A Meeting in Marcahuasi

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

Antropomorphic and Zoomorphic Forms

It has been said that the wind gives forms, forms that neither you nor I can understand, where the peace and pain unite. Calling you to Marcahuasi - summit of mysteries

The rocks, worked with surprising skill, with defined profiles, couldn't possibly be the result of a natural erosion of the wind and the rain. Or as Julio C Tello and Daniel Ruzo say, are the remains and works of some culture that lived on the plateau. Others say that the sculpturing of these rocks is the work of extraterrestrials, and there are also those that affirm that there was divine intervention here. Whatever is the true origin of Marcahuasi, the visitor will continue living with whatever enigma that they believe.

These sphinx, near neighbours of the sky, perhaps were made in honour of some Andean Pharaoh. Stay here and contemplate them so their evolution amazes you.

The petrified formations of this sacred mountain receive little or no scientific attention, and they deny that they are sculptures of a civilisation that lived on the plateau, but to understand the whole truth we need a large knowledge.

All of this megalithic scenery of forms confuses us, and the silence makes us desperate to know and understand the true message of these sleeping forms, for the benefit of human ignorance.

Despite the thousands of years of age of these antropomorphic and zoomorphic sculptures, and of supporting all of the inclemencies of the weather, continue and will continue amazing all of the visitors that arrive at the plateau, defying everything, and searching for the mystery behind every sculpture.

The whole collection of characters and animals, not only occupy the plain, but are also on the cliffs. The tourist will have to define the boundaries between real and unreal of these sculptures and their conclusions will be between what they see and what they feel, accompanied by an infinite questioning "Why did they represent all of these forms in stones ... why?"

The person who knows the Marcahuasi sculptures carries them forever in their heart. This ancient woman can be found on the cliffs, waiting for something to arrive or to leave, with everything, or nothing.

Marcahuasi is a place where the sun and the moon surrender, where God and man experience emotions of amazement, with so much petrified beauty. Where majestic sculptures jealously guard the sacred mountain.

The majority of young people, betweem 16 and 25 years old who visit Marcahuasi say that to arrive and find the sculptures that their friends have spoke to them about, moreover with the hope of one day having contact with the unknown and to find something that they don't understand ...

In a survey in 1991, some 48% of tourists said that when they arrived at Marcahuasi they discovered new forms and that these forms are what defines the endless unique greatness of the Andean plateau.

A lover of Marcahuasi doesn't need to wait for the solstice or equinox to be before these remains, made by nature by man or by something else. The fact is that any time that you find yourself here you will have a bath of magic sculptures, with history and silence.

"The tortoise" (daughter) only came to refresh herself at Cachu Cachu, and now goes to the hut in search of her mother. Thirty years ago I saw it and didn't find her, like now I don't find the truth about Marcahuasi.

The ancient people of San Pedro de Casta tell beautiful legends about these formations, that the visitor in each trip will continue getting to know and having a contact that ties them to the place, because en every corner of Marcahuasi the imagination flows, and this imagination will be more enjoyable with a hammering of return trips. Remains that reflect the anguish, the pain, the emptiness and the loneliness are expressions that have this resemblance, a shout for justice. This petrified cemetery, full of mystery and enchantment, will continue trapping us, and we will continue arriving in search of something, that something that drives you crazy to return many times, and we truly don't understand why.

"The indian" - only he knows what happens in the amphitheatre, a loyal guardian that silences everything. I've no idea if he's cold or is a revelling indian. I discovered him during a night with full moon.

The majority of tourists that arrive at Marcahuasi, product of the publicity created by Daniel Ruzo, invaded by his theories, want to find all of the sculptures that he publicised. But this place is for everybody, the petrified beauty of this mountain has no boundaries and its infinite forms are what you and only you will find.

One arrives at Marcahuasi to find the sculptures that you want, to search for the perfect angle, the appropriate hour, and the perfect day. This meeting with the rock makes this an interminable encounter, that you feel attracted by the beauty and the eternal nature of these monuments.

