Since entering Peru three weeks ago I have visited a fascinating collection of ancient and contemporary pilgrimage sites. Even their names are enchanted: Otuzco, Marcahuamachuco, Chan Chan, Pachacamac, Chavin de Huantar, and Nazca. To get to these places the Magic Bus has taken me nearly two thousand miles through the mountains and deserts of northern, central, and coastal Peru. The roads have been among the roughest I have driven anywhere in the world. Recent massive storms of El Nino have blasted the coastal roads, leaving them pockmarked with countless potholes. In the Andean interior, the serpentine mountain roads are studded with sharp stones, covered with landslides, and muddied by a myriad of streams.

Pilgrimage church of Otuzco, Peru

To travel rural Peru upon these roads one must accept many long days in first and second gear. I find the mental concentration demanded by this sort of driving to be equal to that required in advanced meditation techniques such as Vipassana and Dzogchen. Watching the road fifty feet ahead and directly beneath the front of the van at the same time; threading a way over and around countless bumps and holes; precariously passing other vehicles on dangerously thin cliffside tracks: One must be ever vigilant. The penalty for loss of concentration in these circumstances is far more serious than a lapse in concentration during sitting meditation. On these roads even a second’s loss of watchfulness will throw the van (and me) plummeting over a cliff to violent death a thousand feet below.

The great chain of the Andes mountains runs north to south the entire length of the country. Looking at these mountains from above, either by map or from an airplane, I imagine a great serpent’s body rippling across the surface of the earth. It’s scaly back is a soaring chain of sharp and glaciated peaks. Falling east and west from these mountains run a multitude of rivers, watering the faraway Amazonian jungles and the Pacific ocean. These rough and surging rivers flow through valleys miles wide, miles deep, and miles long. Over thousands of years several fascinating cultures have come and gone in these valleys. Much isolated from one another by towering mountain ranges separating the valley systems, the varied cultures none the less display several important similarities.

In particular, we find similarities in the cosmogenic myths, astronomical preoccupations, and the placement and design of ceremonial structures.

Mystery surrounds these similarities. How are we to explain them? There are several fascinating questions to explore. For example, where did the earliest inhabitants of the western hemisphere originate from? And when? Was it only via the Bering Straits during the most recent Paleolithic period of glaciation, as current "mainstream" scientific theory so vigorously states? The controversial writers Zecharia Sitchen and Graham Hancock suggest otherwise. Their books catalogue a legion of enigmatic archaeological artifacts and linguistic anomalies, ancient myths and magico-religious practices which strongly indicate numerous periods of significant transoceanic contact - from both the east and west - during archaic times. And how are we to explain those most ancient legends of Mu, Lemuria, and Atlantis? Could there have been a great civilization, now only remembered from myth and folklore, that gave rise to the civilizations of prehistoric South America? During the next three months, crisscrossing the immensity of the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes, I’ll look deeply into these matters.

Likewise, I will examine the origins and practices of the region’s contemporary pilgrimage traditions. Peru in particular has one of the most vital traditions found anywhere in the world. Tens of thousands of pilgrims trek across mountains and jungles to visit mystic shrines blending archaic shamanism and colonial Catholic influences. Pilgrims ritually flagellate themselves, choreograph complex and wonderfully colorful dances, and drink themselves prophetic on potent native brews.

The primary Christian pilgrimage places of Northern Peru are at the towns of Ayabaca, Motupe, and Otuzco. Ayabaca has a much venerated image of Christ; Motupe has the miraculous cross of Chalpon in a small cave far up a remote valley; and Otuzco is the site of a Marian apparition. Each of these sites also reveal significant pagan influences. Few non-Peruvians venture into these remote mountain regions, and at all three shrines I was the only "gringo" pilgrim to be seen.

Pilgrims and holy cross in sacred
cave of Chalpon, Peru

Many hundreds of colorfully dressed Indians walked to the cave of Chalpon the same day as I did. We were doing the walk only a few days after the major yearly pilgrimage festival (August 5). Walking up a winding, rocky trail through dry and dusty hills, I felt as if I were in some sort of tunnel. Tens of thousands of people had trod the same path in the past week and it seemed the specificness of their purpose had left something of an influence, a memory, or a presence upon the path. I felt this as a clearly delineated physical space: the beginning, end, and sides of a tunnel-like path leading to the cave shrine.

At Otuzco I found a sleepy town, months away from a pilgrimage fair. The quiet times at sacred sites have a splendid feeling to them too, when only local folk are around. Boisterous children played makeshift soccer infront of the church, young lovers kissed hotly in the gardens, and old men fell asleep while praying in the sanctuary. There is an odd sort of museum next door to the church. A few dozen large glass cases display many hundreds of skillfully crafted gowns. These gowns make up the large wardrobe used to dress the five foot tall statue of Mary. The gowns have been donated by pilgrims as a visible expression of prayers made, or thanks for prayers answered. In other glass cases surrounding the ornate gowns are thousands of pieces of jewelry donated by the pilgrims for the further adornment of the miracle-causing statue. The sanctuary of Otuzco is known to be a healing place, its power being especially beneficial for young children.

