so today I went with our host and with a shaman by the name of Caesar LaGusto. we first went into market place to buy the necessary things for the ritual then we drove out of town to a place called Saqsaywaymen. this place is famous for a battle between Pizzarro and the last Incan emperor. we got out of the car and walk through a field into the woods which was an arboreal forest with pine trees that reminded me a lot of home. The shaman wore traditional looking clothing of an Andean shaman. Colorful beaded hat white poncho black pants. Later he was to explain the significance of his clothing.  He stopped at various points to tell us of the meaning and philosophy of what we were doing. I confess that though my ability to speak and understand Spanish is OK when dealing with mundane concrete matters the degree if his abstraction was very difficult for me to follow.  The gist that I got was  that there are three essential elements that are brought together by a fourth. The three are represented by animal deities the serpant below us the puma on the earth and the condor above us. These Also correspond to father son and holy spirit.  He had 4 flowers of which there were 3 colors  white cleansing red love yellow balance.  We walked to a place we were told was a sacred space in the forest. The shaman prepared the space with opening the blanket he carried on his back. The ceremony was about 2 hours in length.  It was called a 'despacio' I believe. A cleansing ceremony.  It involved quite a few items. Sugar, suet, rice, garbanzo beans, coca seeds and coca leaves, the colored carnations, incense, wine, Ani's, candy. He used bells and light a fire in a potterybowl where he put flower water (high in alcohol content) . he chanted repeatedly in Spanish and later I was to find out Quecua . his chants basically went like this "listen to my supplication Guadalupe pauchamana mother of the earth helps protect us" he named many christian saints and repeated "hampfwei" ( phonetically spelled meaning please and "huepewayko" help us between and during chants he made a flower like shape out of the green coca leaves and red leaves of the carnation. When finally he was done he poured the spices in a deliberate way around the flower then folded everything together. We carried it to a cave and an altar where we   burned it as an offering.  There are so many details I'm leaving out this is the gist of the entire ceremony. Joseph Campbell spoke about the difference between shaman and priests he said that priests were functionariesthat sure would had a direct experience with the transcendent did they created their own myths and carry them to the people their new truth. a priest on the other hand turns out the rituals and ceremonies of a people by this definition Caesar was priest not a shaman. perhaps when I get to the Amazon jungle I will find a shaman. But I take this as a sort of benediction and protection spell for the rest of the journey.  Tomorrow I leave the mountains of the Andes for the jungle of the Amazon.  I have finished my packing. Tonight I hope I can finish my book so I don't have to carry it though it is very enjoyable and I will have to get another copy at some point.  I will also try to post a few pics from today. I was able to make some brief movies also but I don't know how to post them here. Perhaps in the future.