Getting Ready at the Heart of AN!
Our focus has now turned to preparing for our May events at the Heart of AN. There is much to do until our first visitors arrive on May 1st. We will have visitors here until the 17th, so it will be an action packed few weeks!
After German finishes the roof of the AN•Chakana, he will repair the settling cracks in the yeso inside our house and make river rock foundations for the wall outside. Eloy will repair the new leaks in our roof and repaint the exterior paint that was damaged in the big storm a few weeks ago. We will also be washing and waxing all the tile floors inside our house.
The center of the AN•Labyrinth is now complete. The glass blocks are in position and everything feels good. Now it’s having a week of rest. Water is being poured over the slowly drying cement in the inner circle. Eloy has also been transferring plugs of grass into parts of the pathways which are bare earth.
What’s interesting is that we’ve never walked the labyrinth in its present form. Emanaku and I walked an earlier version and it felt pretty good, although not quite right. Now, it looks like we will walk the labyrinth for the first time in early May.
The roof of the AN•Chakana made great progress last week. We finally decided to make the entire roof out of the clear, transparent plastic, rather than using a color. The roof was complete except it needed the plastic roofing to be put into the center. Then on Saturday, German told us that he had another job to do this week and wouldn’t be back to finish it until next week. So close and yet so far!
There is much to do, but it’s exciting to get it done. It will be so fun to see some dear friends in a few weeks, some of them coming here for the very first time!
And if you want to join us at the Readers of the Cards Masterclass in May – click here. There are often great sales of flights to Peru lately!
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- Here is one of the diamonds at the North – South entrances to the labyrinth.
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- The labyrinth is starting to look beautiful, even with the temporary tent above the inner circle to protect the cement from the strong Sun here.
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- For the Moon crescent inside the inner AN circle of the labyrinth, we decided to glue glimmer tiles to the bottom of the glass blocks to give them some unexpected depth.
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- German and his son Victor begin installing the glass blocks.
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- The glass blocks are now in position and everything is slowly drying.
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- Here’s the overview of the inner AN circle in the middle of the labyrinth.
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- We love how the line of of the cactus follows the line of the mountain behind it. Everywhere you look, there is always something beautiful to see. We are surrounded by beauty in all directions!
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- Our Q’ero friend Agosto brought us a new batch of sancarpas. Eloy tries on a gorgeous beaded vest which Agosto made, while Juana holds up a long beaded belt.
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- Andres repaired the peeling paint on this section of the wall.
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- One of our gigantic rolls of plastic is unfurled so the roof sections can be cut out in triangles. It’s all like an intricate puzzle.
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- Here’s the roof over the AN•Chakana so far! It feels good and looks like it belongs here.
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- Just when the AN•Chakana roof was almost done, German announced that he and his crew would be gone for a week! So we still have a big opening in the top of the roof. After much contemplation, we’ve decided to fill it with the clear plastic, rather than a color.
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- The AN•Chakana roof is tucked into the trees and isn’t very visible from the rest of the land.
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- Crews of around thirty men have started carrying the heavy cement electricity poles up the path to the distant village of Cancha Cancha. This process will take several months to complete since the village is a four hour uphill walk from here. It would have been so much easier to use solar power. Thank you, Carmen for this photo!
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- This is the narrow, uphill path that the heavy cement poles have to travel. Thank you Carmen for this photo!
