Back Under the Volcano

I am in Riobamba, Ecuador. From where I sit and write I can see the Black Dragon. She is smoking, venting apocalyptic mushroom clouds.



From where I sit it is sometimes possible to see the lights of Peleos, the town that was completely destroyed every man, woman, child, old person incinerated, when she blew in 1886.



All of Riobamba witnessed the eruption of August 16. The people here also speak of it as if it was an awesome and terrible dream, as they do in Banos - see narrative of the voyage of the bloody, snake, chariot at www.libbyhome.blogspot.com . But it is in this direction that the ash, cinder and pyroclastic flows go.



I was in Riobamba three weeks ago when I took one of the last train rides in Ecuador and rode the devil´s nose. But I really didn´t see where was. I didn´t see Riobamba and its sacred geography.



In 2002 a pyramid was discovered on the top of a nearby mountain. It is said to be the largest, and oldest pyramid, about 4,500 years-old, in the world. Some believe it is the first and greatest artifact of Andean civilization. Local shamans say it was and still is the most powerful focus of shamanistic healing energia in all of South America.

http://www.volunteershuacaynan.blogspot.com/



Archeologists are just beginning the scientific plundering of the place. They´re searching for gold.



And it is from here that I, definitively, begin my voyage of return to Colombia, to Caracas, Venezuela and my return flight to New York to perhaps see with new eyes the place from where this voyage began.