I don't know if it is lost, or resigned to continue, but this pony stays here.

I love the sculptures and have so much respect for this place, a place that has all of the characteristics of a sacred mountain, ideal for the tourist that wants more than an adventure. Despite the difficult ascent, the recompense for the sacrifice is gratifying. All of this property of antropomorphic and zoomorphic sculptures is found and interpreted by you one day in Marcahuasi.

[Read the original blog post (in Spanish)]

Next Part: Monument to Humanity

Photos : John Ysrael Guevara

Enigmatic Shadows

There are well defined shadows and we accept it, but what is impossible is to understand how they are formed in apparent complicity with the rocks, the light and the time.

If we arrive in Marcahuasi with our eyes open, and with aerials turned off we would have to go with the compass of our imagination solely, to be able to interpret all of this scenery of shadows that form perfect figures and a waterfall of emotions.

The appearance and disappearance of the shadows, perhaps is a forgotten technique that the people who inhabited the plateau used to use. A form of language and mystery.

Everybody that writes about the shadows that are born and die here in Marcahuasi, the plateau is a place of perplexities, of enchanted submissions, and where we are all free to think and wake the magic of the shadows - with the peace that only the sacred mountain wraps and invades us with.

Considering the bewitching shadows, I have no answers, but only questions : Are they the guardians of the mysteries of Marcahuasi? Are they messages about the immortality of the Gods? Are they punished spirits? Or are they demonic shadows that simbolise and transform in evil watchers of the plateau? Without doubt Marcahuasi is and will always be a place where truth is hidden, where the believers and the sceptics will feel the same emotion.

Will this be a guardian of Marcahuasi? The shadow of a spirit? - It is a hidden truth in Marcahuasi, that fills us with emotions and silence.

A tourist said to me "I feel a spiritual power ... feel the blessing of the Gods, when I stay contemplating the magic of the shadows". - without taking his eyes off the rocks, and without wanting to lose a detail, he remained close to the Egyptian Sphinx, marvelled and besotted with the enigmatic shadows.

Marcahuasi es the mountain of dreams, because every one that is found is different and beautiful, but the abyss of beliefs that there are about the shadows is something new that wakes in this new generation that arrives at Marcahuasi, with inspiration and freedom of imagination.

This is the meeting of an Andean monk with a visitor ... this or any other perception will always be a question of interpretation.

Everybody that lives this enchantment, illusion, and dream with the rhythm of the shadows, that are a test of faith. Once more I am trapped by the mystery of Marcahuasi - not only by what I see but also by what I feel - I take delight in the dance of the enigmatic shadows that come and go with the whim of the sun and weather.

Secrets that these shadows guard in silence and loneliness will continue being a mystery in this stone forest, and will continue intensely puzzling the visitor with this unknown universe called Marcahuasi.

[Read the original blog post (in Spanish)]

Next part : Antropomorphic and Zoomorphic Forms

Photos : John Ysrael Guevara

My First Trip

"The first trip to Marcahuasi for any visitor never turns out how they told us. It isn't how we imagined it; its legends, its shadows, and its enchantments are a question of returns ..."

All of the countryside forms part of the route from Lima to San Pedro de Casta, this adventure is full of suspense, of fears, and of extreme adrenalin ... for those that go for the first time.

There were many aspects that influenced me in going to Marcahuasi. Perhaps that book with the stunning title -Marcahuasi- that I saw in a central bookshop, many articles that I read, stories from friends that fed my desire to know that place. All until one day when a family member who worked in "Huinco" (town on the route to San Pedro de Casta) told me that he had been sent to Marcahuasi, because some tourists were attacked there. He described part of the journey and the place, becoming the burning enchanted call of the plateau.

