Esther's Travel Blog Archives -

Peru – an Initation Journey – part 4

27/10/2017/0 Comments/in Esther's Travel Blog /by Reikihealer

Part 4 of my fantastic initiation journey to Peru initiates in the cathedral of Cusco, where we did more ceremonies.

A fantastic place. We had to go from the black Christ to the virgin Mary, and John the baptizer. At last, we had to touch the Wiraqocha stone (or the egg) in order to get rid of hoocha (heavy energy) and receive sami (light energy)

Wiraqocha means “God” or the Creator in quechua (the original language)

I just HAD to go back to the egg again afterwards. So after most of the group had left the cathedral, I went back.

One of the following the days we were following the puma – one of the sacred animals of the Incas (together with the condor and the hummingbird). Amongst other things, the puma symbolizies inner strength and courage. We followed the puma around in Cusco in order to “awaken” it. See also the upper photo on this blog.

Museum for Pachacuti, Cusco, Peru

To me, one of the hightlights on this day was the above round museum tower for Pachacuti. This was also one of the sites, at which I was filled with a speciel energy.
I felt that Pachacuti meant something very special to me. Read more about Pachacuti here. There was a beautiful snaking rainbow anaconda all the way to the top of the tower of Pachacuti.We were followed around in Cusco by the paqo Fransisco, who is brother to Ricardo (the one with the despacho ceremony on the first day). He gave us a special initiation by the head of the puma.Later on at night, a few of us were so lucky as to getting private despacho performed by FranciscoIn the temple of Wiracocha we met a lot of happy shool kids, celebrating the first day of spring. When I say a lot – I mean hundreds of children – all shouting either “hola” or hello, pointing curiously at us.

This might be, because some of us have blond hair. It might be, because some of have blond hair. Anyway, it was a warm and positive experience to me (and probably to some of the others as well)And by the way, who is not touched by the above photo – also from the temple of Wiraqocha, where we performed more ceremonies.

Yet another highlight came, when we sailed on the lake of Titicaca to one of the small floating islands made by reeds. On this particular floating island, there were only 27 inhabitants, all living in huts made by reeds. Their means of transportation to the mainland consisted of funny boats, also made by reeds.

What impressed me the most, was that these families obviously were living together in total peace and harmony – and according to old patriarchal terms. The women were sewing, knitting, taking care of the children and cooking the food.

The president of the floating island (that’s what he called himself) told us about the Titicaca lake and th floating island.Their island is anchored now, but the floating islands used to be floating around.

Some of the floating islands today are still floating freely around. They are far away, and they do not want to be part of the civilization (read tourists).

While the husband was giving a talk, his wife and one of his daughters were embroidering on some beautiful cloths, which were (of course) for sale afterwards. The inhabitants also go to the market on the mainland to sell their handcraft work. At the edge of the island, an elderly woman was sitting cooking on a fire. Yes indeed – this was a good experience. I felt I was back in ancient time.

One of the last ceremonies, taking place shortly before Juan was going home, was an Ayni Karpay ceremony. We wer to initiate each other with our own power and insight. Very energetic and touching. I do not have a photo from this ceremony, but a photo from the snake portal – a chakana. At this site we had the Ayni Karpay ceremony as well as the one shown on the below photo.
I have to show you the below photo from the fertility temple of Chukuito. This was one of the last ceremonial sites, before Juan left, and we went further on with Juan. The photo speaks for itself. 🙂

Copacabana

You might remember that I promised to tell you about our little trip to Copacabana. Nej – ikke i Brasilien – men the capital of the province of Manco Kapac of the department of la Paz in Bolivia. Bolivia is also a beautiful country, an we had some good ceremonies on the isle of the sun and the isle of the moon for instance

It was rather liberating reaching Copacabana. The border of Bolivia was somewhat sinister. Grey energy and grey men behind desks stamping papers. I got a little paranoid and OCD afterwards, when we were told that we had to really hold on to a little receipt slip, because otherwise we might risk not getting out of Bolivia.

Luckily, I did hold on to the note, so could return safely to Peru, where we stayed for one more night, before our countries called us back. Nearby the airport of Juliaca, we saw a lot of these small “tuc tuc cars”, which were driving on very bumpy roads – and mind you this were actually main streets.

On our way to the airport we visited the beautiful site of Sillustani. The site of the dead people. They were “burried” in round towers, which varied in their size according to the importance of the person had been. iværet. Læg også Please also note the island further out on the water. It is said that from this island the souls of the dead people ascend to the Hanaqpacha (heaven).

Thank you to Juan and Núñez del Prado and to the other participants of my group, who were all contributing to making my journey an unforgettable, transforming and teaching adventure.

