Madness in Marcahuasi

It serves nothing to inform the visitor of the secrets of the sacred mountain, because at any time during this adventure a little piece of madness will invade you, challenging you to defy nature, and the emptiness and mystery of this place

There are cray insticts that you cannot fight in Marcahuasi, to get close to the abyss where your fear freezes and the wind seems to talk to you. Daring you.

Everybody that arrives at Marcahuasi is thirsty, not only for the sculptures but for something else. The protocols are broken, whether it is during the day or during the night.

Everyone controls their own madness in Marcahuasi, whether it is to stare at it from the fringe of some mystery, or whether it is this jump. Falling for something!

I don't know in which trip, and in which moment but there exists some instant to do crazy things in Marcahuasi, a strange influence of disobedience that we sometimes get at this altitude. And sometimes the resultant behaviour is inexplicable.
We can imagine this scene. Where are the treasures of Marcahuasi? If Ruso didn't reply then me neither.

Traveling the route along the cliffs between the limit of the plateau and the abyss beyond, there is ample temptation for the visitor. Who doesn't want a photo on the petrified rocks? Who wouldn't pose in this emptiness.
It doesn't matter the danger, the temptation to pose here has no limit. The daughter of the mountain Gods.

When we are in front of the lakes we're invited to dive in and swim. It doesn't matter the time. Well, nothing matters. It's part of the adventure and the madness that Marcahuasi produces.

This jumper isn't the only one. Neither was he the first nor the last. "Little Hell" produces these emotions that you could categorise as something between temptation and freedom.

"Little Hell" is a place where many legends are intertwined, provoking you to make acrobatic jumps, defying your fear and the mystery of what is below. Others decide to walk the length of the hellish passageway. Total adrenalin!!!

If you inhabit these ruins they give you a happy feeling, for other visitors perhaps not. Goodbye Soctacure's prisoners!

Who hasn't done this? Who didn't try it once in Marcahuasi? To camp far from the well beaten places, to sleep in the ruins, to travel over the plateau at night with or without moonlight, to start making a new track ascending to the plateau, to create your own hypothesis about this place, to climb the rocks. In truth this place releases an amazing number of crazy things in us, some good, and some bad, some allowed and some prohibited, some that we like and some not!

These are the "warriors of the tracks". Making new routes to arrive at Marcahuasi needs a lot of skill ... something for crazy people!!


But to arrive at Marcahuasi by the route of suffering, the route of a dream made reality now is a craziness; a craziness that you will never forget, ... or repeat!

Read the original post (in Spanish)


Next Post : An extract from an interview of Manuel Olivares (Daniel Ruzo's secretary)
Photos : John Ysrael Guevara

Anecdote from my second trip

You nailed that pain in my soul, perhaps to make me surrender, or perhaps to distance me from your altitude, to test the adrenalin experience that Marcahuasi gives us in every trip. I don't know ... maybe I don't write about this experience then that would be to accept the reality that I lived ... and how I lived it in my second trip to the sacred mountain.

I'm not well, I'm not well…!

"How to forget this place, to forget the agony, to remove it from my memory and my soul that afternoon when I felt you leave ..."

Everything went well until Chushua (half way between San Pedro de Casta and Marcahuasi) where we stopped to provision ourselves with water, have a brief rest and to eat. But then somebody said "Here is a little wine" and almost everybody responded "we need to drink it then!!!". This drink arrived as if from the Gods to their thirsty guides!

When we continued the hike something strange happened. We started to feel unwell. Alexis, the third guide, very enthusiastic, and supportive specially with the ladies, when we went up, he went ahead a good distance and left his rucksack and came back down for another and another rucksack, and like this he undertook a large part of the hike ...

I decided to be the last in the ascent, so then I was witness to the protests and complaints that are now well known. When they asked me "how much further ?" I only said the same that they said to me "We're close ... just past that next rise ... no more" that and the classic worst lie "almost there!". Lies that made us continue with the real unforgettable pains

The hill continued and never ended, with heavy rucksacks, cutting into our sweating backs, and words of encouragment that had no value. The words now had no effect on these surrendered, tired bodies and then I heard "Hey" "Hey" - Alexis was off the path wanting to vomit, with a smooth paused voice saying "I feel weak, ... I don't know what's happened to me ... I'm ill". At first I thought he was joking, but I encouraged him and we continued the ascent for a while, but the distance between him and I was increasing, as it was also with the rest of the group that was much further ahead.

