Dear Readers,
Anybody could grab a camera, but nobody could be Martin Chambi, this Andean man that with a rudimentary camera was able to recreate the mountain region of Peru with such delicacy and aesthetic without having a proper education or experience on photography.
Martin Chambi
walked along Peru leaded by the camera, searching for his identity, his past, his future. He took one of the firsts pictures of Machu Picchu as well as many other fantastic places like the Tinajani Rock or the Waterfall at Ollachea, both in Puno. The gestures, the movement, the poetry, were captured only by his lens, and remain there forever.
We will always could find poetry in Peru: in the finest orchids of Inkill the colors and shapes of the flowers speak of beauty; in the archaeological center of Qenqo the rocks and ruins speak of grandeur; in the rituals to the earth the offerings and prayers speaks of faith and devotion.
Speak in poetry, get in love with Peru.
Regards,
Jose and Cynthia
The best known myth about the creation of Tawantinsuyo tells of a transcendental journey, whose participants set off from the region that would later be known as Collasuyo looking for a promised land that would be called Kosq´o (Cusco), where they settled. This was the route that was covered - not in myth but in history - by another native of this area his aim was to carry out a mission that would benefit Peru, but on an in different scale and the beginning of the 20th Century. Martin Chambi.NATIVE MINERS AT COAZA
Born in 1891 in Coaza, a tiny village in the Puno province of Carabaya, to a rural quechua-speaking family that was not particularly poor but which, like the neighbors did not enjoy life's bounties in abundance, leading a traditional life and marginalized racially and culturally by the white Spanish speakers and those of mixed race who made up official society.
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Huancavelica city is home to an orchid known as Inkill by the locals. It can be found in the cloud forest at Tayacaja, in a province of Huancavelica in the upper jungle. We are talking of an area seldom visited even by the hardy inhabitants of the Andes and far away from modern Peru. That is why the forest is not protected - not part of a conservation area despite its rich flora and fauna.Among the species living in the forest are the Spectacled Bar (Tremarctos ornatus) and gray deer (Hippocamelus antisensis), together with many birds and reptiles. Its flora includes the cedar (Cedrella sp.), "romerillo" (Podocarpus sp.) and numerous epiphytic species including many orchids, some of which are truly fascinating. This forest is the habitat of a species native to Peru: the Inkill or Sobralia altissima D.E. Benn & Christenson sp. nov., because of its characteristics, also known ah the queen of the Sobralia genus.
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At 5 minutes to the northeast of Cusco, by asphalted road, we can find the two archaeological sites of Qenqo. Although the original name of this worship place it is not known, the Spanish conquerors decided to name it with the quechua word Q'enqo, that means "labyrinth", maybe because the labyrinthine galleries or because the small canals shaped in zigzag in the rocks.The Spaniards classified this place as an amphitheater, maybe because it shows a semicircular construction. Actually it is unknown the finality of this site, it was probably an altar, a tribunal or an Inca grave, maybe from Pachacutec. Supposedly it was one of the most important sanctuaries of the Inca Empire.
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It is said - and often it is the truth - that traditional customs are in crisis because of the explosion of market values that are striving to become a secular form of religion, and because of the adoption of modern customs by the youth or adults ashamed of their indigenous roots. Why, then, offering to life-giving nature? What follows is the singular reflection of a Chilean Catholic priest who lives in the Peruvian highlands.At a time when concerns are arising over the ecology and the quality of living standards, indigenous offerings to the earth and mountain deities show that we are a pluri-cultural and pluri-religious people who are stressing healthy and beautiful customs, such as those of venerating the Pachamama, the Earth Goddess, the apu mountain gods, the dead and many others.
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