To Build a Home

Here’s to tell you more about Helping Hands Cusco and the work I have been doing the last two weeks. Before you read on, please check out the following link which explains exactly what Helping Hands Cusco is all about: http://www.helpinghandscusco.blogspot.com/p/about.html

where we work: Jardin de Ninos San Gabriel

Most if it happened by word of mouth: Kwinten had met someone who had worked at Helping Hands Cusco while he was on the road in Ecuador, and had recommended it to him dearly. In Cusco, we contacted the organisation to ask if they had need for two voluntary workers and they immediately said YES. The only thing that was of absolute importance to me was that I have sufficient time to work on Munay. When I told Rosita and Mario this, they smiled and said: “It’s summer holidays for our students so we don’t have any regular classes. We need help in the jardin to build a house, and if you want, you can offer summer classes. But since it’s the summer holidays, we are quite flexible so you can determine your work schedule yourself.”

Incredible! I was delighted. What more could anyone hope for? These conditions were more perfect that I could have hoped for. So we packed our things and moved to the district Los Nogales, some 20 minutes outside of touristy central Cusco.

Apu Pikol over Los Nogales

My work began in the garden, and with such a passion for plants, I shook my head in surprise and thought to myself: you can’t make stuff like this up. It was too good to be true. I dug my fingers into the rich Cusquenan soil, worked with potatoes and cut the lawn old-school: with large shears. It was fantastic. The whole time with a breathtaking view over Cusco, watching the planes arriving from Lima and landing at the airport just outside Los Nogales.

can you see the plane?

After a few days, I joined the men in building a new house. Mario explained they needed a second house with two storeys, because they want the main house to be used only as a classroom. So they need an extra place for the childrens’ play den and for the tools.

The bottom half of the new building already existed when we arrived. Two neighborhood boys, Braulio and Armando, came every morning eager to help, to hammer, to battle the soft nails that simply refused to be driven into the wood straight.

like our ladder?

We’re all doing this for the first time and we learnt a lot together. It was trial and error: planks of wood that stood crooked instead of straight, measurements we messed up, nails that were driven into soft air. But we learnt, and we learnt quickly. Mario is a fantastic guide because he is relaxed and motivating at once. The perfectionism I know from Germany doesn’t exist here; instead it is a genuine love for building and an intense ingenuity whenever confronted with a new problem. What I really like is where some people might not even begin because they don’t know how to do something, Peruvians will laugh and say: “Let’s give it a try! Let’s be professional!” And when it goes wrong, they laugh again and say: “Ahhh… doesn’t matter. Leave it like that, it’ll be fine.”

the greatest pleasure is to work under such a beautiful sky!

Work cannot be done without fun!

all work and no play makes us all dull boys!

the delight of flight

And as the storms over Cusco pass, I turn to the Andes to suddenly see a new moon quietly rising in the late afternoon . . .

the rising moon

And after a long day of hard work, of learning to saw wood and hammer nails through tin plates, of learning that we’re all actually better at this than we ever would have thought . . . OUR FIRST ROOF IS DONE.

Ritti and Mario feeling the greatest pride

Kwinten and I then took a break from building and turned our attention to teaching! Mario printed and hung out signs notifying the neighborhood that the new volunteers of Helping Hands Cusco would be giving English classes in the mornings, followed by football (Kwinten) and acrobatics (Ritti) classes in the afternoon.

We were told to not expect too many students on the first day, but that by word of mouth, we’d soon have more students than we could handle! And it’s true: every day, 3-5 new children walk in at all hours of the day and say: tambien quiero aprender ingles!

Kwinten teaching English

close up of some of our students

Peruvian are all crazy about football . . .

. . . but I am sure we can make them crazy about acrobatics too!

acrobatics with Karol

Annabel, Karol and Rosillo build a pyramide

After a hard day’s work, we walk home along the Macchu Picchu railway tracks in the district of Los Nogales, looking out over the Andes and at Cusco not so far away. Los Nogales is quite safe, even in the heart of the night. The only problem are the dogs, which are literally taking over the neighborhood and do not hesitate to bite. I was cornered by a dog the other day but saved by a friendly lady who came running at it with a stick. Optimistically I said: “Thank you so much! But I’m sure he wouldn’t have bitten me!” She looked at me in surprise: “Ofcourse he would have. He bites a lot.” Damn, I keep hearing too many horror stories of dog bites, it’s giving me the Fear.

Here are some impressions around Los Nogales:

at the ruins of Wayna Tauqaray, currently being uncovered and restored, but mostly abandoned

a rather wet day outside our window

a door of perception

And in the evenings: Munay. Not every evening, you’ll understand, but when she lets me, when I understand something new. I’m finding a great richness in writing in Cusco because aspects that I had not considered beforehand are now playing a greater role, such as water or food. I had a few ideas as to the role food plays for the flying people – but with the difficult and sometimes feisty role food plays here, I’ve been given a few new ideas. Same with water: especially since the water in our apartment is turned off every night at 9pm and doesn’t come back on until 7 in the morning. So we have to save water religiously in buckets (which I love) and this has seeped its way into Munay…

Munay is coming along well.

Peru is the well of my inspiration.

The Coriolis Effect In My Writing

I’ve been looking forward to writing this post for over a month now, because I want to use it to sort my ideas on Munay out and achieve the clarity and sense of direction that I need in order to write the novel with the speed of a TGV.

I first had the idea for Munay in the spring of 2011, a few months after finishing work on my first novel Qayqa. The idea came from a friend who was considering translating Qayqa into German, and upon reading the entire manuscript, one of the things he said was: “I thought the flying people were going to play a more significant role. They are so interesting, it’s a shame they are only present in the first chapter. I kept waiting for them to return.”