Thank you to Pachamama, Hanaqpacha, Wiraqocha, all the Apu’s, all the Nusta’s, Pachacuti, and all the many power sites, we have visited – as well as all those I have forgotten to mention.

Hasta luego Peru!
Te quiero mucho

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Peru – an Initiation Journey – Part 3

20/10/2017/0 Comments/in Esther's Travel Blog /by Reikihealer

On of the climaxes of my journey to Peru was – of course – the famous ancient inca city Machu Picchu

It was a long journey. At first a 30 minutes by bus – then 1.5 hours by the cosy and serviceminded Machu Picchu train.

Upon the arrival at the last station, the queue to the bus was huge – very huge. Luckily, there were a lot of busses, so when bus no. 19 arrived, our group was happy and eager to enter the bus. Alas – the bus didn’t drive for long – until it suddenly stopped. Something was wrong with the bus, so we had to leave it again and wait for the next one -no. 22, which drove us for the next 20 or 30 minutes up – following extremely narrow mountain roads to Machu Picchu. If you suffer from fear of heights, I wouldn’t recommend you to look too much our of the window of the bus. If you do so, you will notice a very steep way down to the bottom. Add to this that the bus drives very close to the roadside.

Magnificent sight of Machu Picchu. Everything felt “right and familiar”. I sensed that the most of our group felt the same way. At the same time, I felt a deep honor and humbleness by getting to experience this. Everything here was so refined and filled by ancient Inca history, which also includes a lot of suffering.

Walking around within the temples of Machu Picchu

The site of the Condor, Machu Picchu

We spent some exciting hour on this historical Inca city. Walking from site to site – from temple to temple – wondering about all the people, who used to live here was rather surreal. Juan and Ivan Nuñez del Prado lead us through the history look here: Machu Picchu History (more links below the blog).

The site of the Condor, Machu Picchu

Of course, we went through several ceremonies, before we went back to the entrance. F. eks. forbandt i os til den store kondor ved kondorens sted.On our way out, we were watched by two chinchillas, living there. Number two is sitting at the right top of the photo

Walking down the mountain again to enter the bus queue, we found that the queue was extremely long. We had to wander several 100 meters in order to enter the back of the line. Ivan told us that this was the longest line, he had ever experienced. Stating that Ivan sagde, at det var den længste kø, han nogensinde havde oplevet her. We waited for at least 1.5 hours, before it was our turn to get on a bus downhill.

In the meantime, we enjoyed the sight of a beautiful flying hummingbird, which unfortunately didn’t want to be photographed. Ivan told us the legend about the hummingbird:

Female hummingbird, photographed by Keith Johnston (Free Images)

At the beginning, the condor was the king of Machu Picchu, but this was changed, when all the birds decided that they would have a competition to find out, if the condor was to keep his title as the king of Machu Picchu. The bird, being able to fly the highest op towards the sun would be the winner. The condor was sure that it had won, when it had lost sight of the other birds below. Then suddenly, the tiny hummingbird appeared from the feathers under the wings of the condor and flies even higher up than the condor.

By this, the hummingbird became the king of Machu Picchu.

A few days later, we experienced an very spectacular incident in connection with one of our many ceremonies.

The Inca ruin Moray of Urubamba

We visitted the Inca ruin Moray of Urubamba – 7 circle formed terraces. In beforehand, we had obtained a special permit, allowing us to climb all the way down to enter all the various levels. Furthermore, we were to bring a guide on the tour. In spite of this, other guides started fluting loudly, already when we entered one of the first terraces to do our ceremonies.

As this went on and on, Juan decided that we had to forget about the last level and climb up again. We were very disappointed by this, because we were really “attracted” to the last level. But we had to adapt to all the flutists in order to cleanse out all the hoocha (heavy energy). I guess they don’t have any staff meetings at this place. Or maybe the beans are sour in Peru as well 🙂

El Niño Compadrito is an authentic skeleton of a child, who is worshiped, because many persons claim that they have received miracles from El Niño Compadrito. The skeletton of El Niño Compadrito was found after he had helped a little boy to find his way home to his nervous parents after an outing in the forrest.

We visited this child mummy and gave him our wishes, in order to receive his blessings. Also, we bought candles to burn afterwards in a room next the Niño del Compradito.

Suddenly, when standing in this room,trying to light up my 9 candles, there was a smell like the fur of a dog being burned – or – ups – my beautiful poncho. Luckily, there was a woman in the same room, who helped me fight the fire, before it had any severe consequences.

