In 1997, for the second successive year, I’ve had the privilege of accompanying Findhorn Community co-founder Dorothy Maclean on a tour in South America.

My contacts over recent years in many parts of South America again enabled the coordination of a trip that combined the offering of presentations and workshops with sightseeing and meeting a spectrum of wonderful people. And this tour was to a part of South America that Dorothy had never had the opportunity to visit: the Andean countries of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. Earlier in her life — long before her days at Findhorn — Dorothy’s work with the British government had taken her to Argentina and Uruguay. Her regret was never having gotten to Machu Picchu. Now this long-awaited dream would be realised.

Rather than attempting a chronological description of our eight-week itinerary, I’ll offer some highlights from our trip that may serve in sharing its variety and contrasts.

With Dorothy Maclean and Marion Remus (now a Findhorn Resource Person) in Bolivia, 1997

The contrast of hospitality, for example, remembering on the one hand the simple peasants cabin on a Bolivian hillside, where we were offered fruit from their orange and apple trees, and then on another occasion some weeks later, calling on the Israeli ambassador to Ecuador and his wife, in their luxury apartment overlooking the panorama of Quito as night fell on the city.

Contrasts in transportation ranged from a brief jaunt on Lake Titicaca in an Incan balsa (made from reeds that grow in the lake) to the now routine magic of jet travel where we arrived at the next city almost before realising that we’ve left the last one. We had various journeys by jeep via mountainous roads to remote points of interest, took the train from Cusco along the rushing Urubamba river on our way to Machu Picchu, and remember a bus that detoured by back roads and across a field to bypass a town where the highway was blocked by the Palm Sunday fair. On our excursion to visit the Isla del Sol (Sun Island) in Lake Titicaca, legendary birth place of the first lucas, we crossed to the island by motor boat, and following an improvised lunch of tinned fish, bread, juice and chocolate, we hiked a trail that offers spectacular views of the lake and the snow-capped Andes beyond. At day’s end the motor launch returned us shoreward under painted sunset skies to run out of gas about a half mile from the docking place. Yes, another boat was close at hand to tow us in. I guess our intentions were in alignment with greater purpose.

Dorothy enjoying an outing in a balsa boat, Lake Titicaca, between Peru and Bolivia, 1997

Then contrasts of the land itself: the tropical forests of Bolivia; the 4000-meter high altiplano, home of llamas and producer of potatoes and quinoa; the sparse desert landscape of the Peruvian coast. And the mountains themselves: sometimes verdant with lush vegetation, sometimes standing quiet and cold with perpetual snow. We saw coca leaves drying in the sun along the roadside, stared at the sloths perched in trees in the plaza of Santa Cruz, enjoyed thermal baths near Quito and again near Bogota, and played with monkeys in Machia Park in Bolivia’s Chapare forest — one monkey stole Dorothy’s glasses and took them up a tree! (And fortunately was coaxed into returning them.)

Dorothy and friend in Bolivian lowlands, 1997

We also visited a nature reserve that protects the giant Puya Raymondi, a unique altiplano plant that patiently grows over 100 years in a spiny spherical shape to perhaps five meters in diameter, and then rapidly sends forth an immense vertical stalk covered with hundreds of its flowers — and then the plant dies. Eduardo Machicado, who inherited care of this reserve from his grandfather, hosted our workshop at this home in La Paz.

Yes, our journey was one of work as well. As we had done together in 1996, Dorothy shared the stories of her contact with the angelic realm as expressed through nature and through humanity, and guided participatory meditations inviting each person’s perception of the intelligent essence within various expressions of life, always beginning with one’s self. I offered the more active element in the workshops through leading sacred dance. Again this combination proved effective and enjoyable.

Our presentations and workshops were offered in a variety of settings that matched the diversity of the cities we visited, and the people who hosted us. Pepe Altamirano, who operates a travel agency in Cusco, arranged with city authorities for us to use an exhibition gallery in a local museum for our workshop sessions. This workshop’s participants reflected the international character of Cusco, for in our group were three Americans, a Belgian, Ruth from Germany (who lived several years in the Findhorn Community), and Chris from Tenerife who’d also been to Findhorn and was subsequently travelling around South America).

With Dorothy Maclean at a table in a restaurant near the Peru-Bolivia border 1997

In Bogota, where we stayed two weeks at the end of our tour, our two primary workshops were held at a school campus outside the city, using a classroom for Dorothy’s sessions and an outdoor playing field for the dances. Our organisers there arranged quite an ambitious schedule for us. In addition to our workshops, Dorothy gave presentations to at least 13 other groups, including the Theosophical Society, two universities, and a home for 80 orphaned children (apparently with expectations at the latter that Dorothy would be a “saviour” of sorts, able to advise on practical projects… Dorothy regretted that she couldn’t be). Our major audience in Bogota was at the Festival of Light — an annual “Mind-Body- Spirit’-sort of exposition, where Dorothy spoke to some 400 people, and I led a sacred dance session for perhaps 200, the group forming five concentric circles and I giving instructions with a microphone from a distance away. Thanks to some experienced dancers among the group, and my choosing simpler dances, the session went surprisingly well!

