Huchy Q'osqo

Everything is damp from moisture in the overnight air. Thankfully, the horsemen bring hot cups of matte de coca and coffee to our tents. This morning, though clouds still linger, it is thankfully not raining. After washing up in icy cold water and brushing my teeth, it's time for a hearty hot breakfast. 

Juan, don Martin and Francesco

Afterwards, Eva and I take turns stuffing gear into our duffle bags and daypacks. Soon our campsite is filled with upside down tents drying in the morning air before being packed away for later.

​Our hike, to Huchy Q’osqo, we learn was re-directed based upon a dream Adolpho had last night. The horse wranglers confirm that a spring he “saw” does exist by the village of Pukamarca. It is to this spring that we head.

After an hour or so, we glimpse the village of Pukamarca in the distance.

When we reached the spring (paqarina), we found a small frog. Sitting around the spring eating snacks, our morning discussion commenced:

• Jose Luis: Spoke about the cycles of water, and told us that dogs and frogs are the only animals that are considered to have souls. Thus, they are believed not to be part of the third domain of the Hanaqpacha (Animal World), but part of the fourth domain that includes humans.
  
• Don Martin: The frog is a symbol of Pachamama and the nuest’a dõna Mukala. When he saw the frog, he wondered aloud how it causes him to contemplate how he brings fertility and production to his people. “Frogs,” he told us, “are the keepers of the cycles of water. Everything depends upon water. Water is essential to animals and to people. We are made out of water. We are part of the great river of life. And, since we are all medicine people, we must examine how co-creation is held within us.” Don Martin’s teacher, don Benito Qorihuaman, taught him how to read the cycles of water. He tells us, “when water stops flowing in our life, we get ill. We need to find how our new life cycle (pacha) embraces and participates in Creation.” 
  
• Adolpho: Pukio (springs) are the way into the belly of Pachamama. Medicine people in the Andes (paqos) are also considered pukios. We need to develop our relationship with Pachamama. When there is a scarcity of water, a kollana paqo (high-power medicine person in the Andean tradition) makes an offering to Pachamama, and then uses meteorites (qorititi) to strike the ground and water is born. “This is the spring I dreamt of last night, which brought us here,” he tells us. "There are pukios that heal, cleanse and transform (e.g. Tambo Machay, Tipon, etc.). This frog may be one of the spirits of the apus or a metaphor to bring forth the pukio in us so that our families, friends and communities may thrive."
  
• A local villager: Hearing our conversation, the man sat down and told us that Pachamama creates relationships with frogs and snakes. Farmers, such as himself, read the little frogs with they get ready to plant crops. “If the frogs are skinny, that tells us we need to add the fertilizer of guinea pigs and llamas. If the frogs are big, we know it will be a good harvest.” He also told us that farmers in his village have learned from farmers who use commercial fertilizers that they are not seeing the little frogs or worms that transform the quality of soil. “We have been praying for rain, and perhaps this frog is an indication that it is coming.”
  
• Adrille: “We have lots of very little frogs in January and February when there is a lot of rain. When they stop singing, we know the rains will be stopping. When it is too dry, we call the anima of the frogs, and the rain comes.” He also told us there are two types of frogs — ones that call rain and ones that stop rain.

“Let’s do a haipay,” Adolpho suggested, “and call this pukio as well as the pukio that is within us all!” Within moments, bags of coca leaves are pulled out and we feed each other k’intus with our prayers that the river within flows long and strong, and leave one k’intu each at the spring.

After thanking the spring and the local man, we continued our hike towards Huchy Q’osqo. Before entering the canyon, we stopped on a large escarpment to do another haipay ceremony.

The canyon is beautiful, an old Inka "road" cuts through it along a small creek. Adrille assisted us on the steep descent by playing his recorder. At the base of the canyon, we stopped to look for nesting condors. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any. Once through the canyon, the road traverses a mountainside that runs parallel to the Urubamba River that is hundreds of feet below. Height challenged, this portion of the hike is teeth-clenching. Summoning the memberships I hold in my mesa, I calmed myself and proceeded with confidence.

Huchy Q’osqo is an archeological site that is also referred to as Little Cuzco. It is also the mythical home of Wiracocha.  Merta and Adrille took us on a short tour of the site, with its gorgeous views, while lunch was prepared.

After lunch, we organized our tents in readiness for nightfall and relaxed.

Late afternoon, Adrille read the coca leaves, which indicated that Jose Luis lead today’s despacho ceremony. JL asks us to make individual despachos, which are burned later that night in a cave alongside a creek that spills out of the mountain.

Another exhausting day — on all levels — and filled with so much to ponder. After our despachos were burned, I headed off to the warmth of my sleeping bag.

During the night, I lucid dreamed. In the dream, JL has been tasked, by Spirit, with bringing the altomesayoq cosmology into contemporary Western articulation  In doing so, the cosmology shifted towards sourcing directly from cosmic consciousness by unifying the feminine and masculine expressions into one ... 1+1=1. In my dream I saw a large dial, like a sundial, which was engraved with many symbols. An unseen “hand” moved the dial, which was pointing towards a shape that resembled a child’s drawing of mountains, to the right at a symbol denoting the Pleiades constellation. What does this mean? Medicine people would instruct me not to suffer pre-mature evaluation. For now, this will marinate in my subconsciousness.