Love & Light and everything bright...

FROM HAIKU, MAUI

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On the Angel Trail: Where Only Eagles Dare

Off to the Mountains We Go...

URUBAMBA, Peru, June 4 - The D-day arrived shrouded in a morning chill and dew.  This was the day we had been mentally preparing for.  It was also the day we have been secretly fearing.  Nobody has gone on this trail for a long time, the Apus (mountain spirits) had told us.  "The land is thirsty for love," they said.  And we were there to give it as part of our Altomesayok pilgrimage to honor the 20,000-ft Mt Waika Willke and the surrounding mountain ranges.

It was an inspiring sentiment.  But there were risks and dangers. At altitudes of 11,000 ft and higher, you never know what to expect.  The weather can change in an instant.  The air is rarefied and breathing more difficult than if you're even stationary.  On a trail, especially a steep climb, your heart feels as if it would to jump out.  Your lungs want to explode.  On downward slopes, you have to watch your every step.  One careless move and you can sprain your ankle or twist your knee.  I knew that much from last year's experience on Mt Ausengate.

True enough, the Apus said they would be there with us, to guard and protect us.  Waika Willke gave us a warm welcome. Still, "how hard will the climb be?"  "How long?" "Will I be able to make it?" "What if I get injured?"  On a mountain, especially one as high and remote, you cannot dial 911 for emergency rescue.  I remembered a friend who broke her ankle on a Peruvian mountain and had to drag herself for three days gritting her teeth before finally getting some help for it.

Like a lull before a storm, or a soldier's mind before battle, these were some of the unsettling thoughts that crossed our minds as we rode in the bus up a bumpy road past Ollantay Tambo.  Of course, none of us talked about fears.  Outwardly, everybody seemed keen and upbeat. 

Well, not everybody.  Lincoln, a shaman from London, England, looked awful.  He had developed some sort of food poisoning overnight.  My heart went out to him as we were getting our final instructions before pushing up the mountain.  I decided to stay close to him at first.  I knew we all had our crosses to bear.  But at least I wanted to cheer him on; let him know he is not walking alone.

When we disembarked from the bus, a group of children gathered around us.  Maybe they were on their way to school?  The man in the picture on the left was our bus driver.  We had to hike on a gentle slope maybe a mile or so to a place where the wranglers and horses were waiting for us.  So was Leo, the cook, who has been traversing the Peruvian Andes with Jose Luis, our leader, for over 20 years.  Unlike most cooks, Leo was small and skinny.  He looked like a mountain goat.  And he climbed the mountains like on.  But the meals he prepared for us in the wild were fit for a five-star restaurant.

Jose Luis gave us our final instructions.  He pointed out the trail we were going to take (middle left).  It looked foreboding.  And then we pushed off.

In the beginning, I was walking behind Lincoln.  After a few hundred yards, a monarch butterfly showed up and landed on the trail close to me.  I talked to him sweetly and bent down, moving my finger to within a quarter of an inch from him.  He didn't move.  Just like the one who landed at my feet on Memorial Day when I was doing the initiation ceremony for my new uaca (sacred place) and the apucheto (altar) at the Rainbow Shower (the name of my property in Hawaii).  That was stayed with me practically motionless for several minutes.  And when I was finished, he gently flew away toward the upper part of our property where Elizabeth was working on our festive meal.

Looking at the butterfly on the trail, I knew it was a spirit.  I was sure it was no accident he chose to land at my feet just as I was walking behind a sick man.  He was also trying to cheer us on.

When I thought I had done as much as I could to give Lincoln some moral support, I sped up to the head of the column.  Don Sebastian (left), who, like Jose Luis, knows the enormous mountains like the back of his hand, was the leader of the pack.  For the next five days, he and I were to "talk" using sign language, eyes and telepathic communications as  we spent hours in close proximity on various mountains.

It was getting warm.  Make it hot in the sun.  I did not expect that, based on our last year's experience on Mt Ausengate.  I did have sunscreen on, but I had left my Maui baseball cap at the hotel.  So I improvised and made a bandana out of my camouflage shawl.

Some people teased me that I looked like an Arab.  But I told them I thought I was wearing the Pacha Mama colors (Mother Earth).  Then I explained that the shawl was really a sniper net.  That aroused a lot of curiosity among some of my friends on the trail.  But I kept the shroud shrouded in mystery.  All I told them was that I have had it for over 25 years.

