Big Sculptures and Long Nights

      This will be the first of several posts relating to our week long adventure in the Valle Sagrado (The Inca Sacred Valley). For packing purposes, I had to leave the laptop in Lima. For the most part, this leg of the trip was intended to provide rest and relaxation from a long year. We spent three days in the city of Cusco, a day traveling to Machu Picchu, and three days at a hotel in the town called Urubamba. For better or for worse, we decided to save money and travel to Cusco by bus. Though it was a nice bus, the trip to Cusco was supposed to last for twenty hours through mountainous terrain and ever increasing altitude. The Inca have a term called "sorroche,"which can basically be translated as "altitude sickness." This kicked in about around hour 10 of what turned into a 24 hour bus trip. The local tea called "mate de coca" had us both on our feet pretty quickly. It basically tastes like green tea, and really does help with the altitude issues.
     Even before we got out of Lima on the bus trip, several things caught my attention. The capital city, Lima, has over 9.5 million people. To me, that was just a number until I saw the near endless "pueblos nuevos"(squatter villages) on the way out of the city. I measured their size by the time it took to pass through them-some 20 minutes. What did it cost them to get there? How much does it cost them to stay there? Has the reality stacked up to the dream that they once had? Until we get a chance to meet them, we can only speculate.
     After a night with a little Andean turbulence, we woke up to the beautiful shapes of mountains. The higher ones had snow, and I could only think of Alaska to the north or Patagonia to the south. The Psalm that says that God owns "the cattle on a thousand hills" would not leave my mind. The same God whose Spirit is transforming our hearts crafted every individual in the shanties and every Andean crag. His power is anything but static, and is always on the move to transform people. In fact, the work he does to change a human and to pursue the people that he already claims is not unlike his creation of mountainous landscapes.  
     After a long night, we arrived in Cusco. The former capital of both the Inca and then the Spaniards is a beautiful medley of pre-colombian and colonial architecture. We grabbed a cab to our apartment rental and settled in. I believe that you will like the view. Another update soon.