Most recently, Gustav Grahn Calminder was a volunteer in India for nine months, teaching math, English and working in a children’s home. Before India he studied photography in Finland and England and views photography as a way to explore and see the world. Now he is traveling in South America, writing about his adventures, and of course, taking a lot of pictures. He also plans on volunteering at a school in Ecuador. In the future, Gustav would like to work as a peace observer and/or photojournalist. Some of Gustav’s pictures can be found here and here.
A few days ago, me and two friends from Cusco went out walking to Cristi Blanco, a white statue of Jesus standing on a small mountain outside Cusco. We started 5 a.m in the morning so we could see the sunrise over Cusco and avoid paying any entrance fees, before the guards came. We were not the only ones doing so. Many locals were there, walking in the area and running/training on the mountain slope. But I was the only “gringo,” with locals commenting around me in Quechua, the language spoken here before the Spanish colonization.
We walked around the Inca ruins, exploring caves with a torch. I was seeing the place how a “Cuscanian” (person from Cusco) sees it, before the tourists come and take over the place.
After the ruins, we decided to continue on to others an hour walk away. Quite soon, the only people we met were locals, living on the hills outside Cusco. We were now the only ones from the city.
I would have never walked there alone. Not because of a risk from being robbed. Rather, I wouldn’t know where to go, what to find and see, how to get back and where is it ok to walk. I didn’t have knowledge about the area.
We got to the ruins, but they were blocked off with blue tape, telling us to not enter. So we went in, or rather, crossed the blocked off area. We found a few caves. Some of them looked dangerous, but one of them looked fine so we entered. There were snake shapes cut out in the cave, done by the Incas. The snakes heads were gone and I was told that it was the Spanish who destroyed them. Looking at how intact the snakes’ bodies were after many, many years, it seems as if someone would have had to used a lot of force to destroy the snakes’ head.
After that we continued to the top of the hill which was located next to and is a part of the Inca ruins. We had a short rest and beautiful view before walking back.
We walked a different way when going back to Cusco, stopping at a monkey statue. The body of the monkey was still intact, but the head was missing…
I had a really good morning, seeing things I would never have seen if i walked alone, or with another tourist. This makes me think: do we respect other lifestyles, cultures and religions? Do we value local knowledge enough, especially when it comes to development?
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Kram Eva D