Eye of the Serpent. As I took this photo, an ancient and powerful serpent spirit materialized before my eyes from a cloud of mist. Here you can clearly see the cloud of mist.
| For further reading, please visit The Valley of Longevity and Hell. | |
|
Nuevo Tingo, a hidden pueblo, tucked into an arid, cactused valley high in the central Andes of Peru. |
| Unlike Brian's lucky encounter with wild alpacas at Ingapirca, this baby llama grazes the grounds of Kuelap for the benefit of the few tourists who make the journey. Still, PunchDragon was lacking in the cute-fuzzy-butt-department, so I thought I'd include one here. | |
|
A stairway entrance to the fortress, wide enough to permit but a single file line of would-be attackers. The view through the narrow passage into the valleys far below was inspiring. |
| Eye of the Jaguar. | |
|
Eye of the Puma. |
Eye of the Serpent. As I took this photo, an ancient and powerful serpent spirit materialized before my eyes from a cloud of mist. Here you can clearly see the cloud of mist. |
|
|
A reconstructed hut of one of the elite rulers of the fortress, decorated with the Eye of the Condor. |
| Inscribed on the fortress's observatory are the Solar Face, and pictured here, the Lunar Face. | |
|
Strangley, due to its height above the arid and dusty central Peruvian Andes, Kuelap enjoys a refreshing cloud forest ambience of trees draped in moss and bromelids. |
| Dawn at Tùcume, an earthen pyramid complex, one of the oldest in South America, located near the coast. The sky was hazy as the sun tried to rise that morning, so the lighting in this photo is poor. I included it because the poor lighting makes it all the better...it conveys the eery, mysterious, and foreboding vibes that enveloped everything about that pre-dawn experience. | |
|
The other photos of Tùcume didn't come out...dark light... or dark forces...? A view of the eroded Purgatorio pyramid of Tùcume at daybreak on the hike back to the main road, as the morning illumed, and I got my weary gringo butt out of that place. |