"The emotions that I lived in Marcahuasi, I try to describe, sometimes with happiness, sometimes with sadness. What crazy passion ..."

I heard my name twice and this call worried me this time. I took off my rucksack and shouted to the group, breaking the eerie silence. "You continue, and I will look after him". I don't know if they replied to me, but with strides I went back down and arrived in front of him, with his head down, pale, with a strange stare, without energy to make another step. "Christ ... you were serious!" I said. He didn't respond and I took his rucksack and water container and took them with my own, and then I returned and gave him lots of encouragement; encouragement that this time had no effect on him. I put his arm on my shoulder and we walked slowly. "I feel bad, I feel bad" he repeated and I stopped to attend to him and put his coat over his shoulders. What I saw was a mixture of fear and desperation. Alexis didn't realise, nor did he feel the blood that stained his nose. It was a confusion that destroyed right down to my soul, I'd never lived moments like that.

Suddendly two travellers reached us and when they saw us they shouted ... "the skinny one is ill, you have to go down". Their words made me more desperate. By now Alexis was like the grey afternoon that surrounded us. To arrive at the amphitheatre was difficult, but it would have been much further to go back to San Pedro de Casta. A casteño that came back down with his mules was my hope, and despite my pleas and what I offered he would not help me, and looking at my friend without stopping he said to me "Grab that herb there and rub it strongly in your hands, and put it on his forehead, his elbows etc so he smells it", and then continued his journey down.

His pale cold, quiet, bloody face made me fear the worst. I took the herbs and rubbed them in my hands, and the herbs sparked ... perhaps they were capable of anything ... anything, so that Alexis spoke a word, and returned to be the man he was an hour earlier. I lifted his tired body and, supported him against a large rock, and wrapped us up with everything we had, prepared to spend the night there ... or death.

"When you say nothing, it is an eternal silence, an emptiness of pain, pain for an eternity ..."

With watery eyes, a sadness, and a silence I separated from him, contemplating the immense hills and the few rays from the sun that still escaped. I don't know if I regretted having come. Initially an impotence grabbed me, cursing everything, until ... I don't know who orated, or asked or implored, that they helped me to get out of this situation. My faith was an avalanche that the night was witness to. My cold tears broke without permission, and a strange force took control of me. A voice broke the silence, pain and fear, fixed on the hills and rocks of Marcahuasi and I said "How can you punish me like this ... I come here in search of your enchantments, not of suffering. Help me, now!!"

"This four-legged ambulance buried the pain that afternoon when it was my turn to live ..."

I waited for my tears to dry with the cold, resigned and decided to spend the night and share the agony with my friend, discarding everything else. I protected myself more from the cold and the night that was hiding us, until the body that fought somewhere between life and death, that was asleep and didn't feel it, a voice breaking through the blanket of the night ... "come, come"

I remained immobile, with an amazement. I stored up my words, I wasn't dreaming, it wasn't a lie. I swear to you that he got up without my help. Looking at me, pausing and said to me "I'm feeling better now. Don't prepare anything. Going slow I can get there. Don't worry any more. Everything is passing now.". I looked at him, and listened to him incredulous. I lived a mix of truth and lie, I wanted and didn't want to believe. I thought it was a product of some ending. They were instances of madness. But Alexis was walking slowly, so slowly that I didn't accept the truth. While I put everything back in the rucksack, I couldn't stop thinking ... like the grey night.

Everything that I am living is a miracle? My begging was heard by someone? Is it a question of the hills? What is happening to me? Was it a physical energy, or spiritual, or something else? I'm only sure that something happened, and that experience is mine.


"Those of us that have climbed up to Marcahuasi by the long route know of the pain that this small rise causes!"


"Now we were left with the final climb to the amphitheatre. This is a steep hill, where the tiredness is extreme, and where the flight of all of the trek charges us dear for this amazing adventure. In truth I feel tired, exhausted .... the cold and the night was over us. I heard something coming and everything changed. I stopped and there were two mules coming back down and their owner came behind. I threw off my rucksack with a shout. It wasn't a request, nor an order. I said. "Hey sir, look at how this man is, if you don't take him up, I will say that it was your fault that he died."

The man stopped ... I don't know if he was shocked or fearful, but he listened to me. I continued giving him orders. "Bring that mule and help my friend up. These rucksacks can go on the other donkey, with the water containers too!"

I don't know if the owner looked at me or at the walking dead, but the first thing he did was put a price for this pain! When the four-legged ambulance left for the final climb, with sadness the owner of the golden-balled donkeys said to me "allow the animals to go slowly sir. They're tired. You cannot hit them".

