Back in Cusco after 10 days of travel with Don Americo Yabar. A curious city and an ever changing one. This morning there was a group of riot police in full gear -- shields, helmets, guns - the lot, but lounging at ease against the wall of the big church, La Compañia, in the main Plaza and most of them chatting on mobile phones! Everyone seems to have a mobile here, even me, and most people carry 2 different ones because the networks are very different from Europe and the cheapest options are for calls to and from one network only.
Travelling with Americo has been good and despite the fact that it is rainy season, we have done well for weather. Apparently the mountains have had a lot less snow this year following on from less the year before and some of the pueblos are feeling a shortage of water.
The roads vary a lot from well tarmac´d ones to those with great holes and cracks and those which are merely small dirt tracks. The road towards Paucartambo, our first port of call, is being widened and asphalted to create a better link between the jungle of the Manu and Cusco. There had been quite a lot of rain and near Huancarani, the biggest town on the route, the churned up mud and water created a skid pan. Thank goodness we met no other vehicles because the car was sliding all over the place! Luckily Americo has extremely fast reflexes and a wide perceptual field. Later we met a truck coming at such speed it forced us off the road and into a ditch where we stuckwith no purchase on the mud to drive out again and the exhaust all but embedded. Another passing truck was kinder and 3 men lifted the back of the car whilst Americo drove forward and out. Again we were lucky that it was only a ditch and not the abyss! The road zigzags so high above the canyon below that at some times it seemed as if the car was flying over the landscape.
Our travels have had three phases: through the mountains of Paucartambo, the Sacred Valley and it´s great Guardian Apu´s and the road to Apurimac which passes the Sacred Mountain of Salkantay towards Limatambo and then dives down through tremendous zigzags to a tropical valley with great mountains similar to those of Macchu Picchu. In fact the great Inca City lies behind the mountains of Apurimac and the citadel of Choquequirao. It´s a busy road as it´s the main route from Lima. Apurimac translates as ´the God who speaks´and probably refers to the sound of the river -- Rio Apurimac, of which more later.
On all the journeys at each turn of the road it seemed like turning the pages of a enormous picture book for an ever changing vista and an ever changing sense of energies and power. The land and the mountains have a huge impact and despite the fact that I´m not the most sensitive of people, I really feel it in my physical body and in my energetic centres/chakras. Now having had a cleansing ceremony from some of the Qéro people and a little time to rest and integrate, I´m ready to move on into the next chapter of my travels. Into Bolivia!
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