Juan Nuñez del Prado and Esther Økær

The fourth and last part of my story will tell you about the famous egg in the cathedral of Cusco. And – as promised in part 2 – we also go for a quick visit to Copacabana 🙂

More links for the history of Machu Picchu:

History.com

National Geographics

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Peru – An initiation Journey – part 213/10/2017/0 Comments/in Esther's Travel Blog /by Reikihealer

The following is part two of my blog about my initiation journey to Peru. If you have not yet read part one, you can find it here.

On September 2017 we had been a little more adjusted to the latitude, when Don Juan Nuñez del Prado and his son son Ivan arrived to Cusco.

In the following 14 days, we were to attend a Hatun Karpay lloqe – a series of initiation ceremonies, which should awaken our left side (lloqe means left), which is covering our intuitive powers and competences and by this our personal powers.

Thus, we were going to experience some deep and intense ceremonies and initiations. As mentions previously, I will not elaborate on each of these ceremonies, but I will go into details in my book, when it is published.

The primary place of our initiations was in the beautiful Betlehem Church. I believe that you have to be very tough, if you are not affected by the atmosphere and energies at this place. Immediately, when sitting down on one of the benches, I became kind of meditative, so it was very easy to perform the ceremony as per the instructions of Juan.

We had to be at the church already at 7 o’clock in the morning. The church was not overcrowded, but the persons, who did attend (besides from our group) seemed to be very dedicated. Ivan had instructed us not to show our mishas in the church, but to perform the ritual silently within ourselves. The church is catholic, and this has to be respected.

The old priest were fumbling a bit with the holy scripts, but luckily he had a young assistant, who helped him finding the right paragraphs, etc. However, we couldn’t help smiling a bit.

The same evening, we met Ricardo – a paqo on the 4th level from Q’ero, whom Juan and Ivan knows. He made a magic and beautiful despacho by coca leaves, candy, alcohol, glitter, and other ingredients for our group. Everyone of us should blow our three personal powers into the coca leaves: Llanqay, Yachay og Munay. (Physical power, mental power, heart/love power) After this, Ricardo put all of our leaves together with all the other coca leaves and blew our names into the despacho blended with blessings. After this despacho, the journey should be prosperous for all of us.

Yes – indeed -this was a very beatiful despacho. Ricardo put a lot of energy into his performance. The despacho was finalised after and all apu’s and paguarinas had been called upon and toasted to – in Pisco and redwine (the spirit helpers in Peru love alcohol, candy, and crisps). After this the despacho was wrapped in beatiful gift paper (with printed hearts) and finally in a misha cloth.

By placing his misha and the despacho on our heads, Ricardo gave each of us a powerful healing and cleansing I believe this was a very emotional experience for most of us. Maybe, this also encourages us further to purchase the bracelets and misha cloths from him afterwards. 🙂 .

The Paqo Ricardo from Q’ero with his family

Eventually, according to the tradition, Ricardo burned the despacho. Fortunately, the hotel had a suitable fireplace. It wouldn’t have been quite appropriate to make a bonfire on the floor. 🙂

Many peruvian families along the road sold sweaters, jewelry, and roasted guinea pigs. Yes, this is true. Roasted guinea pig should be quite a delicacy on the Peruvian menu cards. (However, I was only brave enough to eat lama).

Maybe, they also served some of their 4000 different kinds of potatoes. Yes – in fact there are 4000 various kinds of potatoes in Peru. Actually, the first potatoes were found in the Andes of Peru. I did get to taste 5 or 6 different kinds during my visit, so I still have a few thousands to look forward to. 🙂

After the healing from the wells, we encountered the sacred tree, which was “self-creating” on all levels. We were to connect to this tree at by this obtaining the same abilities as the tree. The tree was big and ausum and in a way very “trustworthy”, so this was an easy task. I went to the tree -placed my forehead on the trunk of the tree – and wow…. !

After this magic encounter, we were told to collect 7 stones, which we should place one by one at 7 crosses. We walked from cross to cross with a stone placed at our cosco (approx. solar plexus/navel area). By this we filled up the stone with one of our bad personal characteristics, after which we placed the stone (including the bad characteristic) by a cross and brought the next stone to the next crosss.

The piles of stones at the crosses told their own story.

The following days were filled with good ceremonial rituals and initiations, which lifted me into a state, where I felt the entire me. Among other places a site with a female and male temple placed a little aside from each other. here, I felt a special energy already en route in the bus. (Oh – yes – I know – this sounds strange). I felt a that I had been at this exact place before.

