Capac Urcu

In Andean mythology the condor was associated with the sun deity and believed to rule the upper world. They are symbols of power and health and a powerful omen indeed. Blessed and bestowed on us that day I watched a mating pair swooping over our heads all afternoon. I even discovered their nest perched high beside me sitting by the great waterfall tumbling out of the mountain. Eye to eye with the condors....

There was so much we saw today I won't even overwhelm myself attempting to describe it all here. It is unknowable unless you were there beside me and beyond any powers of description I can invoke. I will never forget this day and have already stored it away amongst the steadily accumulating incredible moments of my life.

Think galloping herds of wild horses, sinuous glacial streams snaking over a vast green plain, the shadow of massive ice covered pinnacles ringed in clouds, and giant Andean condors soaring through the mists. It was like walking back into the Pleistocene, a glimpse into the last Ice Age.

Imagine the dull echoing moans and rumbles of the ice, calving glaciers above a great blue lake cupped in the caldera of an ancient volcano blown asunder, misty clouds giving way to crisp late afternoon sunshine, and a rainbow forming like a taut bow arching over the spires of the mountains.

In Kichwa they call this place "Capac Urcu", the sublime mountain.