I returned to Pisac and decided to take some time out and compensate my body for all that it had done for me. So I was taken in a motor taxi to a place called Taray. Here in the bottom of a garden I was put in a hot bath full of herbs and rose petals. I lay there for nearly an hour looking at the big mountain in front of me whilst listening to music. Then I had a very complete and vigorous massage in a little adobe room, that more or less knocked me out for the rest of the day.

The next day I visited Moray and Salineras, the salt pans. I had to discharge some energy at Moray by walking barefoot on the grass, so that I didn’t keep giving people electric shocks! We travelled down some hair-raisingly twisty dirt roads with huge tourist buses coming in the other direction. Along the way we passed through some amazingly beautiful countryside.

The next morning I had arranged to meet Hugo at 6 am to go to the Pisac ruins to make a ceremony. He was the owner of a shop where I had gone to buy a poncho. The first time I had been to the ruins I had had difficulty breathing and found the rock steps steep and difficult. So I was rather dreading going there again. I had not slept well as the moon was still full, so it seemed I had only slept for a few hours when the alarm clock awoke me at 5.30 and it was time to get up. I had been sifting through a lot of releasing of past lives and also reconnecting to the wisdom of those times. I waited for Hugo at 6 am and he didn’t come, so at 6.15 I gave up and went back to bed thinking “Oh well, I got out of that!”

I was having breakfast at 8 am when Hugo appeared. “Let’s go” he said, “we have made a promise to Pachamama.” So off we went, passing by the market to buy flowers and coca leaves. He had some dry corn, palo santo and various dried nuts and beans. We went to the same part of the ruins where I had been before, but this time he explained about the sacredness of the place and showed me the rock where the Inca priests had made their offerings. On 21st June when the sun comes up from behind a high mountain, the first beams of sunlight touch this particular stone. He lit some palo santo and we chewed some coca leaves and he made prayers around the place. Then we took my mesa cloth and put it on the stone with the flowers, my crystals, little bell and coca leaves. I leaned against the rock and meditated for a while. My whole body was vibrating. The flowers looked so beautiful on the brightly woven cloth. He told me that the spirits were not very happy with him because he hadn’t been there for one and a half years. He said he hadn’t been able to find anyone positive like me to go with him. Then he showed me a hole in the rocks through which a cool energy was flowing. He said “Put your hand in there.” The whole rock was cold and refreshing. He told me that the priests would make sure that the energy was flowing before doing a ceremony. He said that when we arrived the energy had felt tepid and was not moving. He placed the flowers and some coca leaves in the hole and then covered it up carefully. He said ” Not many people know about this place.” It was a beautiful ceremony. He told me “Now you are connected” or possibly reconnected, I thought.

So a couple of days later I was back in Cusco and ready for my next appointment with my Q’ero friend. He said he would be at my hotel at 8 am. I was so excited that I went to bed early the night before, and the following morning I was ready and waiting at 8 am. No sign of him. All sorts of thoughts started to go through my head again, was he coming, what was he doing. I had almost given up when he appeared. Off we went in a very funky taxi, going to…..I really didn’t know where. Out of Cusco and into beautiful green countryside and finally up a hill and out of the taxi.

We started to walk further up the hillside with me puffing away because we were once again over 4000 meters high. First we came to an amazing large rock with a waterfall cascading out of it. “Stop” he said, “first I have to clean you.” He took two rue plants, male and female, and rubbed me all over with them. Of course we were in ancient Inca ruins. Then he said “I am going to bathe you in the waterfall.” I took off my shoes and stood in the icy crystalline water. He poured water all over me and then took a bunch of flowers out of his bag and chucked more water over me with the flowers. He left them by the waterfall.

Next we went to a huge and beautiful rock with a curved carving on it. “This is the temple of the moon” he said. He told me to put my head and hands on the rock. “Stay there and meditate and take energy.” From there we walked up to the next sacred rock, the temple of the sun. The rock had a sort of carved relief around the bottom of it with symbols like amaru, the snake. I put my head on it and stayed there.

We continued up the hill with me struggling to catch my breath because of the altitude. We finally arrived at the cave where we were to do the ceremony. We sat on the ground outside and he did a despacho or offering. This time I had to name as many mountains as I could think of, and they all went into the despacho, as he asked them to protect me and give me their power. He then showed me all the crystals that were to go into my mesa and told me how to use them for healing. He gave me a piece of mesa cloth that had belonged to his grandparents. Then he got very serious and took me to the altar in the cave where he lit a fire with palo santo. I had to rest my head on the stone in front of the fire while he blew, and rattled and squirted me with Aqua Florida, and sang, and heaven knows what else. Then we went to the hole on the left and again I had to stay with my head resting down while he continued. Then I sat on a rock in front of the third hole. So much was going through my head like ” This is really serious! He keeps telling me that I am going to do this work with the mesa and help many people, and I don’t remember making this decision! It’s all going so fast…hang on…I’m making another huge commitment!” Thoughts like that, at the same time as trying so hard not to think and just be in the moment. Then he banged me on the head a few times with his mesa, full of stones, and on the shoulders and body….all pretty strenuous stuff! Then the ceremony was over, just as it started to rain a little. He took off his ceremonial clothes and said “We have one more thing to do.”

We walked down the hill to another temple of the sun, another cave. I sat right inside it and he sang and rattled again. Then it was over. I found myself totally overwhelmed, with my very own Q’ero mesa, stinking of palo santo smoke and Aqua Florida. We walked back down the hill in the rain and eventually the same taxi arrived and we drove back to Cusco and had lunch together as though nothing extraordinary had just happened. But I had the feeling that I was profoundly changed. Early the next morning I left Cusco and Peru and returned to Brazil.

This was six months ago. I have been unable to write about this until now as the experience was so profound I needed this time to assimilate it. I am now once again in Brazil and next week I will return to Cusco to work with some more Q’ero Paqos and see where this journey takes me next.