Colca Canyon and the Condors

Lisana-
Christmas Day brought with it gifts of memories past, something I rarely get to experience. As they surface it feels like recalling a dream or movie I once watched as there is no emotional attachment. The memories are of my children during the peak of holiday exuberance, as this was always the height of our family's endearment. Grateful I am to have traveled back to these sweet moments, thank you spirit for a beautiful Christmas gift. 
For today, the day after holds enormous energy of us making offerings to Colca Canyon which is said to be twice as deep as the Grand Canyon and is the residence for the condors, though we are told very few live there now. The bus station is crammed with local Peruvians ready to make their way home after Christmas, packing in we travel east winding around the narrow dirt road paths which hang on the edge of the mountains. At times I wonder how close the driver can get the tires to cling onto the very edge of the dirt road which provides for gripping views of the valley as we ascend to higher elevations. So different than the US. highways for many reasons especially how few vehicles we pass.
Arriving to our town, Jeremy inquires for the return trip revealing the bus will only wait for 1 1/2 hour and then back to Chivay, as this being the only ride or otherwise will have to stay in town for the night. Agreeing to hold ceremony in haste we head to the edge of town where the canyon offers a vista of splendor.  
As we set up our altar we are delayed for a moment while a woman shows up taking photos of the canyon right where we are and proceeds to take pictures of us.
A bit anxious as we know we are racing with time we energetically ask her to move on. In amazement as the moment we begin with Jeremy offering tobacco we are stunned by the presence of a condor above us circling the visible moon. As this was not enough to bring us to our knees we watch as another condor rises up from the canyon like a helicopter surreptitiously hovering right in front of us. Tears flood my eyes as we are frozen in the moment feeling the grace and power of these enormous winged angels of divine grace. Their totem symbolizes death and rebirth and of the mother. 
Once out of sight we return to the ceremony at hand and finish with an offering to the canyon. My feeling is that the canyon represents the cervix of pacha-mama and the dream time crystal will be deposited as a light encoded inception into her womb.
Jeremy urges us to completion and with 2 quick clicks of my camera in an attempt to capture what we have witnessed he leads us out in such urgency I can hardly keep up. 
The altitude is high and my heart is working over time while I watch him shrink in the distance as I try closing the gap to our separation. I think he forgets my legs are much shorter than his and feeling like a child so often being left behind I struggle to keep up. We arrive in time to see the bus awaiting us and in a moment of restoration I hold in myself a dream of new beginnings which have been implanted under the soaring wings of the condors as they met with white eagle and myself.


Jeremy-
A spectacular four hour journey takes us by bus to heights of 5000 meters, dropping into the upper reaches of Colca canyon and to a flat shelf that holds the small town of Chivay. What a difference in the energy here, we dreamily amble around the town square and the market in the fresh clean air amongst the buoyantly spirited locals, we are in the realm of the condor.
Christmas day is to be for rest hopefully, more so than the night before, filled with fireworks and barking dogs which commenced around midnight.
Christmas night is quiet outside, but my dreamtime is crammed full of a seismic wrestling match that had me quelling the appetite of very hungry dragons, while holding up the walls for the halls of the new world consciousness. Rarely can dreams be as vivid as this.
Happy for action again, we catch the seven o'clock bus from the depot to explore the depths of this place. Stopping in small villages on the way along the south rim, we witness traditional canyon life. Leaving the hardtop after ten or so miles we rattle along the canyons more inhabited side, with Nevada Mismi the mountain source of the Amazon river, peering over the north rim from high up on the Continental Divide.
The ride provides a fair amount of discomfort for Lisana as the coach lurches and slams onto pot holes. The pot holes I wish to avoid are the tourist drop off points along the deeper reaches of the canyon wall where condors are most commonly seen.These waysides also present the need for one to purchase a tourist pass at around $40 each, deeper than our purses reach. So we ride beyond the lookout spots where most exit the bus to a village called Cabanaconde. With not much as far as food and accommodation, the choice we have is to make haste with our ceremony and be back at the bus within an hour and forty minutes or stay over for 24 hours..
Scouting the back roads in the direction of the canyon we hustle down a track over a stone wall through a stretch of burned out hillside onto the edge of the breathtaking chasm. I could see a mighty waterfall about five miles away, in a spur to the north, several thousand feet down, this perspective made me whirl inside myself.
We lay out our alter as quickly and as calmly as possible arranging our tools for this dramatic moment. Hindered a little by the presence of a Japanese photographer who seems more interested in us and our crystal covered prayer cloth rather than the awesome spectacle ten feet before us. When she departs we begin. I play the drum initiating the practice for offering tobacco to the four directions, I throw the sacred plant toward the heavens as a condor swoops down in front of an almost full waning moon. We gasp simultaneously as the birds silhouettes himself against the whites and blues. Stepping forward to pitch the tobacco over the edge and into the earth another condor soars up from within the canyon right in front of our faces, showing all her colors and grace, and then both gone. Lisana holds her crystal bowl aloft to gift Pacha-mama with tears and sonic reverence. I imagine the crystals tumbling down the rocky slopes as we collect our belongings frantically as time often disappears on occasions like this.
True enough we arrive back at the bus with 15 minutes to spare,fully aware by looking into Lisana's eyes that those extra few may have meant less running along the dirt streets, in this, the home of the Condor.