I hadn’t expected that and his comment pleased me greatly. I have always enjoyed in creating interesting side characters who are three-dimensional enough to be believed, but who only hint at a world larger than the 180 degrees I am offering in the novel. I like doing that. In The Garden of Beautiful Lies it was the cracks of the wall, with their beady little eyes, who crawled off the wall and followed the main character around like a congress of spiders. In Qayqa, it was the flying people. They were never meant to be more than interesting side-characters, who fill the imaginary world with their colours. But then, I thought: why not. Why not add an additional chapter on the flying people… They would be three-dimensional enough for a short story… Or… how about… a NOVEL? But this time, not watching the flying people from the outside, as I did in Qayqa. This time, I’d write from the inside: about a person, a woman, who discovers that she is one of the flying people. And so Munay was born.

sitting on the railway tracks that go to Macchu Picchu, writing. "Seems like a silly place to work," my friends say

As with Qayqa, the word “munay” is Quechua and means: “the power of love and the power of will combined”. I sometimes doubt if this is the right name for it, but so far, it’s stuck.

In the wintery spring of 2011, I escaped for a few days to a convent in Bonlanden and wrote the first 20 pages of Munay. After that, she had to wait in line behind The Tailorettes of Ulm. It wasn’t easy making her wait, because – much like with fever – writing needs to be taken care of when it grips you. So I swore that I would dedicate all my energy in 2012 primarily to writing. And here I am now, in Cusco: writing.

Cusco seemed to me to be the perfect place to write Munay because it is home of the same magical energy that I imagine flowing in the book. In Cusco, everything seems possible and nothing seems like a coincidence. Additionally, my writing is rooted strongly in my Inca ancestry, so what better place to collect information and gain inspiration than the old capital of the Inca empire?

Then came the clouds. Those damn clouds and how they drove me mad. They were all I could talk about and all I could see.

Imagine planning a book on people who can fly, and suddenly discovering that you are at the same altitude they would be flying at – that you are suddenly driving through the very clouds they would be flying through! It bent my head.

And in the Andes, you are all the time so close to the clouds. Walking around the islands of Lake Titicaca, I commented to my friends: “Do you see that? We’re higher up than the cumulus clouds. We can look down at the clouds!”

I had the idea that if I was going to write about people who can fly, I’d need to know about how that affected them both physically and emotionally. I needed to know how that sort of air and light exposure affects the skin. In Qayqa I had written that they seemed constantly distracted, “as though they had just looked at mountains”, and faded into a blur as a collective. In order to fly, I thought, they must have no egos, for the ego is a heavy, materialistic thing of the earth.

But I also felt that in order to help them fly, I needed to know about the sky, about wind, about clouds. Coincidentally, my father has a pilot license and several interesting books on meteorology. Apart from informative conversations with him, he lent me this big orange book I have been dragging around Peru with me:

"Hang-gliding With the Weather"

Ask me about the Coriolis Effect. I dare you.

So while I am collecting information on the sky, comes the next issue: the Voice. In Munay, I wanted to expand on some of the things I had only hinted at in Qayqa. With a main character who is one of the flying people, I can explain what the caravans smell like, how they decide where to travel next, and the role the cook, Ti, really plays in this life.

But how do you write something like that? For a while, I was considering deleting the 20 pages I had written because I feared they sounded more like something out of the Twilight Saga. I considered starting the book after she has joined the caravans – the problem with that is, it would defy the purpose of now having the freedom to expand on what I had only hinted at in Qayqa. There’s no way around it: I have to set the mood, I have to explain how my main character gets there.

I once knew a group of flying men and women – I was one of them. I remember the day the caravans arrived at our village and I remember the evening when they opened to the public for the first time. As colourful as trees in autumn, the wooden caravans stood side by side in the dark. Like coquette ladies, they twinkled with candles and flirted with colours, images and words. O the caravans were beautiful! Decorated with colours that glowed long after the sun had set, attired with carpets, mirrors, ship figureheads and wind chimes. One caravan sold ice-cream and smoothies with exotic ingredients: rose petals, Moroccan mint, rhubarb or cashew. Another sold charms for good fortune, pleasure or money. Each caravan proved itself to be a unique library of the world, a safe harbor for the world’s cultures, with all its their delightful artifacts, knowledgeable books, music, spices, plants and drinks – all condensed into a travelling showcase: into knowledge on the road.

I have this worry about the voices because Munay won’t let me write her chronologically. Qayqa was different: she was like the spoiled girl next door who decided when she would let me play with her. Sometimes she’d let me into her world for one sentence, sometimes for a paragraph; and then she’d bang the door shut and keep me out for a month. Teasing brat, how we loved each other.

Munay, on the hand, is revealing herself to me in parts: “Here’s a piece for the third chapter, now a piece for the first chapter…” So I write them all down, transcribe into the word document, and then start cutting and pasting until I find its place in the novel. It’s all a bit… mad.

Now I have the idea of Two Voices: one which is the narrator’s slightly metaphorical but more down-to-earth tone; and another which is the metaphorical dreamlike language in which the flying people feel. I can use two voices to give the novel an added dimension and whisk the reader away, not only with the image of people who can really fly, but also with the emotions which fly within them.

I wanted to thank the people who sent me on this pilgrimage, but I have now understood that it was not people – but clouds – who sent me on this journey. Clouds whose scent of rain I chased. Clouds who drew me into their world with their uncompromising chiaroscuro, whose bodies called me like lovers, offering safe passage through the realms of their dark stomaches to the royalty of their white peaks.

Clouds whose evasiveness was the most honesty I ever received in life, telling me nothing is stable, nothing is sure. If you want to walk, walk with great care. If you want to fly, don’t use anybody’s wings but your own. Everything that is solid is only solid because it can collapse one day.

 

With two voices, I have the structural language for the narration and dreamlike language for the emotions.

I have a basic timeline; I have literary landmarks of what is going to happen. I need the two voices because, to be honest, I don’t feel as though I am writing Munay. I feel as though I am filling in the blanks of the story line. As though I am building a house not with structure, but with passion. Saying: “We have three bricks but we’re not going to build one wall with them. Put one brick down for the floor… put another brick up for the roof… and put the last brick out there for the driveway.” Running back and forth with ideas and words.

