Walking the Spine of Remembrance Part 3 — The Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu

Leaving the dense humidity of the Amazon Basin, I could feel the shift the moment we began our ascent toward the Andes. Two short flights carried us from the jungle into the thin, crystalline air of Cusco, nearly 10,000 feet above sea level. My son had fallen ill before the journey, so even getting there required care, patience, and trust. It felt like a threshold within a threshold, a call to slow down and surrender.

When we finally arrived, I was struck not only by the altitude but by what it was asking of me. My body reacted to the change immediately, yet I sensed that this was not just a physical adjustment. The altitude itself carried a higher frequency, a finer vibration of light. I realized that I wasn’t meant to medicate it away, but to allow it to recalibrate me, body, mind, and spirit. As I softened into it, breathing consciously and moving slowly, I began to feel the veil thin. Messages came more easily. I could see more clearly what I had witnessed in Pucallpa, as if the dense sorrow of the Amazon had lifted into new understanding.

Cusco felt ancient and layered. You could see the stone foundations of the Inca temples beneath Spanish walls, traces of civilizations stacked one upon another, each telling its own story of reverence and loss. When I visited Sacsayhuamán, the great fortress overlooking the city, I could feel the intelligence in the stones themselves, the precision, the ceremony, the quiet memory of a people who once lived in deep alignment with the Earth.

I sensed there were even older layers beneath those, energies that predated history, whispering of a time when humanity still remembered its sacred partnership with the living world.

From Cusco, we journeyed along the Sacred Valley, Pisac, Urubamba, Ollantaytambo, each stop revealing its own rhythm of beauty and resilience. Terraced mountainsides, vibrant markets, local women weaving color into cloth as naturally as breathing. The energy of the land was alive and generous, holding centuries of devotion. From Ollantaytambo, we took a train into Aguas Calientes, the lush river town nestled below the sacred peaks. I found myself attuning more deeply with each step, moving between worlds, between the human and the divine.

And then came the final ascent: Machu Picchu.

Months before, my son and I had agreed that I would hike up Mount Machu Picchu, the towering peak above the citadel. Most visitors wander the sacred site below, but few climb that mountain. I knew it would be difficult, and I had prepared for it, walking, training, acclimatizing, but nothing could truly prepare me for what the climb would ask of me.

The path was steep, stone after stone winding endlessly upward. The altitude pressed against my lungs, my legs trembled, and there were moments I wanted to turn back. Yet a voice within whispered, this is an initiation. Each step became a prayer. Each breath, a surrender.

I began to understand that this climb was not about reaching a view or conquering a mountain. It was about learning how to walk through my next threshold. How to keep going when the way feels uncertain. How to meet discomfort with presence instead of resistance.

At the summit, the clouds had rolled in thick and heavy. The panoramic view that my son had promised me was hidden from sight. My first impulse was disappointment, but then came the deeper realization.

The lesson was never about what I would see, but what I would become in the journey itself.

The mountain showed me that true ascension isn’t about escaping the fog, but learning to see through it. It is about walking with faith when the way ahead isn’t visible, trusting that clarity will come in its own time.

As I descended, I felt lighter, quieter, more aligned. The Sacred Valley had been a teacher of altitude and humility, of ceremony and surrender. It was preparing me not just for the next stage of my pilgrimage, but for the next stage of my life.

I could feel it even then. The journey was guiding me northward, along the great spine of remembrance, toward the Rockies. The frequencies of the Andes and the North American mountains felt like mirrors of one another, two ends of a single pulse moving through the Western Hemisphere. I knew I would soon carry what I had gathered here back to the northern lands that had birthed me.

The pilgrimage was far from over. The next threshold was waiting.

This reflection is part of my five-part series, Walking the Spine of Remembrance, a pilgrimage from the Andes to the Rockies.

If this story resonates, stay tuned for Part 4: The Crystalline Mountains, coming next.

If You Feel the Call to Go Deeper

If this reflection touched something within you, I invite you to explore the deeper architecture of your own life and purpose, to listen for the portals and pathways already opening beneath your feet.

Come as you are, and leave with renewed clarity, soft power, and connection to the deeper rhythm that moves through all things.