. After a day of short hikes, two hot springs, and dust filled rides herded 40 deep in the back of a truck like some smuggled illegal immigrants crossing the desert at night. But i should not have been imbibing the night before.
I was sitting in a garden behind a thatched roof and clay house. Perched atop some mysterious green gourd, staring simply at the fire alone. The rest had retired, I lingered on with my fading memories and the dying flames. Though in a foreign
land, I felt it was a familiar experience to nights past. Nights when mountain memories kept my energy aloft long after my friends had retired.
Then a light appeared beyond the wall. And my tranquility was assaulted by an Andean apparition bearing gifts of green apples and clear canyeso. And before I could muster much beyond my country of residence, his rant began. A glorious pouring forth of passion for the mountains and pastures we passed. Guilldo the guide, told me long winded stories as his eyes gleamed red from the flames and firewater. He told me about the temperment of snow capped peaks, and the peril of wronging them, of wronging Pachamama, as modern people do. He scratched his arms in large violent strokes as he described the poison people pose to Pachamama´s flesh. She is wise and strong and old. The holder of past present and future. And she will exact her revenge. (he was almost screaming at this point, and would fiercely grab me by the arm demanding my attention in broken english, until he started to speak again in slow spanish). Her revenge for the extermination of the Incas. Her revenge for the maldeeds of
manking, her revenge for the faraway thoughts of people who take and take and take, but never give.
And i was glad I had given that day. Because I broght Pachamama a gift. A gift I carried begrudingly on my back for the grueling ascent to 14,000 feet and beyond. Because before I began to climb, I packed my muchillo with two large rocks. Then I took off up the steep switchbacks to the mountain pass looming above. Each step was like purgatory. I was stuck somewhere between heaven and hell. Each footstep sent waves of nauseau to my mind. But i couldnt stop. Because to stop meant the light headedness would worsen. To stop meant my sacrifice was a little less meaningful, to stop meant my body was not worthy of this most grandiose granite face smirking at me from above. So i trudged along, slowly repeating with each step, "ësto es por mis madidos del cuerpo, y esto es por mis maldidos del pensado".
I was doing my part to appease Pachamama, and I think it worked. Because when I reached the punto and unloaded the representative rocks, I felt gree as a condor soaring 25000
feet above. And after listening to guides give sacrifices themselves, i slept soundly and serenely. i slept like a shark does while swimming. My mind moving, but nothing passing within.
And I was thinking of this moment that first night, when Guilldo´s guide interrupted my tranquility. He arrived with a hunger for loud music and strong drink. His face was worn, and his legs strong. As I saw him passed out the next night next to an empty bottle of rum, I realized how he had earned the name loco.
So Willie, alison, and i stepped over his slumped body still holding the paper i had given him (on it was scribbled tool, white zombie, and velvet underground), and laughed that light headed laugh which comes in the high altitude carefree caress of mountain pastures. So we sat circled and told stories. I gave a Spanish speech of my own. I told the cooks and caballeros and cusqueno guides circled around about my own interpretation of the Andean, their Incan strength. And how their strong but simple life moved me to tears. And we continued to pass the canyeso around as they looked queerly but contently at this gringo
who presumes to know the quiet kingliness of the quechuan way.
And I thought the night was over as the last drop was sipped. But we could not let go of this feeling of freedom. So i forked over 30 cents and bought another bottle of booze. The shopkeeper poured it from his bathtub into an empty bottle of fanta.
And a friendship was formed over that Fanta. A friendship which lasted late into the night some days later. After Willie showed us the real cusqueno clubs sans tourists. Where a peruvian princess squeezed my hand and whispered in my ear as she taught me to salsa and told stories of her future.
And that is how I left the sacred valley, with memories to last a lifetime. And the canyeso song stuck in my head. Canyeso , canyeso, juntos bebimos , serimos amigos, canyeso.
(There are many other to tell. The pile of piss and puke from a person who did not pour out his first drink to pachamama, the magical macchu picchu, climbing in caves, seeing the site of sacrifices, soccer games and fireworks shaking a small stadium, the small side streets and stairs, parties
and parades in the street, dollar meals and mate de coca, and so much more.)
But I bid you farewll salkantay, farewell sacred valley, farewell friends, until we meet again.
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Ben
non-member comment
Wow
great story Curt. On our way.