I am terribly excited to be working on Munay, especially in Cusco! The only difficulty is that this book feels like a head with a hundred knots and I never know which one to follow to the root first. I never know which chapter to work on; which story landmark to use as a narrative destination.

So I walk around and up the hills near our apartment, hoping for inspiration. Or I sit and look at Cusco and feel my heart get bigger with the love I feel for it.

Or I look at the clouds outside the window and say to them: Okay, tell me what to do next . . . What can I write now? 

a window full of clouds

The clouds are becoming a metaphor for so many things. It’s actually quite exciting to see for just how many metaphors I can use the clouds, the sky, the atmosphere. I was just hoping for a bit more of a direction, but I guess if you’re secretly writing about clouds, then direction is the last thing you can hope for!

Here’s a colourful metaphor I just thought of on what it’s like to be writing Munay: writing a book on flying is as though the Coriolis Effect were at work in the stratosphere of my writing. Nothing flies (writes) the way we expect; everything is getting deflected and lands elsewhere. I suppose that when you’re writing about the air, you have to keep your eye on the sky and watch where inspiration will land.

Delightfully Bad Blogging

No, we are not throwing my beloved blog to the dogs. It’s been challenging keeping the blog alive while on the road, mostly because when you’re on the road, well, you’re On The Road. You’re spending 12 hours on a night bus freezing and worrying because the bus is rocking to and fro like a boat on the high seas and you know that on either side of this narrow dirt road is a 1000 meter drop down the legendary Andes. Or you’re trying to get on a boat to see the islands of Lake Titicaca but the boat engine goes up in smoke five minutes after boarding.

Or you ate fish after midday and nursed the worst stomach ache of your life for two weeks, during which everything else (even the blog) can go straight to hell. You’re trying to find a ladder so that you can break into your hostel room at 7 in the morning after New Year’s Eve, because the hostel staff lost your key, have no spare or master key (“What’s that?”), and are calling you a liar in Quechua. You’re standing on the side of the road at 11 at night, sadly watching a stranger drive off with everything you own because you put your rucksack in the boot of his car, and the switch to open it broke. So you tried to dismantle the car with friendly, but drunk strangers (one of which keeps serenading the event and demanding payment for his singing afterwards), and you now know how to remove the backseat of a car. You also know about the gallon of gas right behind that backseat, which will blow if you – or any of your new drunk friends – keep rattling at it so hard.

Or you’re not sleeping well because a drunk man broke down your hostel door at midnight, locked himself in your toilet, and shouted that he was never coming out again. You’re running across the Panamericana in the middle of the night, dodging fast whining cars and double-decker transcontinental buses, only to jump on a motorbike pulling a carriage with several planks missing, so you have to stand with your feet wide apart and hold on tight, and you laugh and shout at the stars because the night is so warm and with this, you have taken a ride on just about everything.

And inbetween all this madness, you’re laughing with your heart in your mouth because all your troubles are so unnecessary, they can only be called banal and laughed over heartily. “Fog has never been an issue in my life before,” Rose commented. “Neither have car boots,” I replied. And let’s face it: this madness is too absurd to take seriously and everything else is seriously The Most Fantastic you’ve ever had. Because while you’re learning to pray on a dodgy bus, you realize that you’re intensely happy with your life and if this is the way to go, then hell, why not.

You’re meeting people you have the most intense conversations with, because you know you’ll be gone in the morning and NOW is the only time to meet. What they have in common? They all keep blogs and they all have the film “Into the Wild” on their netbooks. I told my dreams to a young man I met in Arequipa, Alex, who replied: “I call all my travels a leap of faith and I think it’s important to understand when that is what they are. It sounds like you also have to take that leap of faith.” And I carry those words still. It was the quickest and deepest conversation I have ever had, in which we both explained the essence of our Selves in 10 minutes. Thank you Alex! Follow his beautifully nurtured blog: www.asianbackpacker.com  It’s worth it, because he’ll be on the road for another year: he’s off to see all of  Asia once he is done with all of South America. His blog shows a beautifully designed plan to all the madness.

But I digress. You watch all your belongings depart in the stranger’s car and discover in the days that follow, how little you actually need in life. How lucky you are to have found new friends who will give you toothpaste/underwear/rum/shirts. Thank you to our angels, Hanna and Harold! And when the belongings are finally returned, you look at the huge rucksack and wonder what the hell to do with so much stuff.

And on every bus: the most breathtaking landscape. At every hostel: a home and new friends. With every stomach ache, a new lesson: beware the ice cubes! Beware salad washed with tap water! Beware fancy restaurants! Sometimes the cheaper roadside places are safer. And above all: the Peruvian cuisine is undoubtedly among the finest in the world, but not every stomach can digest easily at 4000 meters above sea level so always drink coca tea after a meal! I can never stress that enough: COCA TEA IS THE WAY FORWARD. Put away your fancy pills and drink coca tea!

And while you can find internet cafes in most places, you rarely have the time to actually sit in them. Nor is their connection fast and the computers usually won’t accept your USB stick with the photographs you so meticulously selected and resized into blog-friendly size. Plus the salsa music playing at top volume is more than slightly distracting. As are the little children who like to slap bloggers with fly swatters and eat your dreadlocks.

So in the spirit of Delightfully Bad Blogging, this is how I have decided to tell my story. . . Here are the pictures.

Because at the end of the day, few words could never describe the intense, beautiful, absurd, unnecessary, astonishing and breathtaking experiences of the past month in Peru. I’d need to write a novel on the month of January. And I’m already writing a novel – one whose progress I really wish to communicate with you, world, and therefore, only this once, I will say this: Pictures Speak Louder than Words. Only this once. Enjoy.

