STONE BOTHERING

People often ask us why we write so much about Peru. It comes up in emails, in comments, sometimes even in passing conversations. Why Peru again. Why another post. Why another photograph of stone walls, another reflection on ancient places, another story from the Sacred Valley or the desert. The short answer is that Peru never stops unfolding. The longer answer is that Peru changed the way we see history, travel, and place itself. We did not go to Peru once and decided to build an entire body of work around it. That would be too simple, too neat. What actually happened is that Peru kept pulling us back, each time revealing something we had not noticed before. A layer beneath the layer. A silence behind the noise. A presence that refused to be reduced to a checklist of famous sites. At some point, returning again and again was no longer enough. We needed to slow down. We needed to live there, even briefly, to begin to understand why this land feels so dense with memory. Peru is not one ...

High in the Andes of Peru the mountains rise not only as geological wonders but also as living beings. To the Quechua and Aymara people these towering peaks are known as Apus. They are not simply rocks and ice but lords of the land, protectors of communities and messengers between human beings and the cosmos. When one travels through the Sacred Valley, when one sees the glistening snow of Ausangate at dawn, or the dramatic silhouette of Salkantay at sunset, it becomes clear why these mountains are revered. They are immense, beautiful, and deeply mysterious. What is an Apu The word Apu comes from Quechua and means lord or spirit. In the Andean worldview an Apu is not just the mountain itself but the living presence that dwells within it. This presence has a personality, a will, and a relationship with the people who live nearby. Just as rivers, lakes, caves and springs can be sacred, so too are the mountains. Yet mountains hold a special place because they rise into the sky and touch th...