Chacas

Flying across meadows of white flowers

flying across meadows of white flowers

Yellow flowers in movement in a field of still white butterflies.

Lupin

lavender

~~Lavender~~ Lupin (thanks, Ulli) in the countryside, when kid we used to walk in the litle creek and in summer it used to have lupin in the borders of its course.

Alone in the yellow crowd

alone in the yellow crowd

Without you I feel out of place; in my garden you are my black rose of another world. Come back and complete my world…

Sin ti me siento fuera de lugar; por favor, vuelve que eres mi par. Eres la rosa de ensueño que quiero tener; completas mi mundo, mi ser… a.n.c.z.

But… that’s not my bike!

but that's not my bike

I think the traditional homes in the Swiss or Polish countryside are built with wood, but in our countryside they are made with adobe so when I used to read classic tales the wolf in my imagination was hidden in an adobe house.

I remembered that when I was walking this place at the borders of Juliaca city, the bicycle made me think in a modern wolf (except we haven’t wolves so he would be a fox) with granny clothes trying to don’t sleep while waiting for a young lady that promised to be there with a scarlet dress and matching lingerie.

Then the hunter came a day earlier because the fields were empty of tarucas (our native deers) First he doesn’t know why he feels an unfamiliar sensation so his instincts of hunter starts to drive him… scans in silence the scene until he notices with surprise the bike, not his bike, lying against a window, wondering if there is a tale inside and what if that tale already finished…

Volkswagen (sort of)

volkswagen sort of

In the sunny day in Juliaca, the beetle seemed like he was in middle of an infinite task (this is in a road, for that the lack of vegetation) I don’t know, perhaps I feel like this beetle trying to finish my work.

Market day

market day

The lady is walking to the market. I know because all the ladies in Juliaca use those bags except in malls where the staff is trained to give you disposables plastic bags. I guess is more environmental friendly to use bags you just can reutilize.

The potatoes are bought in pounds with the help of little roman balances. I don’t know why we use in some things the imperial system , perhaps from the times when Englishmen built the trains and introduced that style of hats used also for the lady in the picture. To the most of things we use the efficient metric system and for some, like measurement of fields, our own measurement units.

Speaking about the train also is true that the Inca Empire was criticized because there was no vehicles with wheels. Actually when Spaniards came, and also during the Republic until the train, the wheel wasn’t massively used because our hard topography. I understand llamas and mules were more important to the transport of goods.

Chacas Lagoon – Juliaca District

patterns of water, patterns of air, patterns of earth

Juliaca city has populated since thousands of years ago, the main Apu (sacred hill) is Huaynarroque, a hill with two peaks that shows the unity in the duality. But there are another secondary apus and places with its own communities. Chacas lagoon has two towns: Kokan and Chacas. They are something similar to satellite towns but they’re more like part of a body of sacred hills and the lagoon that I guess has the status of a cocha (sacred lagoon). Apus and Cochas are like ancestors to us, in our mythology there is no creation but breeding so every community has to care its Apu and Cocha with specific rules.

The first signal that you are near a sacred place in Peru is to see an old catholic temple. To indoctrinate us priest built temples near Apus.

The door of the red star

But well, you know once one church and usually you already know the rest and my goal was to walk in the lagoon where I played when child. I followed the road…

The road

spirit of wayra

Chacas lagoon is at 3829 masl (approximately 12 000 feet) in a weather where usually there is just cold.

a yellow flower in the green field of the blue heaven

a road of sky crossing an earthy way

cover me

smallness

a road in earth, a road in the sky

Near the lagoon I met three kind persons attending the fields of papas. The lord of the fields asked me for some photographs. The Qashwa, a mythological warrior dance with a symbolism of fertility, was nearer so there was a kind spirit.

hard work

The lagoon

I drink to forget

The school used to hire a little bus, but I went walking and the lagoon seemed so far. But I get the shores. Although I took another road from a side I didn’t know, so the place was like go for first time again.