After Cusco, Rose Patton and I left for Puno with our storyteller friend Najeeb Khan. Here is Najeeb’s well-groomed blog with his travels around South America: http://www.najeebkhan.com/

at Lake Titicaca with Rose Patton and one trusty rucksack for two adventurous ladies

as the engine of the boat erupts into smoke and almost catches fire, most passengers escape to the roof of the boat to see if they need to swim back to shore. Najeeb, Rose and I sit on the front of the boat and laugh at "Lake Titicaca SEEMED like a good idea at the time...!"

eventually we are moved onto another boat with a tourist group, of whom we shamelessly pretend to be a part of, and set off to see the Floating Islands!

first view of Uros, the Floating Islands

the Floating Islands. No photoshop, I swear, the colours are REAL.

Rose on the Floating Island, poking about

on to Island Amantani, where we will spend the night! And again, I swear no photoshopping has been done on this picture. As I took the picture, I knew no one would believe me...

... and it's beauty is enough to get the Pocahontas face out and say: "This land is OUR LAND."

On the boat, the sweetest lady from California, Kelly, tells us her story: she came to Peru several years ago on what was meant to be a short holiday, FELL IN LOVE, and has only returned home twice since then! She is now married to said lucky man and they run a tourist business together. Peru is packed with stories of people who came "only for a short time" and have been here ever since. Isn't it?!

Upon reaching Island Amantani, Najeeb, Rose and I climb to the Tataypacha Temple and this is the view around us…

Tourist offices will try to flog your bank account, so don't let them! We (actually Najeeb and Rose - I can't look anyone in the eye without breaking down and agreeing to whatever ridiculous price) haggled a boat price of 30 soles return, to visit 3 islands over two days. Locals on the islands offer their extra rooms as "Registered Accomodations" for the price of another 30 soles, including FANTASTIC beds, breakfast, lunch AND dinner. We had the best sleep ever here!

Najeeb has some fantastic pictures of the island which I couldn’t take because my camera batteries run down, forcing me to enjoy everything without a lens. If he hasn’t written about Lake Titicaca with us yet, bug him on his blog!

Najeeb and Ritti back on the boat

watching the lake

Najeeb had a great laugh when I said this, but I'll say it again: on Lake Titicaca, you really feel that you can TOUCH THE SKY

back at the docks, we find another way one can enjoy the outskirts of Lake Titicaca...

back on land, we prepare to say goodbye to Najeeb, who crossed the border to Bolivia shortly afterwards. I gave him a copy of my short stories collection "Overripe Fruits", to leave at a book exchange or hostel somewhere along the road. I left a message in the book to whoever should find it, saying I would to hear where the book is now, how s/he found it, and what happened afterwards. I'm doing this with several copies, and I wonder if I'll hear from anyone!

back on another bus to another city

...and the kind of view that will kill you...

This is the view on the road to Arequipa, where Rose and I met up with Kwinten again to continue travelling together

I love this photograph. I loved hearing Rose and Kwinten chatter away about this and that so much, that in Arequipa, I sat them down and filmed them just talking. This picture was taken during a talking/filming break and I love it because I can still feel the glow between them of having had a very beautiful conversation and preparing for the next beautiful talk

unfortunately the weather in Arequipa was AWFUL. I took this picture on the one day it didn't rain in torrents: its the interior patio of our beautiful hostel. Can you spot my two travelling mates?

so we decided to pack our bags and leave Arequipa for the beach of Mollendo

...where Kwinten's bag was stolen with many of our books in it - unfortunately including my diary and all the writing I had been doing on "Munay". It was back to the drawing board after that. But Mollendo gave us the sun we desperately needed because we'd been dragging a cold around since Cusco and had forgotten what DRY clothes on our skin feels like

We then took a ten hour bus to Paracas to visit our friends in Pisco, who work at the NGO Pisco Sin Fronteras. Here, we have just arrived in Paracas at 7 in the morning

dodgy old tourist pelican

We travel on to Pisco, where our rucksacks get locked into a stranger's car and we don't see all our belongings for three days. Luckily we have angels in Pisco: Hanna and Harold, who organise a cheap hostel and give us everything we need, including a hangover breakfast of smoothies and ceviche

Rose's spirit remains high and beautiful as she frolicks on every beach she can find

travelling is almost over and I keep finding my favourite plant: brugmansias

we make our way back to Lima and ride EVERY mode of transportation available on this side of the earth. We say no to nothing!

Rose’s last day in Peru and we return to where it all began: the Parque del Amor in Miraflores, Lima. After Rose’s departure my second cycle of Peru begins, for I am staying here another month. Thank you Rose for EVERYTHING.

I don’t know if the pictures do the adventure and beauty justice. I was sometimes busier filming because I have a plan to edit all my material into short literature-filmlogs about Peru… So if you want more, you’ll soon get more! I’ve been experimenting on more ways of combining filmmaking with writing, and if I ever make it back to Europe, that’s one of the things I hope to continue working on.

So now you know a part of what has been going on, and this is what happened since: after Rose returned to England, I jumped onto the next bus back to Cusco with Kwinten, who is on his way to Bolivia over Cusco. After a surprisingly easy 22 hour bus ride, we arrived in the heart of the Andes and within days found work with a non-government organisation called Helping Hands Cusco. Blogs are the way forward: www.helpinghandscusco.blogspot.com 

We are now both doing voluntary work in Cusco and loving every second of it. Yesterday I was in charge of the greenhouse and all the plants (everything I had dreamed of!). Today I joined the men team and helped them build a house. My life in Cusco is voluntary work in the mornings and writing in the evenings. Munay is coming along well, I think, if with her pubescent ups and downs. And now that we’re up to date, I can finally write about the progress of Munay next, without wondering what on earth to do with all the pictures I had taken for the blog! So next time, more on the voluntary work for Helping Hands Cusco and more on Munay. Finally! Thank you.

No, thank you. 

Ayllu

the Road to Cusco (Through the Clouds)

All month, Rose has been saying: “You can’t always get what you want. But if you’re lucky, you’ll get what you need.”