On the note of sacred dance, Bogota is one of the places in South America where in my experience the dances are meeting greatest receptivity. There were 40 participants in my 10-hour dance workshop that extended over 3 sessions. Then I was invited to share a dance session with the employees of an import/export firm whose director has been inspired by the dances. Some 40 of his employees turned up… and really seemed to enjoy this for them novel way of connecting. A reminder of the unlimited potential offered by our Findhorn Foundation- based group-building techniques.

Dorothy’s interest in human history and cultural evolution was rewarded in our visits to sites that give testimony to the civilisations of South America’s early inhabitants. These included the pre-Inca “El Fuerte” near Samaipata, Bolivia, a ceremonial site and observatory carved onto an extensive rock outcropping; the temple complex at Tiwanaku, near La Paz, the Incan burial towers at Silustani near Puno on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca; the early city of Pachacamac in the coastal desert south of Lima, and the mighty fortification of Sacsayhuaman (sexy woman?, ventured Dorothy, in trying to pronounce it) overlooking Cusco. Of course Machu Picchu is a highlight of most visits to Peru. Our two-day excursion there from Cusco enabled an initial exploration of the site on the first afternoon, and a return the next morning as mists rise cloudlike from the Urubamba river valley, creating magical ever-changing vistas. “Why would they build a city up here?“, marvelled Dorothy, stopping to catch her breath and glad that her vertigo isn’t quite so bad as a used to be!

Atop another hill, Monserrate, reached by funicular railway from its base at the edge of Bogota, a small group of us held a quiet attunement to the Angel of Bogota. We couldn’t see the city, as a thick fog blocked it from view; we heard the traffic, however, so knew it was there below us! Several people in the group felt contact with the angel, and Dorothy and others shared their impressions of its huge responsibilities to this city of many millions.

Religion has a way of linking past and present, taking on characteristics of an area’s cultural realities along the way. How notable this is with Catholicism in Latin America. I’d been in Cusco last Christmas Eve, celebrated with a vast native market in the city’s main plaza.

Now three months later in the same place with Dorothy, we paused to watch the Good Friday procession. First came a life-size image of the Virgin, carried upright in a glass case, richly dressed in satin gowns and escorted by a brass band. Later appeared the figure of a tortured Jesus. whose display case was carried accompanied by more somber band music — and was heavily guarded by helmeted policemen! It’s sometimes hard to make all the connections.

Museums added perspective in appreciating the development of past — and present — cultures. Displays of objects crafted from gold and other metals in museums in La Paz and in Bogota are particularly impressive. On ending the tour through Bogota’s Gold Museum. visitors are ushered into a sort of bank vault and the door locked behind them. In a room simulating the bottom of a sacred lake hundreds of gold artifacts bear witness to the glory of civilisations past. Present-day cultural diversity in Ecuador is nicely represented in a compact yet comprehensive display at the monument marking the equator, north of Quito. And of course we were photographed with one foot in the northern hemisphere and one in the south.

In Quito, Dorothy had the opportunity to meet not just one ambassador, but two. In addition to our visiting the Israeli ambassador, Dorothy was also introduced to the ambassador from Canada — of course a special treat as Guelph, Ontario is Dorothy’s birth place, and although a true planetary citizen Dorothy still travels with a Canadian passport.

Ancestral wisdom remains alive in more remote corners of South America. Although not the focus of this tour, contacts were made which might on future occasion lead to understanding more fully what could be seen as the soul of this continent and its peoples. A chief from an Amazon tribe came to one afternoon’s informal gathering, sharing a bit of a simple dance with us. In Puno, we met Jorge Luis Delgado, a travel guide who talked of Andean “mysteries” including the hidden “abbey” mentioned in the book Secret of the Andes. And in Cusco we shared lunch one day with Anton Ponce de Leon, whose Inca teachers live in “the only remaining Inca village” that maintains the integrity of their tradition. . . in a location kept hidden.

In Bogota, in our final workshops of the tour, as the participants introduced themselves with a few words expressing why each was drawn to take part, Dorothy affirmingly noted that “many people are here seeking to know their inner selves, their inner truth, as opposed to wanting information.”

Perhaps here in South America, as elsewhere on our planet, our present day wisdom is about to link more surely with what humanity’s elders carry forward from the richness of their traditions.

As was true on our previous tour together, Dorothy and I again found ourselves to be good travelling companions, sharing our varied journey with good humour and much needed willingness and flexibility that this kind of adventure calls for. All along the way people would have ideas for what could be included “the next time you come“. So we can look forward to the continued unfoldment of this South American adventure.

Charles Petersen

Born in the United States; for the past 30 years living in South America, presently in Colombia. I’ve led Findhorn-inspired programs including sacred/circle dance in many countries.