After a while, we started hearing the sounds of a waterfall.  The trail ahead had been buried by a rock slide, so Don Sebastian, Jose Luis and I had to backtrack, and take another one that led to the waterfall.  Finally, we got a first glimpse of it.  it was magnificent (right).

While standing at its base, with the mist and spray cooling and cleansing our skin, the waterfall was so high that it took two camera frames to fit in its full length (two left shots). We rested here for a while, taking pictures of each other.  You can see Don Sebastian and I in the rightmost photo.

And now, here's a special treat for you... the sights and sounds of that waterfall...

  At the Waterfall on the Angel Trail (6/4/09) - The Altomesayok Journey - Bob Djurdjevic (1:00 min)

Then we pushed on...

You can see the slope of the trail above the waterfall in the leftmost shot.  Don Sebastian and I were alone at the head of the group.  Even if my lungs were ready to burst, my heart was so full of joy that I spontaneously started to call a hummingbird, my spirit guide.  "Kinti, kinti... hampu mui, hampu mui," I called for it in Quechua (the Inca language).   And then I heard its unmistakable call.  "Psst...pssst."

The hummingbird spirit heard me and was responding.  I was overwhelmed with joy.  And then I spotted him in a tree.  He stayed on a branch long enough for me to take a picture (right). 

"Look, look..." I yelled to Don Sebastian, waving excitedly while blowing my prayers at the bird spirit. "It's Kinti.  I called him.  He heard my call and has come to me." 

Don Sebastian also got excited.  When he saw the bird, he did the same.  He also blew his prayers to the hummingbird.

[For the uninitiated... in Inca cosmology, you blow your prayers into kintus, three coca leaves, or kullas, rocks in a shaman's mesa, which then carry them to the spirits].

It was a magical moment.  I was starting to feel so connected to this land, so welcome. 

We had our light lunch on a small mesa.  You can see from from the above pictures how high we had climbed up until that point.  As the horses and mules carrying our supplies passed us on their way up the mountain, I noticed an Inca boy, maybe around 10 or so, riding along.  He flashed a big smile at me.  Later on, we were to become fast pals.  His face would light up every time he saw me, and we would give each other high-five's.

You can get another perspective on how high we were climbing when you look at the waterfall in the leftmost shot.  Close up, I could not fit it into a single frame.  Now, it looked tiny from way up on the trail where Don Sebastian and I were talking

"Korimarka," he said, pointing to some old ruins (middle left).  The Golden Site.  Jose Luis had told us that was our today's destination.

I was surprised to see so many eucalyptus trees there. And not just because of high elevation. They are not indigenous to Peru.

"They were brought in from Australia," Jose Luis had said in an earlier conversation.  "And they are not so good.  Wherever they are planted, they take over.  Nothing else grows around them.  They take all nutrients from the ground."

And then we saw some tents in the distance.  The wranglers were already setting up our first campsite.  Elevation 11,651 ft, as you can see.  We had started at about 10,200 ft.

That's where I first saw that Inca boy close up.  As you can see, he has a beautiful smile.  He told me his name was Abraham.

"Lincoln," I joked.

Of course, he didn't get it. But this reminded me of "our" Lincoln, the sick shaman.  When he finally made it to the campsite, he looked completely drained.  His face was as white as a sheet even though drops of perspiration pockmarked his forehead.  But he made it on his own.  About 1,500 ft up the mountain.  Given his condition, I figured that had to have been a lot harder physically and mentally than being the first healthy hiker to reach the campsite.  I patted Lincoln on the back and told him how proud of him I was.

"You're a real trooper," I said.

That's where we also had our first and the only glitch threatening the unity of the group.  Among the five or six people who were the first to reach the camp were two women.  When they learned that my roommate Jeff snores, they got on his case. 

"You can't have this tent," they said, when they saw me setting my things down near the one they had claimed.  "You'd better move to a 'no snoring' section."

At first, I thought they were joking and treated it lightheartedly.  But when I realized that they were serious, I got my back up.  Where I come from, you stand up for your partner. More importantly, I didn't like the two women potentially disrupting the unity of the group, something that's essential in all stressful situations, including mountain climbing.

So I walked over and told them, "the man can't help that he is snoring.  That's the way God made him.  What if Jeff didn't like something about your looks, like your nose or hair?  I'll give you some ear plugs if you don't have any."

"They don't help," one of the women replied.

Meanwhile, evidently used to being run out to pasture like a stray dog on account of his snoring, Jeff volunteered to have a separate tent, down from the main campsite. 

