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Head Office Cusco - Perú : |
ABOUT QOYLLUR RIT'I TREK
Qoyllur Rit'i is a fascinating, mind-altering experience. To get to the main site you have to endure a five-hour ride from Cusco up precipitous mountain roads. After the harrowing ride, you climb eight kilometers up a narrow, steep path that is swarming with people, horses and mules. Pilgrims stop every kilometer or so to worship at each of the 12 Stations of the Cross — praying, making offerings, lighting candles, playing music and dancing. Once you reach the top of the mountain below the glacier, you’re surrounded by a sea of costumed celebrants who are dancing and playing hypnotic Andean music throughout the entire day and night.
Thousands of worshippers stand in line at the sanctuary for six hours or more to receive blessing from the image of the very sacred Señor de Qoyllur Rit’i’s Christ. Once they make their demanda (offering) and are blessed, some promptly turn around and head back down the mountain. Others camp out in tents or under tarps. The year’s crowd is estimated at 100,000 for those camping and 400,000 people who visit the site over the four-day period.
Origins of Qoyllur Rit'i : The pilgrimage began centuries before the Incas. It coincides with the return of the Pleiades in the southern sky, an event that marked the beginning of the new year for pre-Columbian peoples. Pilgrimage rituals honored the mountain spirit believed to have the form of a star (Apu) that resides in Qolqepunku glacier, and gave thanks for the water that comes from it. After the Spanish Conquest the event was co-opted by the Catholic Church, courtesy of a miracle that is said to have happened near the glacier. According to local legend, a child Jesus appeared to a local llama herder boy named Pablito on the mountain in 1780. In 1946 the Catholic dioceses of Cusco had a Señor de Qoyllur Rit’i sanctuary built just below the glacier. (Now the ice is hundreds of meters above it).
But now, since the white snows and ice cap of their mountain are vanishing, Andean priests have forbidden the ritual ice-bearers from cutting sacred ice from the glacier and distributing the melted water to worshippers. Previously young masked men dressed as mountain bears—known as ukukos (bears) or pablitos — would cut large blocks of ice from the glacier and carry them on their backs down the mountain to share as holy and ritual healing water. Now (since 2003) the ukukos, instead of carrying ice on their backs, run up the glacier and whip people who are taking any of it. (Copyright Barbara Drake & Jorge Vera)
The date for Qoyllur Rit’i is every year during the night of the full moon one week before Corpus Christi (another fascinating celebration in Cusco).
Few foreigners or tourists attend this fascinating, unique and authentic celebration.
We offer our clients this off the beaten path program, with the possibility to take part in or at least attend to this important ritual event for 3 or more days, hiking and camping in a small farm in the Sinakara Valley, just 20 minutes walking time to the Sanctuary.