Machu Picchu and Chichen Itza captured the most attention during a round of Travel Tuesday Twitter talking Jan. 24. I’ve climbed both, and absorbed their energies: the Peruvian citadel on Easter morning and the Maya pyramid for the Equinox.
Good goal when traveling I think—-this local energy seeking. Worked better for me in Peru because I figured out how to live with local people, eat their cooking, meet their children.
Plus it rained my Equinox day at Chichen Itza so I could only imagine but not see the snake winding down the corner steps, the kundalini experience not to be mine.
Machu Picchu drew me back and my second trip should be your first. Willka T’ika is the reason.
Blended Family Traveling Mom Christine Tibbetts high up the trail with Machu Picchu below.
That means sacred flower in the Quechua language. For travel planning it means guest house in the Sacred Valley of Peru.I stayed six nights with 13 friends in tow. Planned to go by myself but shared my notions out loud in South Georgia where I live, and discovered I know people with yearnings like mine.
Willka T’ika is a calming, healing place with luxurious individual guesthouses, gardens reflecting the seven body chakras, a thousand year old lucuma tree and a greenhouse plus gardens providing fruits, grains and vegetables for the always fresh, all-vegetarian cuisine.
Views are vast every direction from Willka T’ika and its gardens, nestled in the Sacred Valley of Peru.
Andean healers visit here, and day trips with spiritual, knowledgeable local guides explore sacred sites and historic places.
Readiness for absorbing the most possible from Machu Picchu: that’s what happened for me this second trip. I was able to be far more receptive to the Andes energies because of Willka T’ika as opposed to my different-hotel-every-night visit the year before.
We met local people whose daily walk reflects centuries of family ways of cooking and weaving, farming and healing.
We engaged with children and their teachers at a school high in the Andes, the beneficiary of Willka T’ika’s founder Carol Cumes and her guests through the Children’s Fund.
Students cherish school so much they walk in sandals for several hours to get there.
Everybody muses about Machu Picchu but when you live in community and honor today’s descendents of ancient Peru, that musing is more personal, more grounded.
Give it a try.
Top Photo: Don Benito (right) is an Andean healer living high in the Andes Mountains; he walks three days to share ancient healing ceremonies at Willka T’ika, bringing textiles he and his sons weave.
A Reason to Hope in Haiti