Mother Earth is given the respect she deserves

Hundreds of feet over the Pacific Ocean our pilot steered a large, arching turn, intent on a southeastern trajectory. Gazing out my window seat I could see the extent of Lima stretching along the coast and spreading up into the brown, barren coastal mountains. The imagination is a powerful and exciting element of the human mind, but only through experiencing those most fantastic fragments of reality is wonder unlocked, and the magnificence of the world revealed. Seated on Taca Airlines flight 07 to Cusco, the most elaborate of images that I could conceive ultimately did not compare to the landscapes that awaited me.
An hour later we were descending through fluffy, white clouds, their breaks exposing green hillsides and a small city constructed in a wide valley at 11,600 feet. We came to a smooth landing on the only runway at the old airport, and upon exiting, we were immediately approached by an elderly woman dressed in colorful, traditional Andean garb, offering a bag of coca leaves for one nuevo sol (approximately 30 US cents). I bought one bag, knowing that either chewing the leaves or making coca tea helps with high altitude acclimation. Breathing was significantly more difficult, and even walking 50 yards up a moderate incline towards the bus made me short of breath.  
We initiated our journey as the bus meandered through the side streets of Cusco, ascending the hillside, passing adobe homes, many of which had been washed away by the record amounts of rain that had fallen just a month earlier. Blue tarps mottled the outskirts of town, where families laid them at the foundations of their houses to prevent water erosion. Past that, we entered the countryside.
I became absorbed watching the rolling green hills colored by flowers and organized by agriculture, dirt roads leading to small homes in the distance. The mountains on the horizon were patterned by sunshine and rejuvenating patches of rain, but not once did I feel a drop. We stopped for lunch in Chinchero, where we observed our first demonstration of traditional Andean culture.
In a small hut with a dirt floor, and smelling of smoke because of a small wood-burning stove in the corner, there were three young girls winding colorful yarns around wooden spools. The older women transformed filthy alpaca wool into bright white, by using a sudsy solution of water and a root that is found naturally in the climate of the Peruvian Andes.
The dyes are made by mixing different color agents with hot water, and they are all found naturally and locally in the highlands region. The greens come from fresh leaves the purples come from dried leaves the reds come from little insects that live on the prickly pear cactus and are brightened by dripping water with dissolved quartz over the dye. When the chromatic concoctions are prepared, the clean alpaca yarn is dipped into the water, and the bright colors are absorbed instantly.  
The hand made yarns are then used as the material for hand made sweaters, scarves, tapestries, all of bright hues and many with beautifully variegated patterns. The manner in which these artisans craft decorations and produce utile apparel demonstrates the strong relationship that is still maintained between the Andean people and the Earth. The Incan culture and economy were founded around agriculture, and the descendant cultures of the Andes still exercise such a lifestyle, without submitting themselves to spiritually empty practices of mass production.
Called  Pachamama, Mother Earth is respected and revered throughout the Andes. She is a gift giver, and the Incan roots of her appreciation among the Andean people reach millennia into the region's rich past. It was a refreshing experience to be surrounded by such a real and innate connection to the home that we all share.
Such mentalities are few and far between in international cities like Lima, New York, San Diego and even in the American Midwest. The land is exploited at the cost of mass agriculture and poisoned by chemicals. The indigenous energy of the Peruvian Andes has reminded me that kinship with the earth is a cultural virtue, and compels me to worry about the trajectory of Western society and its detachment from our life-giving planet.
Wandering towards Ollataytambo I absorbed my surroundings: purple and yellow flowers blooming across green hills, watched over by a towering mountain whose glacier has been given two years before it disappears. Both humbling and exciting, the energy surrounding such existence deserves profound respect, and when surrounded by such beauty it is easy to understand a culture so attached to the land it calls home.  As the sun set, I was ready to embrace the coming days of my experience in the high sierras of Peru.