Journey to Peru 2012

I just got back from a week in Peru. I'm not going to post a long travel account....not here anyway. I just have to say that this was one of the most enjoyable trips I've taken. The people of Peru are happy to share their country with visitors and the entire experience was extremely positive. Much of the trip is, of course, focused on the Inca Empire and what they were able to accomplish and their downfall under the invading Spaniards. We were on "the beaten path" to Machu Picchu...it was more like a pilgrimage than a vacation but since there was just two of us we had ample opportunities to observe and reflect on the country, people and whole experience.

 I have to say that the trip was more than a change of scene or a chance to see one of the wonders of the world. It was also a mental trip -- an attempt to see into the consciousness of the Incas. They left no written records and the Spanish tried to destroy as much of the tangible elements of the empire as possible, but there is still a lot of Inca left in Peru. We went with our own "baggage" made up of preconceived notions, experiences and attitudes and found things to be very different. We came home with an expanded view of human consciousness, abilities and existence. 

 Our own idea of human existence was constrained and defined by our own experiences and Peru and the Incas cause us to call these perceptions into question. They looked at problems differently and found solutions that we probably would not have considered. Where we look at the stars we see mythological or animal constellations tied to the stars, they concentrated on the blank spaces -- the voids -- where there were no stars and created their own culture's constellations from the voids. They were a very symbolic people and were tied to images and symbolism. The original city of Cusco was laid out in the shape of a Puma...not that you would know it from the street level but it would have been more apparent only from above or in the mind's eye of the engineers and planners who laid it out. The Incas had a notion that everything had a spirit or a life force, including the mountains, and at Machu Picchu they used the contours of the mountain to shape the city. They didn't destroy the underlying mountain, like we would, but built on top of it or incorporated it into their plan. There is a rock outcrop at Machu Picchu that they could see clearly as the outstretched wings of a condor and they elaborated on that particular site and created a more apparent image and then used it as a specialized funerary site where VIPs were laid to rest after their death. To us it would look like a couple of chunks of bedrock that were in the way but to them the condor was one of their symbols for heaven. 

 I'm still pondering some of this and recommend the trip to people who haven't been there.  It was not just a trip to a different geographic area...we found it to be a journey that expanded our way of thinking in some ways.