Between Motupe and Otuzco I passed through the coastal city of Trujillo and visited the nearby pre-Columbian ceremonial sites of Cerro Diablo, Chan Chan, and Huacas del Sol y de la Luna. Great civilizations flourished upon the vast deserts of coastal Peru, long thousands of years before the well known Inca came. These shadowy people built enormous sprawling cities of rough mud bricks. Long centuries of torrential rains have poured over the brick walls giving each site the appearance of a photograph slightly out of focus.

Huaca del Sol, near Trujillo, Peru

Further south I went through Lima, surely one of the ugliest cities in the world, and here experienced the first of my three Peruvian robberies. While the event, in process, caused me a bit of stress, in the end I only laughed. It was so bizarre as to be humorous. I had driven to a certain church whose architecture I wanted to inspect. Outside, on the side, there were a line of perhaps fifteen parking places. There were not any signs forbidding parking and almost all of the spaces had cars or motorcycles in them. Two policeman were standing nearby, very evidently on duty there, and I asked them if I could safety park in one of the remaining spaces. They assured me it was legal and that they would watch the van.

When I returned less than two hours later, the van was missing. The police had also disappeared. I was baffled. What had happened? Where was my van? I walked around for five minutes but couldn’t locate any other police. Finally though, I found an old man who gave me a scrap of paper with an address on the outskirts of Lima, thirty minutes away by taxi. What a ride that was. The taxi driver smoked heavily and smelled of low grade liquor, and he drove with a reckless abandon through the trash-strewn city streets. Several times we lost our way, for there are no street signs in the poor neighborhoods of Lima. Finally we arrived. But naturally, the taxi driver had no change at all and we had to drive another few blocks so that I could get some. Then he tried to increase the fare because we had driven these extra blocks.

The vehicle storage area looked like a military bunker. Several unfriendly and poorly dressed police were hanging around a massive and ominous looking gate. They told me I had to get a photocopy of my drivers license in order to come within. Where could I get a photocopy, I asked? They pointed in the distance and muttered some vague directions. Walking to the "copy shop," I felt like I was in Beirut, the streets and buildings looked as if they had been hit with bombs. At the copyplace there was another shifty looking individual and more fortress-like doors. I had an argument with the proprietor. I did not want to give him my passport but wanted to come within and do the copying myself (I was getting a bit pushy by this time). He cursed me in Spanish and told me I did it his way or fuck off (culiado!). I gave in.

Back at the car storage lot, I was presented with a great deal. For $100 I could get my van back with a receipt in three days. But for only $50 I could speed up the process, that is if I didn’t mind "forgetting" the receipt. So, once again in Latin America, I bribed the police. I could have fought the system. I could have wasted a few days and dealt with a bunch of corrupt officials but I was tired of that scene. The experience wasn’t all bad, however. The short drama had a certain spice to it which would make a great travel story to tell in years to come: The time when the police stole my car and had the audacity to sell it back to me.

I went dancing two nights in Lima, at high energy clubs packed with sweaty bodies, pulsating music, and erotic lighting. The liquor flowed like water and there seemed to be a feeling of desperation in the crowd. Some people danced as if possessed by rabid devils, others as if drugged on downers. And a feeling of spiritual emptiness was palpable in the air. I felt it not only in the Disco but in food stores and coffee shops and the post office. Lima, a massive, dirty city choking to death on its auto exhaust fumes. Buildings crumbling, streets strewn with trash, hardly any beauty anywhere. The people exhausted with an unarticulated sadness. Few places in the world have I wanted to leave so quickly.

Heading south I stopped to meditate at the ruins of Pachacamac, the most celebrated oracle site in ancient South America. Far older than the Inca empire, the temples of Pachacamac had amassed a vast fortune from visiting pilgrims. The Inca, jealous of the power of the temple priests, told the conquistadors of the vast riches. But before the Spaniards arrived to plunder and kill, the great majority of the gold and jewels had been hidden away. Horrible were the tortures and many the priests murdered, but the location of the buried treasure was not revealed. Still hidden, in the endless sand dunes around Pachacamac, it fills the dreams of treasure hunters and grave robbers.

Nazca was anticlimactic. The famous lines and figures of which I had read so much did not capture my interest nearly as much as I expected they would. Perhaps I was spoiled by the striking photographs I had seen or given an exaggerated idea of their size by the writings of less than accurate authors. And the place did not feel especially magical or powerful to me. What was the purpose of the lines and mythic animal figures? Johan Reinhard has suggested that the carvings are associated with weather deities and agricultural rituals. Paul Devereux, on the other hand, feels they are markings left on the earth representing shamans’ out-of-body trance journeys and the animal spirits those shamans visited. I do not know. No one knows. Maybe the future will tell us.

Tomorrow I’ll leave the coastal deserts and head east, into the Andes, towards Cuzco and the heartland of the Inca. Sixteen years ago, when I first traveled to Cuzco and Machu Picchu, I was a novice in the study of sacred places. My knowledge has vastly increased since then and I wonder what depths I’ll see that I could not see before. I am interested to inspect familiar places again and the many other sacred sites my research has revealed.

Martin with sheep, Peruvian mountain village