Cusco wasn’t at all what I expected – but from the beginning, neither was Peru. And in hindsight, I feel almost naive to have thought that it wouldn’t dive in so deeply, wouldn’t move in so thoroughly to try to change my life.

knocked out by cusco

I went to Cusco expecting to meditate, to meet the Q’eros, to practise my Quechua. What happened instead was a very different story - and sometimes we people can be stubborn when it comes to a change of plans, to an unprecedented development. I’ll admit I kept looking to the mountains expecting a Deus ex machina, but the Deus ex machina was happening all around me, on the ground – in the form of an ayllu, a spiritual family.

They say “travelling is all about the people you meet”. If that is the definition, then our journey really began in Lima. This is the story:

Shortly before Christmas, Rose and I met Kwinten, a lovely lovely Belgian on a travelling quest through South America. He had been travelling for a few months by then and if you’re fluent in Dutch, or just love his photographs, then follow his blog here.

We bumped into him on a beach in Lima when he asked us to watch his surfboard. We began by chatting and suddenly dove into what I can only name “the Intimiacies Shared by People On the Road”: we spoke about politics and about life; about what we hoped to achieve in this life, to learn from it; about why we had left Europe and how we had changed since. Within minutes of introducing ourselves, he shared a sweet anecdote of working with mentally challenged childen in Guatemala and how he loved it when they called him “crazy”.

We got along so well that we made plans to meet that evening for a drink and then go dancing in Barranco. But when Rose and I arrived (too late) at the designed meeting point, there was no sign of Kwinten. We discussed the options: either he had arrived on time and given up waiting for us; or he had been exhausted from all the surfing and had overslept the date; or he had never really intended on going out with us in the first place.

Either way, we felt terrible for arriving so late and decided to do something about it. We knew his name and the street his hostel was on. The only information we lacked was the actual name of the hostel. “This can only happen to us,” we agreed with a laugh and decidedly started walking up Avenida Bolognesi.

We knocked on the door of every hostel we came across and asked if our friend Kwinten was staying there - all the while trying not to look like dodgy women scouting a strange man for money or drugs. It was a ridiculous situation to be in – but to be fair, some of the responses matched us in ridiculousness:

Ritti: “Good evening. We are looking for a young man from Belgium named Kwinten. Is he staying at this hostel?”

Receptionist: “No, he isn’t.”

Ritti: “You didn’t even check the registry books… Would you be allowed to tell me if he was staying here, or does that go against your hostel policy?”

Receptionist: “No, I wouldn’t be allowed to tell you if he was staying here, but I can tell you that he isn’t staying here.”

I had to smile at the logic and think: “I love this bizarre country.”

Rose and I walked on, knocked on, asked on – and three hostels later, stood facing a beautiful red building with the bright Christmas lights draped over its walls, under a sign that loudly proclaimed: HITCHHIKERS BACKPACKERS HOSTEL. We agreed: “This is it, this must be the right place.”

interior of the beautiful and now very memorable Hitchhikers Backpackers Hostel

Knocking boldly, delivering the (by now) well-rehearsed speech, only to be met by a smile from the young receptionist, who replied: “A Belgian guy, right? Yes, he’s here. I’ll get him.” We couldn’t believe our luck!

And down the stairs tumbled a disheveled and befuddled Kwinten. “I am so sorry, I overslept! I was just looking for your number in the Yellow Pages and in the internet, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. I am so sorry I didn’t make it to the meeting point on time!” Then his confusion caught up with him. “But… how did you find me?!”

In all of Lima, we had found our friend again. But not only that: Kwinten introduced us to the young Belgian entrepreneuer, Gabriel Goldberg, founder of the internet advisory company Semetis. Gabriel had arrived in Peru that evening and had walked into the hostel a literal 20 minutes ago. He had only just introduced himself to Kwinten when we knocked on the hostel door. It was his first night in Peru, a country he planned to visit on his 10 day leave. Within half an hour of checking into the hostel, Gabriel found himself in a taxi with Rose, Kwinten and I – three complete strangers.

this is the most beautiful photograph of our beautiful group, so although it wasn't taken on our night out in Barranco, I simply had to choose it to show US. Left to right: Kwinten, Ritti, Gabriel, Rose

We got along immediately. Otherwise we never would have gone out together. But again the rule of Intimacy on the Road won over Shyness or Fear of Impropriety. Rose, Kwinten, Gabriel and I drank, danced and laughed in Barranco that night, and when Rose and I returned to our apartment in Magdalena, we felt we had found friends for life.

We went separate ways after that night, with a vague intention of meeting up in Cusco for New Years. Kwinten travelled along the coast with his beautiful sister Marthe, and Gabriel’s plan was to fly on to Cusco the next day. He somehow landed in Arequipa instead. “What happened?” he laughed. That’s Peru. Nothing goes according to plan – because Peru has its own. If it has plans for you, you don’t even have to walk there. Peru will slip under your feet and take you where you should be.

Rose and I arrived in Cusco four days later.

Ritti and Rose at the famous Inka Wall with the Stone of 12 Angles somewhere behind us

We made plans to go horseback riding in the morning. And at 9 in the morning on the 30th December, we walked to the meeting point for the horseback riding tour, and coincidentally standing before it, hesitating with the befuddled notion of having been up all night on a cheap Peruvian bus with the Fear of God, as it bounced along narrow Andean dirt roads… was Gabriel!

