Valley of the Old Ones
This photo of Vilcabamba is courtesy of TripAdvisor It was so long ago I can hardly remember. This image comes close. Sadly my very serviceable Pentax 35mm SLR was stolen by my guide and bearer, along with all the film, but then perhaps in his view it was merely a gratuity of sorts. The year I can remember well enough: 1972. It was a winter weekend at a friend's gentrified farmhouse in upstate New York. We were reading the New York Times Sunday Edition. There was a headline story in one of the inner sections referencing a recent article in National Geographic--a magazine I'd been reading since childhood, mostly for the pictures. The story was about longevity--a topic of little interest to me, being a twenty-something at the time. But then one of my favorite Beatles songs was 'When I'm Sixty Four' and there was a lot of pathos in that song, and let's face it, we all have, or have had aging parents and/or relatives. According to the authors, a noted anthropolog...