This experience was even stronger, when we visited Amaru – our hidden power helper from the underworld – an anaconda. The anaconda (the Amaru) is also the symbol of our personal power and our creative power. Besides from using the anaconda spiritually, the anaconda is used as a kind of watch dog for some families and Peru. Ivan told us about huge anacondas lying in the gardens, watcing out for their families and playing with the children.

On this sacred Amaru site, there was an Amaru cut in a big stone (see photo). Each by each we all placed ourselves under the head of the Amaru in order to connect to our own Amaru. I must say – this was a very convincing experience for me. I lost the control over my own body, which started shaking. My right hand vibrated so much that it looked as if I was waving. A huge (and strange) experience, which had such an impact on me that I cried afterwards.

Peru – An Initiation Journey – part 1

06/10/2017/0 Comments/in Esther's Travel Blog /by Reikihealer

In a way I always knew that I would eventually go to Peru. Small hints over the years – such as a book by Shirley Macleine, documentaries on tv, experiences from others – and dreams. All these small – and maybe insignificant details have inspired me

Obviously, it is no big secret that I am interested in spirituality, so what attracted me the most was of course the spiritual part of Peru – i.e. the Inka tradition. And the special energies there, I had heard about before my journey.

The opportunity of going on this long journey to another place on earth, where the moon looks like a boat (when it is a half moon) – came upon a workshop in 2016 regarding the Inka tradition. I had attracted this workshop upon a dream I had three times, which made me ask the (often) wise Google, hoping to get an answer to what this particular dream meant. The answer from Google lead me to a website concerning the Inka Tradition, which caught my interest – and shortly after this a newsletter told me about this 6 days workshops with teachings and initiations by Don Juan Nuñez del Prado and his son Ivan Nuñez del Prado from

Ivan Nuñez del Prado, Peru

Don Juan Nuñez del Prado, Peru

Peru. Not until later I found out that Juan is a well-known anthroplogist and Paqo (performer of the Inka tradition), who is one of the main characters of the book by Elizabeth B. Jenkins “The Inka initiation”. Juan, his son was taught by his father, while he followed him around as a very young boy.

I participated in 3 workshops, during which I learned many of the tools of the q’ero indians meant for using the ever existing energy to help others and oneself to feel better. First and foremost by receiving “sami” light and healing energy and let go of all “hoocha”, which is heavy energy.

These three workshops also lead me to Anna Southerington. She is an amazing Swedish woman – and paqo, living in Stockholm. She has know Juan and Ivan for years and has been travelling in Peru many times. She has written the very inspirational book “Inkamestrenes Arv”, descriping the Inka Tradition and showing many energy exercises in detail. From time to time she is giving workshops in Sweden and Denmark. A workshop with Anna encouraged me further: I knew that I had to go to Peru.

In September 2017, this wish was manifested, when I together with a group of people from Denmark, Greece, Austria, Croatia, and Scotland arrived in the beatiful and magical Peru.

Before the arrival most of us started from Copenhagen Airport full of expectations. Some of us already met before – others met for the first time at a presentation workshop prior to the journey – and yet a few persons were to arrive later in Peru.

Så startede den laaaange rejse mod rejsemålet. Først til Amsterdam – derfra videre til Lima. 12,5 timer, hvor vi enten læste, så film (jeg så bl. a. den varme film om Paul Potts), “gik tur” på de lange gange, blundede eller spiste. Det sidste gjorde vi ca. hver anden time, hvor det søde KLM-personale gik rundt og servicerede os.

The loooon journey towards our goal – Peru – started. KLM to Amsterdam – and from there 12.5 hours to Lima. How to spend this many hours on a plane? Watching movies (e.g. the Paul Potts movie) – taking a walk on the long aisles, sleeping, or eating. The latter every second hour – serviced by the very kind KLM cabin crew.

Finally, we arrived at the airport hotel in Lima. Very tired – but still happy. Endelig ankom vi trætte – men stadig glade og forventningsfulde til Lima. However, we had to wait for a very long time, before we were accomodated, because the hotel staff said that we had booked a room less than the leader of the journey claimed.

Very early the next morning we were to fly from Lima to Cusco. The time difference is 7 hours earlier than i Copenhagen, so we hadn’t really got accustomed to that yet.

The flights from Lima are only able to fly within a specific time limit each day because of the weather conditions. Sometimes, the flights are cancelled because the weather is not fine enough for flying. But today, everything went fine. We were booked in two various flights leaving with an interval of 5 minutes.

Approaching Cusco, the appearance really touched me deeply. This was huge – very huge. Already now – it felt like “coming home”.

Right after having met the other half of the group, we drank a cup of coca tea (tea made on coca leaves), which helps extending the bloodvessels, so it is (a little) easier to breath in the very thin air. The first half of the group had got free coca leaves to chew on, but I was told that it cost 1 dollar for a cup of tea. Ok – I wasn’t ruined by that – and the tea was fine, but some got a good laugh because of this.

