Winter Solstice Number 2

You can stand in the middle aisle for 2 soles cheaper on a sold out 1980's tour bus ticket. This is what I did with 15 others and crates of chickens as we headed to Paucartomba, a small village 4 hours east of Cusco. These four hours consisted of a dirt road carved into the andes mountains with stunning views of thousand foot drops inches away from tire treads which eventually blew, delivering the driver to jack the bus, passenger occupied, to put on a spare, which continued the polite alert honking around u shaped curves for approaching passenger vehicles. He must know the roads well, and it wasn't until the sun went down that my heart could grasp a future life. I never have appreciated ignorance until Saturday. From Paucartomba take a collectivo to Tres Cruces situated at about 13,100ft. Tres Cruces exquisitely can separate rays of sun during the months of june and july. It commands the Andes to stop and cascade into the amazon jungle. It is a sacred sun worship place of the Incas, where winter solstice supplies the pinnacle of this sacred worship. Singing and drumming from 11:00pm until past the sun rise, my dreams were saturated with hom ma oy ta....beng ga tom ba....tum tum tum.... tum tum tum....tum tum tum. Every blade of grass clothed itself with frost at 4:00am. Voices commanded the sun to rise in front of colorful garbed Andians and 8 rei fanatics. The sun has been set to rise everyday. It is the people watching that enhance the view.