The response was "Yes, sir", but despite him being against it, what a beating those donkeys got to get us up the final climb quickly. I only wanted to get to the amphitheatre. And we were close, yet dependent on the strength of others. I wanted the final hill to end, and that we see and pass the final archway.

"This is the place where we all desire to arrive and conclude the ascent, here ends our dear path ..."


Alexis, despite this experience, returned many times with me. I don't know if he will continue returning. I only know that Marcahuasi made us lived something together; something that we will never forget, and so that I can tell this story. My begging, and appealing were so deep that I woke the Apus and Soctacure. Everything so that you didn't leave

Read the original post (in Spanish)

Next Post: Crazyness in Marcahuasi
Photos : John Ysrael Guevara

A day in Marcahuasi

A day in Marcahuasi, is the summation of all visited time, of constant journeys, of harshnesses survived, of unique experiences, of contact with old and young people of San Pedro de Casta, of unforgettable madnesses, of conversations during the night and around the bonfire, and that your vital Marcahuasi life will not let me lie about this.

A day in Marcahuasi is to discover the loneliness, and the silence, its climate, its countryside, its legends and the mystery that is found all over the plateau. The visitors travel all of the mountain, wanting to know, and to find all of the mysterious sculptures in a record time.


These cliffs give us the opportunity to see things differently, every time that you find yourself at these heights.

A day in Marcahuasi ... is to forget time and reality, because everything fascinates and captivates us. To see the ruins, the cliffs, the lakes and the petrified monuments is to daydream about a fantastic reality that starts when you arrive but you've no idea where it ends.

A day in Marcahuasi ... is to know the new legends, to listen to the elders of San Pedro de Casta, deliberate with nostalgia, their stories that they lived or have told, its to listen also to the visitors that arrive and return with very different emotions.

A day in Marcahuasi ... is unique, for its rocks, its ruins, its wind and its silence ... of the crags and the sunsets, to be an accomplice in the magic of its scenery, its something that you get to know and never forget.

A day in Marcahuasi ... accompanied by the night, the moon and the stars, together with a bonfire, sipping a hot drink, singing songs since at the altitude and in the heart feelings are universal, like the mist and the cold that wraps everyone.

A day in Marcahuasi ... is to cook in the open air, to smoke with the smell of fresh logs, flavouring everything that is cooked, and also is a motive to get to know all of the ingredients, the neighbours, and the stray dogs that arrive at that precise instant of eating ...

A day in Marcahuasi ... is to live without a ray of light, the cloud that shrouds all of the plateau, the rain that bathes the sacred mountain, and the mud that sticks to everything. Yes, that Easter or October when you went.

The friends that you choose to go to Marcahuasi with ought to be good friends, like the new sculptures that you will find in the sacred mountain.

A day in Marcahuasi ... is to get to know people, people that tell stories, anecdotes and experiences, that perform crazy acts challenging abysses, diving in the lakes, entering in cracks, writing their names in the rocks, singing and listening to music, and others resting so they can continue this adventure.

A day in Marcahuasi ... is to imagine yourself with the past, to come and go between the bridge of illusion and the bridge of reality, is that reason that lives in every corner of Marcahuasi like a punishment or a reality.

A day in Marcahuasi ... is to open yourself up to all questions, to what this sacred mountain was, is now, and what will be. It's to live a crisis of answers because everything that is felt here is tellurically, cosmically, and mythologically Andean.

A day in Marcahuasi ... is to invoke Daniel Ruzo, for his dedication and commitment to this place, to rediscover the Andean's skills that lived with their dead in Huacracoha, Santa Maria and the fortress.

A day in Marcahuasi ... is to see how some visitors only arrive here to sleep in the Amphitheatre and then at dawn are returning home. Also it is curious how some people from very early soon after arriving go and collect logs to prepare their food.

A day in Marcahuasi ... is to be awake and vigilant to everything, you feel how you integrate with the people who you love and who are far away, we all want to feel more than an emotion at these altitudes, and we all want that this feeling never stops.


The magic of this lake is to find it like this, possibly in another visit you will find it dry

A day in Marcahuasi ... is to find new sculptures, new shadows, to find the lake of Cachu Cachu, a mirror that the sky looks at, or to see it dry and dusty, punished by time.

