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On a sunny Andean morning, Juan (not his real name to protect his privacy) arrived at the renovated monastery where we were acclimating to the high-altitude environment. TRADITIONAL HEALING - One of the most anticipated experiences for our group was the opportunity to learn about Andean healing from an indigenous herbalist. In the following paragraphs I’ll do my best to share a few of the highlights that offer new and empowering ways to think of ourselves and our relationship to the world around us. They still heal their bodies using indigenous plants and herbs and following precise formulas that have been preserved in their families for centuries.Īpril of 2022 will mark my 37th trip in 34 years of leading groups into this beautiful, ancient and mysterious land of Peru.įinding ourselves in the towns, villages and islands, and with the people that have preserved these timeless traditions, is a life-changing experience that defies the summary of a brief newsletter. They still cook the traditional foods of fresh guinea pig, over 55 varieties of indigenous corn, over 4,000 varieties of indigenous potatoes and high-altitude quinoa that have sustained them through the invasions from foreign armies, and the draught and cold brought by the climate change of the past. It was the language of the Ancient Incans, and the indigenous Quechuans of Peru today still live the traditional lifestyle of their ancestors. Quechua is both a language, and the name given to the indigenous people that speak the language in countries that include Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and to a lesser degree in Brazil, Chile and Argentina. It was during this time that I had my first opportunity to experience one of the indigenous populations that has influenced my thinking and teachings today-the Quechua of the high Andes and Lake Titicaca region. The tourism and pressures of commercialization was still relatively new. While the indigenous people of the Andes today struggle to maintain their traditions in the presence of a modern world, there was less of a need to do so in 1989. The year was 1989 and the Peru of that time was very different from the Peru of today. Twenty-three years later I took the vacation time that I had earned from my corporate job and made my first pilgrimage to the Andes Mountains of Southern Peru. I knew that I would explore each of them at some point in my life, I just didn’t know when. I spent my days after school and summer vacations pouring through as many books as I could digest.
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One of accounts that was especially luring to me at the time was the story of Hiram Bingham’s expeditions into the high Andes of Peru and his 1911 discovery of the legendary city of Machu Picchu. I was fascinated by the accounts of explorers such as Heinrich Schliemann’s discovery of the fabled City of Troy. In the basement of their midwestern home, they had rows and rows of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, filled with alphabetically-sorted books describing ancient and “lost” civilizations of the past. So I believe it was no accident that the family members that cared for my brother and me when my father left us in the 1960s were passionate students of ancient history. “I’ve always believed that the universe has a way of putting us in just the right place, at just the right time, to access what we need on our life’s path.