"Bubba (an endearing nickname he invented for me), I would really feel better being away from the other tents," he said. 

Of course, he would.  Over the years, the man has evidently acquired the snoring complex and a guilt feeling the size of the Andes.  So rather than add to the disruption of the group unity by going on about it, I decided to join him down there in solidarity.

"Hey man, sleeping among the pigs and horses could be an honorable thing," I joked.  "Remember that other guy who was forced to sleep in the manger as a baby?"

A little while later, the two women made up with Jeff and I.  And that little tiff was perhaps one of the best things that happened on our trek.  For, it dispensed with any BS early on, and brought us all closer together.  As a result, over the next several days, those two  women and I became the best of pals.  Ditto re. Jeff and them.  The two ladies were both tough both physically and mentally.  I admired that.  And they turned out to be wonderful, warm human beings, once you got to know them. 

By the end of the trip, we had each given each other heart rocks that were gifted to us by the mountains - by Waika Willke in my case, and by Pachatusan in theirs.

At the end of the trip, when I recognized all women in our group publicly as we passed the rattle (meaning, as each of us made a short speech about our experiences), I had the two of them in mind as examples.

"This was the hardest hike I have ever done.  But also the most beautiful," I said.  "And I especially want to honor the women among us.  There was no difference between men and women on the trail.  We were all pals.  We all grunted and pulled our weight equally.  So when Judy (an organizer/participant) said yesterday (at the end of our trek), 'this is a ladies' bus,' I said, 'no, this is everybody's bus'."

In late afternoon, we went to Korimarka (the old Inca settlement) for a ceremony and a despacho.  Along the way, we passed some beautiful flowers (left).  I do not know their name but I do know that they are the national flower of Peru.

The views from the little plateau in front of the ancient pueblo were spectacular.  That's where I also caught the sun and the moon shining through the same window (above).

While my shamanic compadres were preparing their kintus for the despacho, I was drawn to a natural uaca in the middle of the village.  "I feel that this is the reason this village is here," I would later say to some of my friends as I led them to it.  "Feel the energy of these two rocks."

Here are the rocks I was referring to.  Just like at my uaca in Hawaii (right), I felt their energy as male (left) and female (right).  Also, just as the the two big boulders gave birth to a baby rock at my Maui home, these two Korimarka giants gave life to a beautiful flowering tree, which happens to be that national flower of Peru, as you know by now.  Furthermore, Karen from Missouri noticed that the baby rocks at the bottom of the two big ones looked like eggs being laid. 

"This land is alive," I remember thinking, just as I felt at the Rainbow Shower (the name of my Hawaiian property).

Later, close to the end of the trip, I was to decide that I want to learn the language of the stones and trees.  Forget Spanish or Quechua.  I want something more primal; something that will connect me to the land no matter where I go.

Perhaps as the first step toward it, Korimarka gifted me the rock I am holding in the left shot. It looked  almost exactly like its smaller cousin that the McDowell Mtn in Arizona gifted me on Feb 1 of this year (middle left). As the sun was setting in the west, the moon was rising in the east over Korimarka (right). 

It was getting very cold very quickly.  Yet no one made a move until we finished our despacho ceremony.  Feeling the holiness of the moment, even a local security guard lined up to receive a blessing from Don Santiago, the Altomesayok standing in the upper right shot.  The guard added his coca leaves kintu to ours in the despacho.  I marveled at how ancient traditions and rites still are still alive in the Andes.  Everybody seems to know what to do, not just the shamans.

And that's all she wrote on this Day 6 of the Altomesayok Journey, our first day on the Angel Trail (my name for it... I am not aware of any particular Inca name for this route).

TO BE CONTINUED...

P.S. For those of you who are the regular readers of these pages, I listened carefully on this trip how the Inca pronounce the Quechua word for hummingbird.  And I have decided that it is Kinti, not Kindi, as I had previously thought.  Accordingly, I suggest you update mentally all those earlier references in my scribbling.

Similarly, I listened carefully to Don Sebastian when he was calling the mountain spirits in his prayers.  Unlike last year, when all Quechua words seemed to blend together into an unintelligible mash, I was starting to hear distinct sounds.  For example, when he pronounced Machu Picchu, it came out just as written... Machu Pikchu.  The "k" was clearly audible.  So now I understand why there were two "c's" in the second word.  We, the Westerners, string them together into a "ch" sound.

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