Love & Light and everything bright...

FROM HAIKU, MAUI

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On the Angel Trail: The Hardest Day

Hiking over 3,000 feet of elevation in one day

KORIMARKA, Peru, June 5 - The birds knew it before we could see it.  It was still dark outside when the first sounds of dawn awoke our consciousness.  Tall mountains around us jealously guarded our campsite from the morning sun, as if trying to extend their nightly embrace into another day.

Then I heard the familiar "psst... psst" bird call.  I opened my eyes.  It was still dark.  "I must be dreaming," I thought.  "Hummingbirds are not usually nocturnal."

"Hey, Bob, here's your friend looking for you," my sleeping partner Jeff said as he stepped out of the tent.  He must have remembered from my yesterday's story that I was a bird spirit and that the Hummingbird (Kinti) was my main spirit guide.

I scrambled out of the tent.  There he was, Kinti, the biggest hummingbird I had ever seen, perched on a nearby branch, looking at me and whistling, "psst... psst" (right). 

"What took you so long to drag your ass out of bed?" I seem to be hearing him say. 

I smiled and started to talk to him sweetly.  It felt as if I were talking to a mirror.  Then I spotted another big hummingbird on a nearby branch, just above him. 

"Of course," I thought.  "It takes two Kintis to drag a Gemini out of bed." :-)

"Hold on," I said. "Let me get my camera."

The two bird spirits waited until I took a picture of them.  Then they fluttered away... And so began the most grueling day on our five-day Angel Trail trek.

Jose Luis had warned us last night that this would be a hard climb.  But no words of caution could have prepared us for what was to come... a four-hour ascent from our 11,650 ft campsite to a mountain pass of over 14,300 ft. 

I was still feeling a slight pain in my left thigh.  My adductor and quad muscles started to cramp yesterday after we got to the campsite.  The climb was steep and the weather hotter that I had expected.  I had not hydrated enough.  So ever since, I have been drinking 'gallons' of (hot) water.  (Cold water is not good for you at high altitudes).

Last year, on Mt Ausengate, we camped at 15,500 ft.  We camped for three nights at the same place and did not do much climbing ("only" up to 16,300 ft).  Our main enemy was the bitter cold.  Expecting more of the same, I had dressed too warmly for the current conditions.  I did not tell anyone about my cramps.  But now, on this morning of June 5, I was wondering about how my leg would stand up to the rigors of another steep climb, back to back.

I turned it over to the mountain spirit.  "You wanted me here," I said.  "Now you have to carry me a little bit until my body gets back into balance."  They sure did.  I started and finished the day in the top group of climbers.  No cramps.  Only a few twinges of pain here and there.

About an hour or so into the climb, our group was starting to split up.  The "usual five or six suspects" were at the front, led by Don Sebastian.  The rest trailed at various distances.  Some had given up hiking and hopped on horses.  Who could blame them.  My lungs felt at times as if they were about to explode.

We were about a quarter of the way up the mountain when, as if sent by higher powers to give us a break, there was a man playing an ancient harp, surrounded by some small Inca children.  It was an awesome sight.  Rainbow orbs were in the air all around us (see middle left shot and the video).  The sound of his soulful music suddenly drained away our  exhaustion.  As other members of the group arrived on the little plateau where the man sat, some started to dance spontaneously.  Man with man, woman with woman, man with man, child with child...  It was a Dance of the Joy of Life.  Take a look at this video clip:

  Inca Musician on Trail (6/5/09) - The Altomesayok Journey - Bob Djurdjevic (2:12 mins)

Just before noon, the advance party made it to the promised pass.  My clothes were soaked in sweat.  The leg muscles throbbed.  But there were no cramps, thank God.  And the effort was worth it.  The 360-degree views from the 14,300-ft pass were absolutely spectacular.  Take a look...

As the rest of our group gradually dragged themselves to the pass, some on foot, other on horseback, I took pictures of the surrounding mountain ranges...

... and started to build my apucheto (two right shots).  I felt so anchored to the land and connected to the heavens that I could not take my eyes off the clouds.  The mountain spirits had told us that they would be with us the whole way in the form of clouds or appearing as birds.  When I saw two eagles circling around, I felt as it Wakai Willke, our main host mountain spirit whose name means Sacred Tear, was indeed watching us with fatherly concern.  And so while other ate lunch or snacks, I sat on a high perch divining the clouds and taking pictures.

I'll let you read the signs in the clouds on your own.  You don't need my interpretations to do it.

When Jose Luis asked us to start gathering stones for a group apucheto, some of the men in our group showed off their testosterone by digging up and lugging big stones to the pass.  In the past, I might have also taken part in such "Testesteronics" (competition).  This time, however, I was in such a serene frame of mind that I just serenely followed divine guidance hoping that it would lead me quality over quantity.  It sure did...

First, the Waynay mountain range gave me an illya (sacred stone) that represented a miniature image of itself (left).  "That's so Inca!" I exclaimed.  As some of you who have followed my Peruvian stories by now, the Inca have always lived in harmony with the environment around them.  They built their uacas and/or city walls to mirror the shapes of the surrounding mountains. 