He had travelled from Arequipa to Puno, and had realised, sitting on a boat on Lake Titicaca, that all the beauty in the world meant nothing if you have no one to speak to. So he got on the next bus to Cusco to find us. Of all the places he could have been in Cusco, of all the hours, minutes or seconds of the day, he had to stand before our horseback riding office, looking as though he were waiting for someone… “Thank god there are no coincidences!”

surprise reunion in Cusco

Being a brilliantly easy-going and spontaneous guy, Gabriel hopped onto the next horse and joined our horseback riding tour…

Kwinten and his lovely sister Marthe arrived later on the evening of the 30th. We were reunited. And our circles of friends began to grow… On New Years Eve, Rose and I shared a long dinner table with the most international group of interesting people ever. On his travels, Kwinten had met Harald, a tour guide working at Paracas (see Poetry in Paracas), who had, in turn, brought people from the social project Pisco Sin Fronteras to Cusco. I found myself sitting beside German, Canadian, British, Peruvian, Belgian and Dutch people: all among the most interesting and interested people I have ever met. Marielle, Emmie, Marthe, Gabriel, Duncan, Najeeb, Kwinten, Hector, Rose, Hanna, Harald. Each and every one of them had stories that could fill novels, humour that could split sides and sincerity that could warm you for days.

Over the next few days, Rose and I would spend all our time in Cusco with these people. “6 o’clock under the Inca!” The Inca statue on the Plaza de Armas was our meeting point and from there, we tackled the magic of Cusco; a magic we all felt.

Plaza de Armas in Cusco: "6 o'clock under the Inka!"

Something deep was moving within all of us and I knew, no matter who I sat beside over dinner, no matter who I engaged in conversation with, that it would be a deep and meaningful talk. I knew that each evening would enrich me in some unknown way, and that knowledge gave me an understanding of peace that in some way, even this was happening for a reason.

How often to do you meet a crowd of over 10 people, with whom you feel so comfortable and at home, with whom you can say: “I feel like I have already known you for a thousand years”?

"Old menu to read, old friends to speak to, old wine to drink, old love to remember"

It was the forming of a beautiful connection. Marielle, who has been travelling for several months now, replied: “Yes, you meet nice people, but this group of people, the way we all connected, was unique and special, and we were very lucky to have found it.”

Everyone got along, everyone laughed. And looking back at those photographs, I can only think: we look so happy.

An ayllu is a spiritual family, and for a week in Cusco, an ayllu is what was formed. It wasn’t at all what I had wanted, but it was what I had needed. The intimacy of strangers on the road. Realising how much you needed that hug. Arranging to travel onwards because we have the same path in mind and we already trust each other enough to share hotel rooms. And a part of us couldn’t help but say: “None of this would have happened if we hadn’t met Kwinten on the beach at day.”

The town Cusco derives its name from the Quechua word qosqo, which means “bellybutton”. The Incas named the capital of their empire thus because they believed it to be the bellybutton, the center, of the world. Everyone I have spoken to has agreed: something about Cusco is indeed magical. Magical things seem to happen there with ease, simplicity – and joy.

And while I took to the mountains occasionally and meditated, I felt as though my daily meditation was actually in speaking to these people, in laughing with them when they told a brilliant story, or hugging them when they shared sudden intimate sorrows.

Sitting on a wall in the Plaza de San Blas, watching the sun set over the mountains that cradle the valley of Cusco, I saw one by one, the houses of Cusco light up for the night and I felt: this is the place to write Munay, up here, where you can almost touch the clouds.

A proximity to the clouds becomes very important when you’re writing a novel about people who can fly.

In Cusco, I visited all the museums I had wanted to see, I visited the shrines and ruins that I felt that called me, and performed my little meditation rituals. I was especially delighted with the Musem of Sacred Plants (and highly recommend it to everyone), because Perú has such a great history of medicinal plants and it’s especially fantastic that Peruvians are giving their shamanic and medicinal history (and present) such a worthy examination and presentation. Until a few years ago, shamanism and plant healing rituals were spoken of degradingly as ”money-stealing witchcraft”; today the ayahuasca plant is acknowledged as a planta maestra (teacher plant), its healing rituals are offered by even the poshest of hotels, and the private Musem of Sacred Plants opened to honour Perú’s proud position in medicinal history.

Ritti Soncco at the Museum of Sacred Plants

magical objects used by modern shamans during healing rituals

coca leaf offering for Pachamama

And during all my wanderings and Really Deep Thoughts, a little voice kept whispering: “… but… there is more… and if you stay… I will show you… “

with such breathtaking landscape around Cusco... how can you leave?

And so I left Cusco with the strange knowledge that I will be back. I have to go back to write Munay, but also have to go back because I wasn’t done yet. There’s more to discover, more to understand. Cusco opened its arms and I long to lie in them. If I had been born in Cusco, I could perhaps understand this connection better. All I can say is: it feels as though I was. I feel so at home here.

Sacsayhuaman

Ritti at Sacsayhuaman

Connected at Sacsayhuaman

visitors meditating with the rocks of Sacsayhuaman, which are believed to have healing properties

So, my dearest friends, I am now doing my utmost to prolong my stay in Perú. My return flight is in a week and I find that I can’t leave just yet. Munay chose her place of birth – I have to go back to the clouds. I promise to write more on that next time. It’s not an easy decision to come by and I still have to iron out all the details, but I will tell you all about it this week.

Soncco Travel: Travel by Heart

Thank You Very Much to our beautiful new friends for making the start of 2012 so memorable and intensely beautiful. Please stay in touch! And Thank You to Marielle, Kwinten and Rose for the use of their pictures for this post.

The Place To Be is the Sky

No one else wanted to fly with me but I hadn´t travelled all the way to Nasca to not do it. All my childhood my fascinated parents had told me of the various wonders in Perú, but flying over the Lines of Nasca had never been included in the family outings. This time, however, we were driving to Cusco by road, stopped at Nasca, and I didn´t care about the prices anymore. I felt: this is part of your Peruvian heritage, this is something you must see.

We booked into the Hostel Friends’ House on Avenida Maria Reiche, named after the German archaeologist who dedicated her life to decoding the mystery behind the Lines. We had a very good conversation with the owner of Friends’ House, Maria, who offered to organise the flight over the Lines for $95. I’m told this is quite the offer and after translating it into euros, I decided that although it was over my original limit of $75, well, how often do you fly over the Lines of Nasca?

