Ibulliance: Here Nor There
I head off with a small band on a five day, back-door trail up to Machu Picchu, hoping, like many, to catch the splendor of the Lost City of the Incas. One day, as we climb the peaks, I happen on a woman perched atop a stool with fuchsia and earth colored threads tying her to a tree. We are in the middle of nowhere, it seems to me; but at the center of the universe, I'm sure it seems to her. She's working her back-strap loom with a pick carved from an antler. Sensing my curiosity as I come close, she shows me her way of weaving; how it has been done in these mountains for 5000 years, and in that wordless exchange, I fill with the wonder of this craft still alive in her hands. Nearby, her son is roasting a pig over a fire, her husband burying potatoes in the earth's slow cooker. The scent of her plant-dyed yarn next to smoldering fire seeps into my backpack. I take it with me.
The next day, descending into a steamy tropical zone, I marvel to find wild orchids flinging themselves in masses over the treescape. When we cross a river, the brave throw off their clothes and slip over the rocks into the ripple and roar, gasping from the fresh mountain cold.
On the early morning we arrive at Machu Picchu, clouds envelop the mountain so densely that I can hardly make out the famous peak I had come so far to see. Groups of tourists sporting cameras turn around and board their busses, disappointed. Soon the terraced campus clears out completely; I feel eerily alone with the fog, with my own reflections. I think then of the woman at her loom, that serendipitous moment of meeting, the way our eyes spoke generously to one another. I think of my husband, who is climbing the even higher peak nearby to scatter ashes of one gone from our world, tragically and far too young. I think of our revelry around the campfires at night as we climbed, the splash of the Santa Teresa river, the piping music of the flutes the locals shared with us, too. It's easy to think a trip like this is about getting to a headliner high water mark, grand and memorable. But it never is. It's about living into each of those tiny moments as they quietly present themselves. And knowing them to be grand.
Images: The small moments that make memories grand: happening on a weaver or astonishing wild orchids on the trail, splashing in the cool waters along the way, a misty early morning at Machu Picchu, colors drench a loom, the land that beckons.
As I perch amongst the ruins of the Lost City, alone in the cloudy air and my own cloudy thoughts, I notice a liquid gold beginning to seep across the ancient stones. The air thins, clearing its throat. The grass, suddenly green under blueing skies, begins to wake, the stones to take a shine, and everything, then, to dazzle. Everything I need is here. Just here, just now. Small and luminous.
Images: The colors, the peaks, the people, the light of mysterious Peru.
Next May, Ibu Fringe Road Adventures is taking off for this mysterious land of Peru. Not trekking, no, but adventuring to see our artisan friends in the Sacred Valley, to meet alpacas and those who spin their yarn into artistry, to the magical ancient textiles in Lima, to the homes of private collectors and farm-to-table lunches still on the farms, to artists and to salt mines and to picnics overlooking the stunning Cordillera Vilcanota. To all that you've come to expect from the Fringe Road—above all, amazing people making their world more beautiful. Remarkable women making their communities more just. Maybe you'll want to be in that small band, making even the smallest moment grand.
All the Best,
SHW
