I haven't been typing much. I was in Ecuador. Living on bannanas at the beach. But i'm back now in the siera of Peru. it's cheep here and i will type more and try to bring this web page up to date. I've now been in South America for 5 full moons, but here's a story from my first full moon of the trip. It happened right around here where i am now. This area is where the first Incas came from, where the oldest constantly inhabited city in the americas is, the people say this area is the umbibical of the world. I don't know, but there is a very special energy here. Never planing or intending to come here, i keep coming back.
ChewbySelva cooked the San Pedro for hours over the fire in the open court yard of the house where we were staying. It was a 1 room house with no bathroom, kitchen, or running water but with an excellent enclosed court yard for camping and fiestas. That night was Luna LLena (full moon). Every full moon is celebrated and remembered with theese friends. And in preperation for the purification of the SanPedro, nobody ate meat for these days. ChewbySelva is from the selva (rainforest) and has traveled extensively and shared much of his knowledge with me. I find him to be a bit easier to understand than most people. He knows how to talk to gringos. He made the batch a little mild because it was my first time. He's nice like that. It was difficult to leave this night with the guys, because the most beautiful of the Incas showed up and wanted to party with me. Locumbia yelled for me not to go.... I enjoyed the cab ride out of town. I haven't been in one of these goofy tiny racecar looking things much on this trip. We had just enough money for the cab and bread. We always have just enough money. We hiked down dry river beds into the night and each of us drank one glass of SanPedro under the light of the moon. When we arrived at our site for the night, next to a waterfall spring, we fell straight asleep to the music of the water, we were exausted and cold.
In the morning we all drank more, each saying nice things and drinking to our good trip. filling our bottles at the spring we hiked out of the lush green valley (snacking on all the vegtables that grow along the way) to the dessert mountains. In the dessert we took the sweet fruit of the SanCayo cactus to chase the bad taste of the SanPedro. I drank to "no mas guerras, no mas fronteras" (no more wars, no more borders) .
The sound of ChewbySelvas flute and the sound of Rastamans digeredoo echooed through the vallies and we looked for pretty rocks on our hike. Me and Rastamon hiked back down to the spring to get water for the others at the top. On our way down we found cactus cigaretts and smoked them. I learned more spanish and he english in a language trade. In the valley again i saw the irrigation system at work. a system that hasn't changed since before the Incas. In the field i had a talk with a funny old lady working her field. the rest of the day was spent in the sun and despite the language barrier, whenever i saw my friends i had to smile or laugh...
.... ..that night getting into town..it was strange seeing the bars and all the cars and crazy people of Babylon. I didn't want to party with those people. We went home.
My friends asked to look into my eyes. They starred for awhile and the said i had been effectively purified by the San Pedro cactus.