Cusco is almost 3400 meter above sealevel, so the latitude sickness was inavoidable despite of coca leaves and extra iron mixture (Krauterblaut some weeks prior to our departure, in order to increase the contents of hemoglobine in our blood). It is not recommendable to take medicine against latitude illness, as this might give you the feeling of being capable of anything (eg. climbing mountains or running fast), because you don’t have any symptoms. Worst case scenario, this will hide any serious side effects of the latitude illness.

How does it feel to have latitude illness?

Of course, this might vary from person to person. I had strong respitory issues – almost astmatic, when I was going upwards – e.g. climbning stairs, of which there are quite a few in Cusco.

I felt dizzy, my heart beat was fast, and I had a bad migraine. All the symptoms (except for the migraine, which was constant for some hours) were like waves. One moment you think that now – hurray – I have become used to the latitude. Alas – the next moment you know that you have still not become used to it.

Add to the latitude issues, that you “inner time watch” is noisy. Your body still believes that it is time to wake up between 1 or 2 in the night.

All of this, however, is evened out over time. I heard that when you have been here for a months your body has totally adapted to the latitude. However, even people born and living in Peru will have lattitude issues, when return to Cusco after visits to lower areas. (This applies to Juan and Ivan as well).

This means that you have to accept that this is just how it is, and after a few days it is already better. The most important thing is that you take it easy. You have to walk slowly and pause every time you get dizzy or loose your breath.

This is way of practizing your “live in the moment” skills.

So upon the arrival at this beautiful old city of Cusco, we all went very very slowly arround and watched the colourful inhabitants of the city on the streets – or on the way in or out of the cathedral or the church

From time to time, we were stopped by street sellers, who wanted to sell everything from “genuine” Rayban sunglasses, jewelry, and opportunities of photographing their son holding a goat (wearing clothes) in his arms or a little woman with a lama walking by her side in a line (like a dog)

We had a lunch at the Pukara – a tiny popular restaurant nearby the hotel, very good at cooking chicken with coriander. A large portion of rice, vegetables and chicken was about 25 soles, which is about 7 Euros.

Narrow streets of Cusco

After coffee, cocoa or coca tee at the coffeeshop “Jack’s”, colourful boots were demanding us to be bought in the little shoeshop on the other side of the street. Handmade and unique (In Europe at least). Well, they didn’t have my size. “Come tomorrow, and we have sewn a new pair for you – only 140 soles. And they must have loved us, because they actually sold three pairs at a time, because a woman of my group, who became a dear friend of me, also bought a pair – as well as a third person from elsewhere, who was so excited, when she watched us trying the boots that she also wanted to order a pair.

Later on that day, my wallet was emptied, and the contents replaced by a beautiful and hand woven poncho, which I intended to use for ceremonial purposes later on. Unfortunately, most of the group (including me) were not aware that it is in fact possible to buy soles in Forex in Denmark, and we had only brought a few dollars. The small shops were not very keen on accepting credit cards, so this did result in some stupid fees in the ATM’s.

The next few days – leading up to the arrival of Juan and Ivan, were beautiful and memorable due to the views of mountains, lamas, sheep, and colourful people. It is a really beautiful country. The sun was burning – especially when we went further up in the mountains. Our noses became red – and we enjoyed being adventorers in this foreign country.

One afternoon, I went on a (huge) shopping trip together with a nice couple, who are now good friends of mine. I must admit – the male part of this couple really deserves a golden medal for being patient. 6 hours….. I do not know any other man who can beat this. J The other woman and I managed to get (almost) everything we needed. She found a misha cloth, and I found gifts for my family. The misha cloth was found in a fantastic shop with ancient misha cloths and other interesting Inka stuff. She just knew that she had to enter this shop (at the end of the day). And she was right. She found a beatiful misha cloth in exactly the colours she had imagined.

I was also lucky. I found an expensive bag for my own misha, and I was ready to leave the shop without it, in case I couldn’t obtain it for 200 soles. And then suddenly, the seller – Wilbert – shouted after me that I could get it for this amount, because he felt that I was serous in regards of ceremonial stuff. The below photo shows the owner of a shop of music instruments and I. Here I bought a pan flute for my younger son. Take it easy now – I didn’t bring home the owner of the shop 🙂

After a couple of days with sightseeing, shopping, and entertainment in front of the cathedral, our two teachers Juan and Ivan Nunes del Prado came – and now the adventure started for real,which I will tell you about in my next blog.

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