It is three in the morning when in Chosica (a province to the east of Lima) I felt my bones snap. The avenue was full of backpackers and pickpockets, a cold quiet mist froze the desires and surprises of this adventure that had just started ... Echenique Park (Chosica), an obligatory day trip por every traveller that goes to Marcahuasi, was full of people drinking liquor, bottles passing from hand to hand, emptying gradually ... piled up dirty rucksacks on the urine soaked dusty footpath. All of this nocturnal countryside of uncontrolled crowds, kept company by the cold and the mist, was the start of a trip that left me annoyed, for the lack of organisation of the transport ... madness ...

To arrive at San Pedro de Casta (the town where you find Marcahuasi) was to live moments of fear on a windy road, with deep chasms at either side, with corrupt police and soldiers. From opportunistic drivers, and a dust that it was impossible to clean off, and like this we arrived leaving behind the sea, whims, offers, and all of the illnesses that God can't cure, not even hunger!

We knew that the system of transport was of a form of 20 years earlier. We accepted the challenge and its risks; everything to get to know Marcahuasi.

The square was full of backpackers, of guides, and mules. The tourist office was full of tourists with its staff doing everything so that all goes well, and the sun burning at 26 degrees, it received us and bid us farewell to Marcahuasi ...

In the square in San Pedro de Casta we awaited the hour appropriate for the ascent to Marcahuasi, we asked information, and bought what we would need on the plateau, and in this way freed ourselves of the comforts of the city.

Nobody will forget the first trip to this place, because of what happens to them, and how they feel, to go by the short or the long route the tiredness is the same, the weight of the rucksack is the same, and perhaps worse for others. When I made that trip, many times I regretted having come, with every slow step feeling like my legs were giving out on me, the air that my lungs wouldn't take in, and my voice silenced ... The obligatory rests that we took, only to ask other travellers "how much further?", and their responses that motivated me, in turn motivating others that were perhaps in the same state or even worse.

After four hours or more of gratuitive suffering, and when the sun bid us goodbye just before I found myself arrive at the Amphitheatre, I decided to camp ... since I couldn't manage any more. I paid tribute to my time as a novice adventurer, Marcahuasi treated me brutally on my first trip. But, despite everything, I arrived ... I arrived at a place that I had wanted to know for some time.

Here I camped for the first time in Marcahuasi, far from the Amphitheatre and the Hut; here I graduated as chef, guide and lover of Marcahuasi.

The trip was only for four days, but the provisions that we brought were enough for a month, meaning that we spent more time eating than getting to know the plateau. In this first trip I only went to the Hut where Daniel Ruzo lived, and to the Monument to Humanity. From the first instant that I saw it, it blocked my senses ... people confused me with their faces, and even more when they said "you have to see this thing, or that animal ..." "where ? ... where ?" I asked. "Over there", "That way". I remained in the same place amazed by the people, their exclamations, the countryside, and the majestic petrified monument.

Afterwards I spent a lot of time contemplating the town of San Pedro de Casta from the Cross (near the Hut), and all of the route that I had travelled to arrive, and from this altitude it has an impressive panoramic view of the union of the town and the plateau that made me forget the problems and sufferings. Just as the North American tourists do, wanting to record forever this moment, a photo here, another there, and time flies.

This is how I made my first trip ... and I started spending days of my life in Marcahuasi. To pick up the rucksack and prepare myself to go up to and down from the plateau, was for me to be an eternal witness - an accomplice, to say nothing or everything ... It is time to leave the plateau, I go down thinking of being soon at home, and I bring the smell of the rocks and the altitude, but the most curious is that I am also thinking of when to return. Everything that happened to me in this first trip, will always remain an unforgettable experience, and to write this post, it was very difficult to detail everything ... and I mean everything. There were other factors ... now the transport has improved a lot, but what Marcahuasi gives you en the ascent .... I swear that hasn't changed one bit!

