About us in Markawasi
By Jose A. Pomar
It was in August 1982, when a picture on the cover of OIGA, a weekly news magazine published in Lima, caught Peruvians attention. The blurry photograph showed a slim humanoid dressed in a silver suit standing on a particularly strange rock formation, hand raised as saluting...the title underneath in large block yellow letters read (in Spanish) EXTRATERRESTRIAL PHOTOGRAPHED IN MARKAWASI.
At the time, UFO sightings had already been for several years one of the preferred headlines in most of Peru's newspapers and magazines. There were several books on the subject, even some that described personal experiences of people that had been abducted by extraterrestrial beings. But only now there was a picture of what it looked like a friendly space traveler that had landed not far from Peru's national capital.
Until then, few people in Peru were acquainted with Markawasi, an awesome plateau located in the Central Andes, and an amazing stone-forest site at 4.000 meters high. Well, even if the ET photograph might have been faked, it was decisively motivating for discovering this unique hard-to-reach magical site where rocks had been mysteriously sculpted to resemble men, animals or things of all kinds. Thirty-seven years have passed and people from all over the world have been visiting Markawasi. Not all visitors have seen aliens but most have experienced something out of this world.
Before this picture was published, very little was known in Peru about Markawasi. Between the '40s and '60s, the plateau was visited by a few archaeologists, anthropologists. geologists and by Daniel Ruzo, a Peruvian investigator of ancient civilizations and energetic places. Ruzo spent 8 years living and working on the plateau. He came up with an extraordinary theory about the original inhabitants of Markawasi, their origin, development and vanishing several thousand of years ago. Unfortunately, scientists where not interested to continue investigations after Ruzo's conclusions where published and he had left Peru to reside in Mexico. So the plateau became a gathering place for UFOlogists searching for close encounters with alien lifeforms, hippies carrying on psychedelic peace and love sessions and adventurous weekend-camp youngsters, like me and the bunch of friends I managed to convince that the 4-hour overland trip to the almost 4.000 m.a.s.l. plateau was worth the effort.
Thirty-five years ago, reaching Markawasi from Lima was certainly not an easy task. There wasn't a regular daily itinerary bus to San Pedro de Casta, the little village at the feet of the plateau from where the walking trail began. There were only small trucks going from Chosica 2 or 3 times a week, making their way up the Santa Eulalia to Huinco winding dirt road.
Continue reading...