Chasing Mountain Magic: Remembering My Time in Cusco

The llama on my left is named Pablo. I know because I asked the women, “Como te llama, de llama?” and though I butchered the grammar, the joke crossed language barriers and the women laughed out loud. Making a word pun in Spanish is one of my favorite memories of this trip.

Darkness had fallen, the sky draped around the Vilcabamba mountains like a mother wrapping her child in a blanket. The inhalation moved air to every cell of my body and as I glanced upward, the deepness of my breath surprised me — as though my lungs were being filled directly from the cosmos. I leaned into the feeling of fullness, allowing my eyes to consume as many stars as possible between blinks…