A medicine sister finally called me in to the jungle. Apart from love expressed, she said they need me there. My initial response was to go the following day, but I felt strong pull to squeeze one more assent into the mountains in a way of saying good-bye. I just got back from Shallap but the urgency of the proposal got me powered up and excited… finally, I get to be back with the medicine family and defrost from three weeks in the alpine wilderness.
I got to Pitek by mid-morning and strode towards the Quilcawanka entrance in a fairly good mood, pondering if I’m going to run at the park control officer when I got there, it being Saturday and all. The valley terminates with several lakes and is considered as an alternative to the epic views of Santa Cruz trek. I surely did run into an officer, whom I recognised immediately from the first walk to Lake Churup where I got sold a discounted Peruvian entry. There was no discount this time around. I had to pay up like a gringo tourist. I said, ‘look, Eugenio... let me be truthful with you. I don’t like paying entrance fee into the Park because I am in a pilgrimage, of sorts, unlike other folks. This land is sacred to me because I come here to cleanse my body and soul. It’s like entering a temple. It must be free, like entering a church. Do you pay to enter a church? If you do, it’s no longer a place to pray but a place to make deals.’ Eugenio studies me with a pair of shrewd brown eyes and says, ‘You said you going to buy a full month-long pass. But you didn’t, did you?...’ ‘No, I didn’t. I’m not staying here for a month.’ ‘…and you are camping, without a tour group, and probably doing all sorts of unauthorised climbing…’ That’s right. I am going to camp in some virgin spot, not in your dung-ridden corral, I am going to climb whatever rocky edifice I wish to climb and I am going to set fire every night, cook my food on it and warm myself like a good-old nomad. It’s my turn to look hard at the man. ‘Let me ask you a question… does the land belong to people or do people belong to the land?’ ‘Look, mister… I’m just doing my job. If I let you through and you come back tomorrow, there will be another park ranger in my place and I will get in trouble for letting you in because I haven’t done my job.’ Long story short, I wasn’t given an option. Gates are eight feet high and made of solid steel. Entry is sixty soles, six times as much as I pay for a night stay at El Tambo hostel with bed made, gas to cook and hot shower. I empty my cash wallet in front of Eugenio and total comes to thirty-five soles including change. To his credit, he offers me an option of free entry to Shallap valley next door which I already explored on the previous excursion and take a break from negotiation table to dig into a coca bag and consider paying the bill with extra noted I have stashed elsewhere on an impulse. Surely enough, there’s enough to get me through and I decide to pay up, it being the last date with Cordilleras and time being short as it is… therefore I fall on my knees, raise my hands towards the sky and cry out ‘hallelujah!’ at top of my voice. Attending this performance campesinos gather around, I spring up to my feet and hang onto Eugenio’s neck short of kissing him on the mouth while praising Lord out loud… I tell him that by Lord’s grace I’ve found the extra bills in my coca bag and I can afford the entry! Bring the bloody ticket book for I’m buying the entry, thanks god!
Eugenio starts examining the bills with utmost care, bending them this way and that, while others ask me if they could also manifest miraculous payment from above and I share my bag of coca around. They don’t find anything of value, except for coca leaves. Eugenio is bent on falsifying my bills like an expert banker. I say, man… look into my eyes… ‘you are not working for a bank, are you now?! Your job is to admit me into the park, so take the bloody money and let me through… it’s not the money you’re doubting, it’s me, isn’t it? C’mon, you are not going to say no now that I’m giving you your full ransom demanded…these bills come from the sacred coca leaves, look at me, they are not false… god-given, in fact!’ I turn around to the farmers and tell them that the reason they didn’t find any money in my coca is because they didn’t have a great need to enter the National Park as myself. When you are doing a spiritual pilgrimage, miracles happen. We laugh. Eugenio passes me admission book and I write my name in, passport number and country of origin. Thanks god, I am in.
