But nothing compares to the power of Machu Piccu…

Vladamir was with me the first day. We didnt see much of Machupiccu because he insisted on the “short” hike to the Temple of the Moon – which is on the top of the Waynapicchu (The big mountain behind Macchupiccu) . He said his father was a leader of the Quechua people and we were going to do a ritual with the cocoa leaves there. By now I had figured out that all Vladamirs time estimations should be multiplied by 4 to create the actual duration of grueling “arriba”.

The climb to the temple was a similar to the climb to Waynawanna except it was steeper and there was ladders and steel rope in some spots.

A neat sentenial post along the way:

At one point Vladamir saw a wild jaguar run through the bush – but by the time we had finished fumbling through my translation guide so he could communicate what he saw the jaguar was long gone.

I think both Vladamir and I were both starting to get frustrated with the limitations in each others attempts at the opposite language. During our climb we were fortunate enough to meet a wonderful Austrian girl named Liz who knew both languages and to our relief ended up serving as a translator.  Liz equalized things nicely.

When we got to the top of the mountain we then descended to The Temple of The Moon…

If I hadn’t had the clash of Spanglish that connected me with Vladamir I would never have climbed the mountain behind Machupiccu. I would have wandered around the ruins looking for the place I saw in my vision, found nothing, and gone home thinking my vision was a strange flight of fancy. Mike, the shamans aprentice said, “There are no accidents” and indeed this seems to be true in this case. The place I saw in my vision was the Temple of the Moon. Everything was as I saw in my vision – except a little more run down by time. The ledge was gone – but you could still see the layout of the earth was as I saw it.

The unique view of the other mountains were the exact vantage as my vision. The cave had the sloped ceiling. For some reason I couldn’t bring myself to photograph it. I video taped it but have to upgrade this account to upload the video.

I had to excuse myself and sit alone. Everything I had been taught to believe was only part of the puzzle of existence. My whole belief system had suddenly done a giant shift and I now found myself having to accept a concept that wasn’t native to my mind. Not only was reincarnation possibly real…I also had to come to terms with the idea that it was also also possible to access past life information. Yeah – I cried with emotion. For some reason I cry a lot here in Peru.

Once I was finished processing, Vladamir lead us in a Quechuan/Incan ritual for a safe journey using coca leaves. Cocoa leaves are quite sacred here. Im not entirely convinced there isnt a bit of an addiction involved, yet I would agree with the peruvians ans say it’s a medicine more than a drug.  It sure helped with my adjustment to altitude. I think it’s only a drug when the Columbians  add a wack of other toxic chemicals in a dirty jungle hut. For the curious here’s a link to the making of cocaine:

The next day I went to Machu Piccu by myself. It really is one of those places where you need to be alone to really feel the magesty. I hope all of you can experience this at some point in your life. Be alone there. Go early in the morning before the hoards of tourists arrive  – and pray for the eerie mist I got on my second day. But if you can go, go soon. The weight of milions of tourists feet is causing a negative impact on the area. Some scientist predict it will start sliding in about 6 years. The government is steadily raising the prices of restricting access to decrease harmful traffic but I doubt it will stop people.