Then Wakai Willke gifted me its heart (middle shots).  Held upside down, the stone reflected two Inca sacred animals - condor/eagle and a jaguar/puma.  Tears of gratitude started to stream down my cheeks as blew my prayers into the illya like kisses to the huge and hugely generous mountain in front of me.

I donated the two illyas to the communal apucheto.  When Don Francisco saw them, and after I demonstrated the mountain spirit messages they carried, he seemed in awe.  He blew his prayers and the holy water on them and placed them on top of the apucheto (left).  There you have it (middle), the finished group apucheto, with Killawaman, Chikon (glacier) and Pitusiray mountain ranges in the background.  More signs in the clouds appeared...

An hour-long break at the mountain pass was a welcome respite after a grueling climb.  But we were only half way to our planned campsite.  Luckily, most of the rest of the trail was a slight downhill slope.  Along the way, we came across an area of meteorite showers.  I walked down into one of the craters with Don Sebastian and touched my meteorite ring to the bottom of it, as if making a connection between Pacha Mama and the heavens, from whence the meteorite had come. 

Finally, a welcome sight... tents in the distance (middle right).  The wranglers who had gone ahead with horse and supplies were already setting up our new homes for the night.  We had descended about 800 feet from the pass, but were still fairly high (13,542 ft, as you can see - right).  Our second campsite was to be the highest elevation at which we overnighted on the Angel Trail.

For some reason, the mountain that looked like a church spire (middle left) - Wawayok - seemed to speak to my heart.  Wawayok stands for "with baby" in Quechua.  To the Incas, the mountain looked as if it were holding a baby in its arms.  I was pleased to see that the wranglers had set up our tent [again away from the rest - in the "lower forties"  :-) ], so that we were facing that mountain.  I found a horse skull nearby.

"Hey, Jeff," I yelled to my partner.  "Look what I found... our new mascot."

I mounted the skull on top of our tent.

When Jose Luis asked us to spend a few hours before sunset to disperse create our despachos, I was inexorably drawn to the uacas on the hill above the camp (two left pictures).  "As if I didn't have enough climbing for the day," I chuckled to myself as I made my way up the mountain.

Once again, I felt serene, as if being led by an invisible hand.  I had no idea what I was looking for but I knew that the place and time would find me.  I tried several locations but they did not feel right.  Then I picked up a rock.  I held it up against the Wawayok mountain that had "spoken" to me already.  It was a close match. 

Furthermore, the triangular rock  matched the mountain's outline with each of its three points. 

"Wow," I exclaimed.  "Another gift.  And a very special one at that.  Thank you.  Sulpaiki, Wawayok" ("sulpaiki" means "thank you" in Quechua).

The rock I held in my hand seemed to point further up the mountain.  I followed its direction.  Then I understood why.  There was a large uaca, embedded deep into the mountain, that also held the shape of Wawayok.  It got very windy.  The wind was blowing from Wawayok.  I got the message. 

"Thank you so much for welcoming me to your bosom, 'father with a baby'," I said, bowing to the mountain and blowing my prayers into the three coca leaves that I held up as a kintu in the direction of the mountain and the setting sun.

I set up my despacho kit on the ground using the large rock as shelter against the wind.

When I was done, I looked down the slope toward our second campsite.  It lay on a plain below the Waynay mountain range as if on a palm of my hand (left).  it was a pretty, peaceful sight.  As I headed down the mountain, Wawayok gave me another gift.  It was a heart rock of its own (middle left). 

"Good things come in threes," I remember someone saying a long time ago.  It was my #3 gift from the same mountain within a couple of hours.

When I came down to the camp, I showed my two rocks to Don Sebastian, the Altomesayok who made the trek with us.  I demonstrated how all three corners of the triangular rock matched the mountain's outline.

Don Sebastian was visibly moved.  "It's an illya (sacred stone," he said, picking it up and starting to pray to it and with it, before returning it to me.

[I have brought both of these rocks home.  They will become a part of my apucheto at the bottom of the Rainbow Shower gulch, serving as connecting nodes between Hawaii and the Holy Mountains in the Andes].

By the time I made it back to the camp, the sun was setting in the west at the same time as the nearly full moon was rising in the east.  It was getting very cold very fast.  After dinner, we did another fire ceremony.  The dying flames at the end of it were to be our last sources of heat for the next 12 hours or so.  By the time we made it back, a white layer of frost was already covering our bags, left outside the tent.

"It's going to be a cold night," I said to Jeff as we slid into our sleeping bags.

"It already is," he replied.

Thus ended the hardest day of our five-day Angel Trail trek.  Yet it was only a prelude to an icy swim in a lagoon that awaited us in the morning... part of the Altomesayok initiation pilgrimage. 

"BRRR..." I shivered just thinking about it before falling asleep.

TO BE CONTINUED...

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