El Lechero, The Sacred Tree
The tree called “El Lechero”, named for its milky sap with healing properties , grows above a lake between two volcanoes, Papa Imbabura(~15,000’) and Mama Cotacachi (~16,000’). This tree is sacred to the people of this high Andean valley of Ecuador. The area surrounding the tree is well groomed, beautiful grass mounded ramps lead to the trunk of the tree and point in the four directions.
I made a pilgrimage to find this tree on my 23rd birthday. Climbing a mountain from the small village of Peguche, outside of Otavalo. On my journey, I sweat, my arms were scratched by branches and bled, all my own fault for bushwhacking instead of taking the road…
Hiking on trails, or roads, always bored me though, it just means many people have already walked there. I want to go places people rarely go. I want to discover things people only talk about in legends and myths. I want to live the stories themselves, so they can live in me and through me. As Antonio Machado wrote in his famous poem,
“Caminante, no hay camino, se hace el camino al andar”
“Traveler, there is no trail, you make the trail by travelling”
Finding my own path has always made the journey more exciting, although usually more difficult. There is a reason most people stay on the road…
What quest to find a sacred tree is complete without trials and tribulations? On my way bushwhacking up a mountain to find El Lechero, I stumbled into a sanctuary, a refuge for birds of prey. Birds I had only read about in books, like the Amazonian Harpy Eagle, the Ornate Hawk Eagle, and the Andean Condor. Not only did all of these birds live here, but they performed for guests in an epic Incan style stone built amphitheater overlooking the valley. Flying high above us, catching mice mid-air and landing on back on the falconer’s glove — how fucking cool. Glad I didn’t take the road.
I bid farewell to the falconers sanctuary and carried on to find the tree. My mind wandered thinking about the girl I had been seeing for the past few years. We had fallen in love in Costa Rica during our study abroad — visiting farms, working in conservation biology, playing naked in the cloud forests of Monteverde, doing headstands and practicing yoga wherever we could. Now, she was on her own adventure, I was on mine.
As wonderful as travelling companions can be, there is nothing quite like travelling solo in another country — a type of freedom characterized by an insane level of aliveness, heightened senses out of necessity for safety, and the feeling of immense potential for life-changing experiences. Granted, the high highs of travelling solo, like life in general, is coupled with times of deep loneliness, fear and uncertainty. At times there is pure and utter exhaustion when we have to push ourselves beyond our limits just to find the next place to rest our weary heads, and sincere gratitude when we find any semblance of an ephemeral community amongst travelers. You are reminded of how beautiful and rare it is to meet people who have your best interest in mind, who look out for each other, and feel like family.
As my feet carried me higher up the mountain, I smiled in gratitude considering the opportunity before me. I had come to these mountains for an interview to work as a teacher with the Tandana Foundation, a local not-for-profit who paired volunteers to live with Kichwa families and work in the community for an extended period of time. I wanted to live and work alongside the community to learn more about the culture, language and traditions, dances, foods, drinks, wildlife, and botany — I wanted to let that place seep into me slowly. How else do we build intimate relationships but with slow, steady curiosity, and care.
I was fortunate to be paired with a wonderful family. They told me the story of El Lechero, the sacred tree.
As the legend goes, there once were two forbidden lovers, the son of a poor man and the daughter of a rich noble. When the girl’s father found about their love, he forbid her to see him again, explaining that she must marry someone from a high class. Heartbroken and hopeless, they ran away together to pray to the mountains Papa Imbabura and Mama Cotacachi to help them. Hearing the young lovers plea, they changed the boy into the tree “El lechero” and the girl into La Laguna San Pablo so that they may look upon each other and nourish each other for an eternity…
Does such a love still exist?
Forbidden and true… it was and was not. True and Untrue.
The leaves of the tree still respire to make the rain that feeds the lake. The lake evaporates to rain and feed the tree. The love continues to give and give.
The richness of this place shined through the kindness and generosity of its people. The community of Quichinche where I lived, was filled with people who had lived there for generations. The people skilled in farming and tending the land, although doing it for subsistence.
Quilt work mosaic planting patterns decorated the hillsides below the towering volcanoes in the Valle del Amanecer, the Valley of the Sunrise. A quilted landscape woven by the thousands of people tending the land, planting corn on steep mountain sides. The Eastern giant, Papa Imbabura sheltered the villages below until the sunshine poured in each day over his shoulder. The western matriarch, Mama Cotacachi, captivated an entire region each night as the sun set behind her and she began to glow.
Each year on the summer solstice, the festival of the Sun God Inti Raymi begins. People from pueblos surrounding the town of Otavalo gather in the mountains in the village called Peguche, wearing colorful handmade masks, playing music, and dancing in rotating concentric circles. Around midnight we hiked to a waterfall to bathe in the cold mountain waters and hit ourselves with a plant called Ortiga (variety of stinging nettle) to “quita mal espíritu”, get rid of bad spirits and be born anew…
If you’ve travelled to Ecuador and spent time with local people, you’ve likely learned about the “minga”, a community work party to clean up and be custodians of shared spaces. This is hyper local grassroots organized, volunteering community clean up event, but they don't have to use all of those words to describe it. “Minga” is just what you do because you are part of the community. Tending to the shared common space is a responsibility everyone makes time for. And when so many people come together, even just for a day each month, a lot gets done.
What does it say about a community culture who gathers together once a month for a minga?
What does it say about a culture who tends to a sacred tree?
Where in our communities do we tend spaces around a sacred tree?
What makes a tree sacred other than the way we treat it, adorn it, bless it and tell its story?
Where in our communities do we have ancient legends and myths in living sight?
Where in our communities is there an ancestral connection to the land?
Once, while suffering a miserable headache from altitude sickness, I put a leaf from the tree on my forehead and felt an incredible cooling sensation and like the leaf was pulling the pain and swelling from my head… El lechero…