A day in Marcahuasi ... is to forget time, the day and the hour, of debts, of stress and of illnesses also, to get to know new friends, and exchange opinions, and concepts of what you have seen and you are still wanting to see.

A day in Marcahuasi ... is to find the Amphitheatre without a camp site (but packed with people), full of fresh herbs, of wet earth and of the hut we don't speak, those that arrive first are very privileged.

A day in Marcahuasi ... is to find peace and inner freedom, to feel the inspiration every time, to live with the mystery that we all know something of, but that nobody knows completely.

A day in Marcahuasi in the company of the Monument to Humanity, is to be trapped with all times, is to test out the truth and the whims, is to remain silent being an accomplice in all that we know and believe.

A day in Marcahuasi ... is different to any other day that you return, also the cold and the heat and the tiredness is different, and you think also that this applies right up to the people that you meet in Marcahuasi.


The goodbye to Marcahuasi is never certain, despite ...


A day in Marcahuasi ... is to fill yourself with nostalgia, because the moment arrived to say goodbye to this petrified valley, here you leave a part of your life, sleeping questions, a commitment to return and a sad memory of friends that you knew and aren't here, going down the route of Kiska Kumo (the short route), now I cannot mention a day in Marcahuasi ... without one more goodbye to Marcahuasi.

[Read the original blog post (in Spanish)]

Next Post : Anecdote ... from my second trip

Photos : John Ysrael Guevara

Marcahuasi and Reality

Marcahuasi is a goal, a reality, a singular adventure for every visitor. A sacred mountain for the people that want truth and to accept it as it is. To get to know what is this place for the new generation, it is necessary to confront oneself with this reality. Whether Marcahuasi was made by somebody or not, that is an unknown that lives, that beats in every tourist, and only they will be able to respond by contemplating these sculptures by day and by night, that are born and that die. This doesn't happen with a lecture or a story, but with an experience that you feel yourself.


To get to know the reality of Marcahuasi not only do we have to go up and come down its paths ... but also to compromise ourselves with its needs and more besides ...

Every type of studious person will continue arriving at Marcahuasi. Every type of story will continue to be weaved; we will continue repeating the legends and myths, and Marcahuasi will continue just like we know it, just like Daniel Ruzo knew it, the adventurers and the pirates of this mystery.

The freedom that Marcahuasi hands us is generating a small alienated society, that arrives with the intention to free its bad habits, habits that destroy nature, the mysteries, and worse still to confuse the visitor. People arrive that have no business being on the plateau, and they would be perfectly capable to finding an alternative place, because Marcahuasi is a sacred mountain, to heal yourself physically and spiritually.

Marcahuasi not only is a place to view, and to make contacts with the other side, for people that are desperately looking for their salvation, or an initiation of something. It is also the birthplace of esoteric groups, mystics, philosophers, sects, and the light sowers. Every one with their well-known, elaborate theories. The plateau gives us the opportunity to find ourselves with every type of people; fanatics, opportunists, and purveyors of the mystery of this place.

In Marcahuasi they have cycling and motorcycling competitions that destroy the paths, the rocks, and the peace of the mountain. They also have some concerts that say a lot about their organisers. The majority of tourists that support and will continue supporting Marcahuasi at Easter and during national holidays will have the same problem of little tourist information, a problem for the tourist authorities, the community and the mayor ought to be worried. This isn't going to be a problem in the future, it's a problem right now ... for the real people of San Pedro de Casta

Marcahuasi has been converted into a smokeless factory, for all of the locals, and also for some people that want to exploit and export the mysteries of the sacred mountain. Nowadays we can find the name of MARCAHUASI in hotels, restaurants, web pages, blogs, tents, music, etc. We need to better know Marcahuasi so that it feeds not just our curiosity but also a truth that compromises us to do something to preserve this petrified valley.

I don't believe that Marcahuasi is the refuge of an oppressed society, beaten down by the system, and neither is it the place where we part with our heavy burdens to cheat reality, or that we arrive at the summit to calm some inner madness, or to receive some alien sensation. Marcahuasi concentrates in us so that we consume the truth of its mysteries.


Marcahuasi gives us the opportunity to find ourselves in the middle of this beautiful scenery, and this certainly is a natural reality, that us lovers of the plateau delight in.



Actually there are people from Peru and also foreigners that love Marcahuasi, it hasn't changed, and they are working within their means so that this plateau is respected as it is, and that it is conserved in its pure and natural form. But we also need such tourism to be well-organised and for the tourists to be well informed.

