“Sometimes the city itself speaks, thru a voice you don’t expect.”
The stones of Cusco lie heavy beneath my feet. Every step weighs heavily. Behind every wall hide stories that have often been told, but never written down.
I walk slowly thru a narrow street where the sun, inti, shines golden on the cobblestones. The air is thin. Here, at over 3000 meters altitude, it feels as if the city itself is breathing slowly but powerfully.
On a bench sits a woman. Her hands rest on a woven cloth full of patterns and words that I cannot decipher. Her long black hair is gathered into a braid. She turns her head in my direction and looks at me with a serious expression as I walk by. “You’re lost,” she says.
I look at her and search for words that can break my silence. “Sit down,” she says. “If you listen closely, you can hear the streets speak.” Then the way will reveal itself.
“I can tell by looking at you that you come from the lowlands.” You are closer to the sun here. Closer to God, inti the eternal bringer of light. I am a daughter of the sun.”
She talks about the Incas who left majestic structures here. About the time when the city was filled with strange voices from Europe. How a new God came who received a cathedral, atop her temple.
That all the stones of the city are not just walls and streets, but memories. The stones remain silent. That every stone has known a hand that helped build a city, not to disappear, but to remain.
I listen, silently but captivated, to the words she shares with me. She has to laugh at my silence while pouring chicha de jora from a large pitcher.
She takes a few sips from the cup and hands it to me. “Now it’s your turn,” she says. I look surprised. “Drinking from the same cup?” I think, but I find it a beautiful gesture.
I taste the earthy flavor, as if the mountains surrounding the city want to make their voices heard. The city breathes.
She whispers a single word: “Pachamama.” It sounds simple, but it carries a world within it. Mother Earth, the breath of origin. The word lingers in the street, like an echo that doesn’t fade. I feel how it connects me to something greater than my own journey.
Just as I drank from her cup, so I drink from the source of origin — and taste that I am part of an ancient voice.
As I rise to continue, she confides in me once more: “Listen, and you will hear the walls speak.” Her words echo.
I walk on and listen, and feel how Cusco is not just a city, but a mirror of origin.
“The horizon speaks in many languages, but always with the same voice of origin.”