Since no one knew what time the flight would be, Maria kindly promised to wake me. But the street did that for her. I was up as of 5 am, being blared at by taxis. By 8 am a car came by to pick me up. Accompanied by more adventurers, I was driven to the Nasca airport - a small airport in the desert which had been opened only for planes to fly over the Lines.

There was much waiting going on in this small airport. Patiently, everyone sat with the looks of people who understood that the Peruvian Patience was a unique limbo in which no amount of complaining could ever help. Things would happen… when they happened.

the Waiters Waiting

My passport information was written down, I was weighed, tapped down and my camera was closely scrutinised. I was then led to wait with three fellow Germans who expressed obvious skepsism as to just what they were doing there. They were a family: parents visiting a travelling daughter, and only the father had ever been in a small Cessna airplane. We compared all the horror stories we had ever heard on the flights over the Lines: “The wind is awful, it´s so turbulent everyone throws up on the plane”, “they fly like madmen, everyone throws up on the plane”, “the pilot just told me proudly that everything will be okay, their last accident was a whole three years ago”.

I was terribly excited. My father has a pilot license, so I have spent many childhood hours in Cessnas. I had no fear there. I just wanted to get up in the air and see these lines I had read so much about! On the drive to Nasca, we had stopped at the red-laddered watchtower, climbed it for 2 soles and seen our first two Nasca Lines: the Hands and the Tree.

HandsThe Tree and Trapezoidal Lines behind it

Poetry in Paracas

My comrades! I have been meaning to write sooner but the inevitable has taken a train and is now cheekily waving from the horizon. What I mean is that time is flying and my head is spinning. There is much to write, much to catch up on – especially since my good friend and project manager Rose Patton has arrived in Perú and we will embark on our first big adventure very soon: into the highlands we will go to spend New Years in Cusco at 3,400 meters above sea level. But here is what happened last week . . .

Venturing south of Lima to see the towns Chincha, Pisco and Paracas, we found ourselves getting into a speedboat one morning to see the Islas Ballestas, famous for being the home of thousands of birds, penguins, sea lions and even dolphins – and for its high produce of guano. Guano is a bird excrement which is a very effective fertilizer (my brugmansias back home love it) and one of Perú’s major exports. As I had heard a lot about the beauty of the islands, and as Rose loves the romance of speedboats, we joyfully boarded – without a hat for protection.

Rose Patton and the Trusty Swimvest

On board were mostly Peruvians but also excited visitors from Japan and Scotland. As the boat picked up speed and crashed against the water, we were repeatedly surprised by the higher waves that slipped over the edge of our boat and flew into our eyes, mouths and hair. The passengers screeched in delight and horror.

A lovely Peruvian mother confided her theory: “I think the captain of the boat is mad about something and now he’s letting it out on us!” She chuckled and covered her son with towels.

The boat slowed down as we approached the first island. The tour guide explained what we were seeing into a microphone in perfect English and Spanish. It was the famous Candelabro, a large-scale geoglyph that has been causing a stir among archeologists, those who hope we’re not alone in the universe and, well, everyone else.

El Candelabro

There are quite a few theories as to why this geoglyph was imprinted into the side of the island. It could have served as a beacon to mariners, much like the Northern Star. My favourite theory, however, was that it was created in honour of the San Pedro cactus, a powerful hallucinogenic plant which is common in the area and is still used regularly in shamanic ceremonies. Here is the cactus by the ruins of Inkahuasi (more on Inkahuasi in the next post!):

San Pedro cactus at Inkahuasi

After half an hour on the speedboat and not a dry strand of hair on our heads, we approached the beautiful Islas Ballestas . . . And thousands and thousands of birds . . .

As soon as our rowdy speedboat approached, the startled birds took to the skies and performed what Peruvians like to call “a baptism” unto the unwitting adventurers without hats . . . or with open mouths! While Rose got a spot of precious guano onto her arm, a poor little boy staring up at the birds in fascination recieved a baptism . . . in his mouth! What a thing to happen. He panicked and shortly after fell into the deep sleep of shock. His mother demanded some alcohol to revive his spirits but there was none onboard. We all learnt that the Islas Ballestas demand two simple things: wear a hat (or you’ll be washing precious, gooie guano out of it later) and always keep your mouth shut.

The speedboat raced mercilessly to the next island but slowed down as we approached its jagged edges. The birds stared at us in equal fascination as we stared at them. The small Humboldt penguins were spotted with cries of delight . . .

. . . and so excited were we, that we didn’t notice the sea lions until we were close enough to clamber onto the rocks and howl with them: howl at the sea, howl at the speedboat and howl all its joyful passengers like a secret animal circus giving a show for the tourists.

The sea lions basked in the sun with a glorious laziness that made us all envy their lives and question ourselves: why do we humans always create such a fuss? Why do we run in circles, have appointments, chase money, live in cities! So many creatures on this planet simply lie in the sun, gnaw at each others’ ears and occasionally swim with dolphins and jellyfish. A salty life of sleep and flippers. Who will make the first move?

I filmed as much as I could, capturing close ups of a sea lion picking a fight (or simply establishing again to his crew that he was their alpha male), of penguins and swallows - and as our speedboat turned to race back to the shores of Paracas, a flight of pelicans rose from the islands and followed our speedboat in a perfect V against the afternoon sun. It was a poetic farewall of the birds of the island.

To anyone eager to visit the Islas Ballestas (I already told you about that thing with having your mouth open), I need to say this: the ride back to the shore is rough. Waves sprayed over the boat edges from every side with such ferocity and spark, that all passengers rode with their heads down, desperately trying to pass out from the sea motion, the stinging salt in their eyes and the fact that they were becoming soaked through and through. To ride merrily in a speedboat: don’t sit in the back. Our poor friends from Scotland were in the last row and returned drenched and wind-whipped without a dry patch of life to their names. I thoroughly enjoyed the ride back and chatted away to anyone who would talk to me – which was basically no one. My father came along for the ride and he got a few priceless photographs of Rose and I smiling at his camera seconds after the waves hit our faces.