Few things about the adventure… first, the rainbow waterfall. I could see it a way off, attracted by whole spectrum of the rainbow refracted in its spray. Photo could not possibly capture its illusory splendour due to limitations of the device but I took it anyway. I pitched my camp nearby and drank from the same stream. Cayesh is an adjacent valley to Quillawanca and nobody generally goes there, apart from random cows. I woke up at 4 am and found water in my billy as well as the whole creek thoroughly frozen. I walked up towards the glacier in the dark and climbed up a creek with yellow and red mineral deposits by the light of the headtorch until it was light enough to start snapping pictures of ice puddles with intricate drawings created by the frost during the night and destined to disappear with first rays of sun. Several times I witnessed it happen in front of my eyes… just like that, the puddle is flushed from underneath when temperature changed ever so slightly and white background becomes transparent, rendering lines drawn upon it invisible.
As always, I couldn’t help getting as high as possible without being stupid and asking for a neck-breaking fall, looking for openings to enter and explore ice caves. There were a few promising ones but none that took my breath away. I’ve seen a few by now. What was interesting, however, was to hear a flutter of tiny wings at the highest point of the ascent. It was if not a humming bird, then a relative of one. Really tiny, size of a finger… flew up all the way to almost five thousand meters into the glacier realm with no promise of food and edible enticement of any kind… must be as crazy as I am.
I was pretty spent by the time I made it down the valley, yet couldn’t turn my back on the main glacier. Looking at the clock I’ve been walking for eight hours but because of the early start I still had four hours up my sleeve. Well, I thought, if I don’t make an effort and just let my feet find their way to the nearest snow field, it will only take about an hour… my second thought was, what on earth is driving me? Am I ego-driven to grab hold of more pictures? Is it a blind ambition I am not aware of? No, something else… last day in Cordilleras, just want to give it everything I got and it will take up my time ‘cause I can’t really meditate sitting down. On my feet, yes. This is why I’d rather walk till I can’t take another step instead of poking my nose back at camp waiting for the sun to go down. Choices, do we really have them?... freedom from the doubting, calculating mind is the only choice I can see available and that state of exhaustion is truly necessary for complete and utter relaxation when bliss descends on you by itself. The secret recipe to cook up the treat that nourishes the spirit is supreme effort… in my case, it is walking and observing my breath.
I did reach the snowfield only to realise it has fallen off bit by bit from the glacier much higher above sliding down the rocky precipice. I can go to jungle now, what a relief. With both hands outstretched, I yell out my destination for all the world to hear: ‘Jungle! Here I come!!!’
Ironically, I find the gates to the valley locked with a chain the next day and I have to clamber my way over a stone hedge with prickly branches laid on top to stop anyone from attempting such a climb. Walk down to Pitec, have a yarn with a toilet keeper sitting there in the sun all by himself, soft tissue rolls by his side, waiting for a potential customer to shit themselves at the start of the climb to Churup. Combi arrives and tourists unload, giving me all the space for the ride down. I’m super stoked I don’t have to walk all the way to the nearest village Llupa. While the driver is mocking around with one of the passengers who has arrived with a flat tyre on his bike, the conductor woman in charge of pocketing the change suggests I pay twenty soles for the ride back, twice the price. I mull it over, tell her I’m prepared to pay only ten soles, the usual price. But, on the second thought… I might as well walk. I get out of the van and wave goodbye to the driver who’s suddenly all finished with his biker fellow and I yell out to him thanks for the offer but I’m going to enjoy the walk instead.
Choices… do we really make them? Or does our spirit makes them for us? One thing for sure, I enjoyed my walk to Llupa with utmost pleasure, tiredness gone altogether, spring in my step, a rocky path taking me all the way to the jungle and the medicine family. To walk your chosen path, to be in love and to be loved, cradled by the universe and encouraged to grow feeling fresh breeze caressing your face while you are at it: does it get any better?...
Blessings from Cordilleras, amigos, much love as always!
Comments