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Cuyo Grande sits deep in the Andes Mountains, perched on a mountainside, far away from Cusco, Pisac, and the rest of the world. We spent an amazing day in Cuyo Grande...so amazing that with thought the day deserved its own photo page.
Our journey to Cuyo Grande was prompted by the desire to visit a 6 year old girl by the name of Marisol, who happens to be the goddaughter of friends of ours, John and Ullie (who introduced us to Jesus). How John and Ullie came to be godparents to a young girl high in the Andes Mountains is a story in and of itself. Briefly, our friend and spanish teacher, Jesus, met Marisol and her family one day while Jesus was visiting Cuyo Grande roughly 18 months ago. She was very ill, and Jesus shared with her father medicine to help her recover. Approximately 6 months later, Jesus brought our friends, John and Ullie, to Cuyo Grande to see the town and to check on Marisol. Thankfully, she was doing just fine and her father asked that John and Ullie serve as godparents to Marisol. And so it came to be that we traveled to Cuyo Grande to visit Marisol, bearing small gifts from her godparents. We left from Pisac, piled in a collectivo (a privately operated van that serves as a bus) with, roughly, 27 other bodies (we are not kidding). Thankfully, however, most of those bodies were school children and, by the time we reached our destination, we were the only ones left. The ride was, to unaccustomed Westerners, a ridiculously perilous one. The small dirt road that wound up and along the mountainside was wide enough to accommodate only one vehicle at a time, and certainly had no guardrails. While the views from the van were amazing as we were able to stare into the chasm 500-1000 feet below, at times all we could think about was that if the brakes or steering failed, even slightly, we were done. We did, however, arrive safely, visiting Marisol and a Shaman (a priest/healer/sage/etc.) to boot. Here are highlights from our visit.
A cow's eye view of Marisol's yard and the Andes Mountains on the other side of the valley.
Rich and Kelly meet Marisol.
And so our day in Cuyo Grande came to an end, but we will always have the memories of this small village and the special people that live there.
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Outside of
the only tienda (general store) in Cuyo Grande, the family that owns and
operates it gathers outside with the blond freak show with pigtails.
Rich and the
children of Cuyo Grande pose for a photo together.
After asking neighbors
to call Marisol's family in from the fields, we finally get to meet her.
She is a beautiful and shy Peruvian young lady. Here she is with one
of her family's four cows. Jesus remarked that the family must be doing
better, as the last time he had visited, they did not have any cows.
Curious
cats look out
from a window of Marisol's house.
Kelly
playing with cows in Marisol's front yard.
Here, the local Shaman (his
daughter and grandchildren are in the picture as well) reads coca leaves and, in
so doing, is able to divine our future. The reading took place in their
small, darkened, adobe home, with children and neighbors gathered quietly around
to bear witness to the proceedings. The coca leaves told the Shaman that
we would always be together, that we would have two kids, including a fat
boy. He also told us, sadly, that our first child would be a girl that
would die (as every one will, obviously, die at some point we can only hope that
she will outlive us and die at a ripe old age). On a brighter note, he
also told us that we would be wealthy. Clearly, this forecast alone
undercuts the credibility of the Shaman's predictions--he obviously does not
know that we have quit our jobs!