"I don't know if in reality all of the hardships that I lived through to arrive at this place gave me suffering of happiness .... I only know that my thoughts and feelings are on a different frequency since that day"

[Read the original blog post (in Spanish)]

Next part : Enigmatic Shadows

Photos : John Ysrael Guevara

The lake at Cachu Cachu

"When I find myself in Marcahuasi, I feel that I'm being observed - and that I'm not alone -. But when I'm at the lake at Cachu Cachu I have a stronger feeling of the presence of something that lives there ..."

There are few people that camp at the lake at Cachu Cachu, to spend a night here with or without the moon is to be an accomplice of its perpetual silence, of its still quiet waters and of some nightly onomatapoeias. To be here is to consume a trilogy of healing with the rocks, the water and the silence.

... if you throw stones at the lake, they will produce large waves that will carry you away to your inner depths ... So say the legends, as told by the old people of San Pedro de Casta.

This place is full of age old legends, and of stories of UFOs that enter and leave the lake. In a trip I walk to the fort, we meet with a local about 45 year old and he says to us "I went to see my animals and when I returned to the low ridge, I saw there ... there where you see the dark mark ... was a flying saucer ... it was silver ... I stayed there without breathing for some seconds ... the UFO released a blue yellow noise and went that way (signalling the hills to the east) ... burning all of the grass, here is the mark ...". When I went down to the town I told the story to some german tourists, we came and they took measurements of the mark, that had a diameter of two metres.

Some were incredulous, and others surprised, and with a torrent of questions, the local left, saying ... "I must return ... I will be late..." We were left contemplating the lake with the truthful or fictitios mark.

The lake at Cachu Cachu is a small pool that the people of San Pedro de Casta maintain from generation to generation, and serves many things for the tourists and for the fauna of the plateau, and to moisten the lower parts of Marcahuasi. At the start of April it is beautiful, you see it full of water, picture perfect with the sky and the rocks ... giving the impression of seeing otters and crocodiles entering and leaving the lake. The tourists have a large imaginary freedom and around there to find the mystical cross, little hell, the fallen horse, the lovers, many more formations that this place hands you.

"... Who drinks the water at Cachu Cachu es compromised to return always ... it's a spell between you and the lake ..." another story to deligh your emotions.

Some years when the drought punishes the plateau, the lake appears sad ... to find it dry and powdery y dead of mystery, it was another adventure to know. There wasn't even a drop of water for the tourists, neither for the fauna of Marcahuasi. They were difficult times that us visitors will never forget, and I believe that the consequences of global warming started some time ago at these heights.

Cachu Cachu is a place of total inspiration, where nature meets, God and man, and where the spirit concentrates in one thing and nothing will stop us from finding ourselves ... to ask yourself what is our role in life and what does it mean. It doesn't scare me to launch myself into the space of the incredulous and describe what I feel and perceive in this place. Perhaps I simply try to hand back the energy that I receive in Marcahuasi and to share it with you.

"How different it is to be happy in the lake of Cachu Cachu"

The water of the lakes of Marcahuasi have certain curing qualities; on one occasion I met a group of older people holding hands, realising a hydrotherapy session. Some foreign tourists, disobeying everything, bathing and enjoying the icy waters of Cachu Cachu. Everything that they do here with a curing purpose and to feel ourselves comfortable and free, is and will be part of the adventure that has started and I don't know when it ends.

"To camp at this place is different to the hut, the amphitheatre, and the fortress ..." I'm joied at the lake of Cachu Cachu with you ... that's how I feel it.

As the lake of Cachu Cachu depends on the rain, here you will sit at the bank and on the hills, until the evening sunset gives you the opportunity to experiment with other sensations, because this place has a big influence on the being, and perhaps this meeting with the lake will gives you a vision of the truth.

"Water of Cachu Cachu you're going to take
for when you leave
don't forget yourself ever,
for when you are far
from me, you're going to rememeber ..."

[Read the original blog post (in Spanish)]

Next part : My first trip

Photos : John Ysrael Guevara