PERU

12/2000

A delightful little lake (2km x 3km?) named Lago Sandoval, deep in the Amazon basin down the Rio Madre de Dios, east of Puerto Maldonado.  I had the pleasure of exploring this enchanted place for a few days alone in a tiny dugout canoe.

The nearly-failed and physically taxing hike to the top of Huaynapicchu and to find the temple of the moon, near Machu Picchu. My companion was a local teenager named Juan Carlos who, although he lived but ten miles away, had never seen the ruins.  We set off with only a Nalgene of water between the two of us.  We returned, parched, to Machu Picchu and were delighted when the afternoon rains instantly brought the ancient fountains to life with clean, crisp, sweet, pure water.

Machu Picchu viewed from a llama's perspective.  Llama's can't read, or at least they don't want us to know that they actually CAN.

Panoramic view from the Machu Picchu site.  The mountinas are sheer, and the clouds drift in an out of this area called "cloud forest".  For perspective, check out the train at the base of the center mountain, at the town of Aguascalientes.  The thatched roof was added after the excavation, of course, but the buildings are originals.

Machu Picchu as viewed from Huayna Picchu (the peak in the background of the above sketch).

My Little Peruvian Girl, 2002. I actually shot this one in Julian just last year but I like to keep it with the Peru material. 

An Argentinean with whom I exchanged about 25 words and never saw again drew this in my journal.

The temples of Amantí. Amantí is an island on Lake Titicaca.  The people here are living in a traditional way and speaking Cechua, the not-insignificant language of the Incas (3 million native speakers today).  Although the Spanish conquerors very successfully brainwashed an entire continent with Catholicism, this is a fascinating example of how that transition was not so seamless.  Here are two temples, each on one of two prominent peaks on the small island, called the Temple of the Father and the Temple of the Mother.  Although God bought now owns the copyright to the worship here, the traditions are wonderfully pagan as they make annual sacrifices of coca, wine, and chicha (corn beer) during the summer solstice.  The Mother represents the earth and fertility, complete with a navel, and an supplementary meter-high phallus.  The three levels of the Father temple represent the Condor, the Puma, and the Serpent, like absolutely everything else in Peru.

This is a scrap (and all that ever was) if the first song I wrote for the charango I bought in Cuzco.  I had plenty of time on the boat back to the mainland from the Titcaca island of Amantí.  Titicaca is in the Andes at a staggering height above the ocean.  The charango is a traditional instrument evolved in the Andes from the Spanish guitar.  It has ten strings and the tuning is unique.  It is strummed quickly without a pick.  Traditionally the body is made with the shell of an armadillo but mine is wooden.  I once dropped and smashed it in Jeff's Dove St. garage studio, but the master craftsmen at Blue Guitar repaired it for me and it still sounds great.