Back on shore I can only say this: what makes a town unique and an emerald to our memories, are the people. As Rose and I strolled along the beach promenade and poked through the colourful artesania shops selling jewellry made of sea shells, sharks teeth and sea lion fangs – we found Franco and his shop of creative wonders.

Franco's Shop

Franco is a creative artesano from Piura, in northern Perú. He travels throughout Perú selling his art but found great joy in being in Paracas because it’s good for business and not yet as tourist-swamped, unfriendly and dangerous as other shores can be. He fastens sea shells into woven necklaces and bent metal into quirky earrings for us on the spot. A braclet of his creation that fascinated me was a silver fork he had bent into a braclet, melting the teeth of the fork into Dalí reminiscence which held a purple spondylus shell in place. If you see me after Perú, check out the braclet on my right arm.

Franco speaks gently and carefully, looks you in the eye when he speaks and gives off a feeling of safety and honesty. He is the kind of guy you want to sit with all day, watching life pass by outside his shop and discuss the things in life that Truly Matter. When I asked him if it was possible to live only off his work as a street artesano, he replied with a soft chuckle: “Yes, it is possible, but only if you have no vices.” After a pause he added: “I have no vices.”

Ah Paracas gave us some poetry that day. It gave us the looks of baffled penguins, the startling baptism of birds, the growling of sea lions. It gave us strangers holding strangers hands as they laughed in fright at the ferocity of the speedboat and comforted each other that we would be on firm land very soon. It gave us pelicans rising as we turned away from the islands, pelicans who followed our speedboat against the afternoon sun like companions, like an ancient and wild ritual. It gave us an artist who said: “Take this green pearl. It used to be in my dreadlocks, you can have it for yours”; a man who chose an open road for his life, and as every day passes still believes that people are fundamentally good and it is worth living so close to them.

That was Paracas.

A Message at Pachacámac

Last week, I went to see the ruins of Pachacámac just 40 km outside of Lima. According to Andean cosmology, each person has an „itu“ or energetic portal with the world; a place of energetic transmission which is physically closest to one’s place of birth. I calculated that, according to this, Pachacámac would be my „itu“ and so I was quite excited to visit the ruins, poke around and see how it felt to be there. Pachacámac has, unfortunately, become a rather strict place to visit and I left the ruins feeling somewhat disappointed. Over the following few days, I tied myself up in knots wondering what exactly to take away from this experience – and what to write about it. Finally, after a tangled few days, came the following story . . .  

Once was a temple guarded by early Lima cultures, by Huari, by Inkas. Created by men who sought to mimick landscapes with an architecture meant to complement the desert – so perfectly that, when two millenia passed, men could no longer distinguish temple from hill, pyramid from mountain. She was a place of worship pretending to be a hill of sand. Until bricks of adobe and fragments of pottery began to seep out of her sand and glitter in the sun. A dig in the earth lead to an incredible shout: „Ruins! There are ruins here!“

Once again in Perú, appearances are illusions. A hill is not a hill. Those who claim: „I have nothing to say“ have the most secrets waiting. The desert points to its colourful past – to its canyons of secrets – to footsteps that walked silently past us in the sand and disappeared into a mirage… A hill is not a hill. Not here. Not today.

Still is a temple but „my guards never left me“. In the years when the sand covered her face and the people forgot that their eyes couldn’t tell them everything, there was no need to protect her. Sand and time created a vacuum of oblivion and she rested quietly, only disturbed by dogs digging up pottery or children pissing in the sand. As soon as the excavations began, the guards returned to her side. Once dressed in golden headgear, elaborate nose ornaments and wooden spears, they changed their uniform to match the new era. Now they have guns and whistles which they blow at tourists. They are as kind and friendly, as burnt by the sun, as they ever were.

They tell her they came because the government wants to preserve the ruins of their cultural heritage, but she knows they are the same guards from 3000 years before. They are returning because she is returning. Soon all her temples will be above ground and she will buzz with energy once more. The ruins are rising . . . the guards are returning . . . and soon, so will her worshippers.

Or are they already here? She has always attracted pilgrims from all over the world. They come to marvel – and to feed her mighty temples with their enthusiasm, their appreciation and a universal struggle to understand: who is she? 

„My visitors are treated strictly.“ Everything is forbidden, everything else is closely monitored. The guards blow sharp whistles at every suspicious move: standing too close, photographing too long – even asking stubborn questions. „We are going to be kicked out,“ her visitors think. The strictness of the guards is suffocating and constricting – especially in comparison to the otherwise relaxed Peruvian attitude. „It’s neccessary,“ a guard explained. „Too many walls were damaged, too many lovers had midnight trysts and left their refuse among the ruins. For now, you must make due with walking around the ruins and not through them.“

The workers uncover her. She says: “You think you’re preserving me but you’re actually restoring.” Restoring her to the minds of the people, who will awake in the morning and be astounded to see a familiar temple has risen from the sand. And one by one they come to her in the desert, touch her gently and say: „I think I remember your name, mamacita.“

She knows it was a prophecy: a new dawn of the Inka returning. A new era of consciousness, a return to living in balance with nature. All over Perú, the sands move aside and old temples reveal themselves. The old ways, who found refuge in the sand when civilisation became materialistic, now re-emerge from the literal desert. When we feel the change and wonder how live with it, we realise our museums can be our teachers, and our ruins can be our temples. 

This is the part of the Andean prophecy that is currently being fulfilled: the temples are not being restored; they are being prepared for the return of the Inka.

I later discovered that I had misunderstood something important about the word “itu”: it isn’t a man-made place of worshop but normally refers to a natural formation, ergo a mountain, lagoon, or the ocean. Rather obvious, actually, considering that Andean cosmology is all about returning to nature!

In my writing, I base much of my knowledge on and therefore wish to thank the following books and their authors: “Initiation” by Elizabeth B Jenkins and “Masters of the Living Energy” by Joan Parisi Wilcox.