Category Archives: The Story of the Stones

The stones are real enough. You can take a bus to Calango and La Capilla, from the back of the market in Mala, next to the kiosk selling cakes. You may find Wilma sitting beside you, heading to her chacra, … Continue reading →

Two streams of traffic cross at the junction and knot. Cars nose across the shared space, inches apart. They thrust themselves between slow moving vehicles and edge forward. They advance two metres and are blocked, as they in turn are … Continue reading →

“So Mayra, what do you think?” I ask as we sit on a the simple balcony of wooden planks looking out over the river. “The stone is a star stone. But it is surrounded by a high wall and locked … Continue reading →

I have spent the week examining the photographs, looking for patterns, looking for meaning. I have found out what I can about rock art in Peru, in South America, in Mexico and Easter Island. I have researched the history of … Continue reading →

The waiter brings two glasses of cold beer and a couple of pinkish trotters, and we are quiet for a while as we suck on the knuckle bones and wash down the vinegary juices. Then I push the plate of … Continue reading →

Mayra meets me in the Haiti Café on the corner of Parque Kennedy, where white haired men in grey suits sit at the pavement tables reading Gestion and taking an espresso with their crisp pork and sweet onion rolls. We catch a … Continue reading →

“You can see a thousand years of history in a walk through modern day Lima.” Mayra explains, as we walk besides the dual carriageway that separates the zoo from the Catolica University. “Just over that wall,” she points to the … Continue reading →

The bus wails through the suburbs of Lima past mounds of uncollected garbage, where the homeless search for food, and down the Panamerican highway, with a grey sea on the right. We are dropped off at the the entrance and … Continue reading →

From our lookout point, our mirador by the outer walls of the Inca sun temple at Pachacamac we see two ancient roads heading out from the maze of ramped pyramids below. One heads from the ancient complex across a dusty … Continue reading →

I am thinking how to escape from school to visit Yauyos with Mayra, when she calls me unexpectedly one Tuesday night. ” I have to go back to Caracas.” We have a short tense conversation. The newspapers and TV here … Continue reading →

Walking up the valley from La Capilla on the modern road, you pass through riverside orchards with occasional houses and farm buildings. There are workers in the fields, they are farming their own lands. Behind a simple brick building with … Continue reading →

Chupe de camarones is a thick soup of river prawns with maize, poached egg, carrot, chard and celery, broad beans and soft cheese. Pink crustaceans as thick as your index finger are boiled whole in the pot, their claws poke … Continue reading →

In the northern-most area of Chile, stretching six hundred miles down the coast of South America and expanding into Bolivia, Peru and Argentina, lies the Atacama Desert. This barren landscape consists of coastal sand and stone, and low hills rising … Continue reading →

Seventy kilometres south of the Rio Mala lies the valley of Cañete. The river, one of the largest on the central coast, comes from Ticllacocha, a lake 220 kilometres inland in the land of the Yauyos, at 4600m metres above … Continue reading →

At the first full moon after the autumn equinox I returned to Lunahuana. The water was still too high to cross the Rio Mala, but in this neighbouring valley, I could take another look at the giant boulder in the … Continue reading →

“Museum of Palaeontology and Archaeology” said the card, written in green ink and taped to the lamp post. The arrows pointed to the left and I followed them, past the quad bikes and canoes, the carcases of pork, and round … Continue reading →

The buses to Huancor went from a road by the side of the market “a la izquierda a la esquinita”, on the left by the corner, and like many such descriptions it proved  both maddeningly inprecise and entirely accurate. I … Continue reading →

“These people, the ones who lived in that era, used to spend their lives warring on each other and conqering each other. For their leaders, they recognized only the strong and the rich. We speak of them as the Purum … Continue reading →