The truth of Marcahuasi goes further than its forgotten sculptures, further than all of the people that ascend here and receive pain and peace at these altitudes, the adventurous society that wants and demands reasoning, they will continue ascending and descending the winding paths of the sacred mountain, with the hope of finding something new, because in this place there is a lot that still hasn't been told to us.

[Read the original blog post (in Spanish)]

Next part : A day in Marcahuasi

Photos : John Ysrael Guevara

Monument of Humanity

Immense sculpture that quietens our senses, cyclops that awakes you, a monument that is so discussed and admired, it invites us to dream about the lost prohibited truth. A sculpture that hands us a torment of silence, a burst of stranded questions.



A perpetual silence that is resigned to quieten everything. A profile that asks for you ...


"The head of the Inca", "Peca Gasha", "Monument of Humanity" - however you know it, it has converted into the symbolic principal sculpture of Marcahuasi. This personality is chosen for the cover of books, magazines, posters, guides, blogs etc. And it flies around the world with its shout for justice and freedom. To be in front of this sculpture gives you a sense of emptiness, because of the infinite exclamations that are received.

Here is the truth, here is the unknown, here is a broken time, here you have the subject and the object, here we drown ourselves in questions, because this monument is destined to captivate us and amaze us.

... When I am alongside these faces ... I search for a divine service, a spiritual power, to know the truth ... here energy flows, here it lives, and it hides the mystery of Marcahuasi


Turning around the sculpture we find an evolution of faces, from the ancient wild, to the actual, and to those of all races. One night, contemplating this sculpture by moonlight, I described it as a character of 50 to 60 years of age, with new hairstyle, a stare shooting at the sky, intellectual, but I don't know if it was male or female, short or long hair, white or black, and really it has a bit of everything ... but that face ... that mouth ... those lips that moan and that clamber for justice and freedom, with a perpetual shout, quietening the sacred mountain ... "Please give me another chance".



Almost as if after sunset somebody would appear quietening its shout for freedom ... that face, that mouth, those lips, will continue freezing our admiration, I don't know how long for.

At the monument of humanity, some tourists arrive making offerings, payments, rites, asking for or thanking for some spiritual mystical, esoteric, chamanic effect. This sculpture produces a meeting, an opportunity, and it's not enough to touch it, to look at it, because all of the expressions on its faces hipnotize you right down to your soul.

The relation between this monument and you are the strange vibrations that transport you to have unknown perceptions. All of the time that I visit the monument of humanity has always been a different experience, a new feeling, of hope, of respect, and also of sadness. One tourist said "this character receives me and bids me farewell, it's impressive, the best ... and for that I return. Please take me a photo, but with that profile ..." He didn't give me time to chat longer, just thanks and goodbye, and went down to be with his friends ... but at frequent intervals turned to look at the monument, I don't know when it was with nostalgia, or to involve himself in something deeper.



Face that reflects sadness, emptiness and pain, a punishment of the petrified Gods


The shades of white and black produce a beautiful imposing contrast in the momument of humanity. These contrasts freeze and overwhelm you, because every side of this sculpture is very beautiful.

The monument of humanity represents many things that living man doesn't understand, a simple view of the sculpture generates a strange incredible emotion. I don't believe that this sculpture is the creation only of Daniel Ruzo. Here it is thousands of years disobeying time and man. To describe this sculpture, perhaps it lets me be dragged away by the telluric passion and energy that you feel in this place, and that exaggerated passion that makes you live a conflict of possible interpretations, an eternal romance with a silent lost forgotten past.


The romance is not only mine, but also that of all visitors that put themselves in front of this cyclops. We are the links in the union between La Peca Gasha and man. Sometimes I've found myself alone here with the monument, and it was as if the silence that bathes you had a voice. I've felt its loneliness, the fragrance of its mystery, the abandonment of the Gods, the freshness of the wind, the grass and the clear blue sky, and experience that I will never forget.



Osiris, please forgive this Egyptian for staying in Marcahuasi, the fault of some foreman.

I'm not idolizing this sculpture. Every visitor will have a new different story to tell, every encounter with this character will be an adventure that will blind your senses, will bury your questions, and you will design your own hypothesis. They will confound the Ufologists, esoterics, archaeologists etc and, with a "sarampion ruciano", you and I will continue loving and admiring the monument of humanity, because it isn't just by chance, IT IS A TRUTH OF MARCAHUASI


[Read the original blog post (in Spanish)]

Next part : Marcahuasi and reality

Photos : John Ysrael Guevara