Floating Islands of Peru - Voyages of the Ship Destiny's Dreams

Despite the fright from the puma who followed us, we wanted to continue the trek up the mountains after being at sea on the ship for so long.

Afraid, yet exhilarated, shivering with thrills, sometimes running in fear with our hearts pounding, we continued into the unknown and wondered if the legends were true.

These handwritten words in faded ink were in one of the journals in the wooden trunk. It was found in the attic of a lighthouse on the Mystical Coast. Some of the pages were torn or lost.

The journals told the tales of the long-ago voyages of Captain Alfonse, with his pet the laughing parrot, and his monkey, who played with the long braids of his beard.

The front of the journal said, “Ana, of the Light from the Blue Lantern Stories, Storyteller for the Clipper Ship Destiny’s Dreams in the 1800s.”

The ink was blurred. The pages were yellowed. An ornate brass lantern with blue glass etched with designs sat near the weathered box of old journals in the attic of the lighthouse. 

Ana’s own voice seemed to speak from the journals. We could almost hear her transporting us to another world.

Her lantern with the blue glass seemed to once more begin to glow. It was as if reading her journals called her fingers to turn up the lantern. Although she lived over a century ago, she seemed to be nearby.

This is what Ana's journal said.

Those voyages and treks flow through my mind like a song with the rhythms of the ocean’s waves. They take me there again every time I tell the stories. They fill me so I can hear them, see them, and feel them.

Listen, or read, and let’s go there. Close your eyes and come with me. Fly like a condor, swim like a dolphin, climb like a bear. Visit the ancients.

Eight hundred years ago in the place that would be called Peru, on the west coast of South America, a comet sped across the sky.

It was on the same night that an erupting solar storm painted the southern hemisphere’s sky with colors.

People living near the stars and the sun, high in the cloud forest of the Peruvian Andes Mountains, were returning to their homes on floating islands after dark.

They pointed to the sky and their frightened voices echoed in the night. They lived far enough away from the South Pole that the Southern Lights were almost never seen over their region.

Under the hazy moon and pinpoints of stars, they headed to their floating reed islands on their lake in the mountains. The peoples' Peruvian Hairless Dogs trotted next to them, sensing fear, acting skittish.

The dogs were slender, with legs for running. They had pointed noses and ears, and grey skin colors. Some had a tuft of hair on top of the head. The dogs varied in size from small to large. They were treasured companions, treated like family. 

Overhead, the swirling colors in the night sky seemed to be chasing them. But they could not escape.

They looked at each other's faces, shining with whirling colored light.

The figures with their loose dogs ran and scrambled higher up into the Andes Mountains of Peru.

Flowing greens, reds, purples, and blues reached down from the sky to the steep mountain peaks. The path where the people climbed was bathed in glimmering colors.

Voices gasping for breath called out from the shadowy figures on the ground.

“Run. Get back to the island.”

"Monsters from the sky."

“The stars are falling apart.”

"The world is ending!"

“It is the ancients. Coming back.”

“A sign. What is it telling us?”

“Wise one, can you interpret this?

A stooped, shrunken silhouette paused. Everyone froze.

“SShh. Listen. I think I hear something.” One of the forms spoke.

“Mama. Mama.” The voice of a small child was like a high pitched bird in the quiet night.

The figures clustered together.

“We must keep going. Hurry.”

“It is not far.”

“There is the gap. Quick. Run."

The group of shadows scrambled between the boulders. On either side the mountains touched the sky with jagged fingers.

Safety and comfort awaited them on their floating reed islands on the lake, hugged in the embrace of the mountains and clouds.

“I see the village lights. Someone is in the reed boat at the shore.”

“The sky. It is falling into the lake.”

Swirling colors rested on the waters of the lake. But they were still in the sky too.

The reed boat at the shore was shaped like a canoe with animal heads on each of the curving ends that curled far upward.

Voices continued crying out.

“The world is falling apart.”

"The sky and lake are one.”

"Run. RUN."

Calls and screams filled the air.

“No,” said the wise one. “The lake is reflecting the sky."

But no one was listening to her.

She continued, "Like every night when the water reflects the stars and moon.”

But the scared people ran with sure-footed agility down the trail to the water’s edge. The boat made of bundles of reeds sat quietly on the still lake. They jumped into it.

A clay pot with glowing embers cast light on the figures folding themselves up in the bottom of the boat. Other lights from embers in pots glowed and bobbed slightly across the lake.

Water swished and then the boat was moving. People dipped paddles made of reed clusters into the lake, frantically. The boat had a sail but they did not use it at night.

Over the reflections of colors on the water the boat carried the passengers to a floating reed island.

“We need to add new reeds. It is starting to sink,” one of the people said.

“Yes. And we need to float it over further away from shore,” another spoke.

At the edge of the island they pulled the boat up onto the thick woven reed matts that were bound into bundles like logs.

Everything was still bathed in colorful lights that cast their glimmers over the island and reed huts. People stepped across the matts to their houses.

But the wise old one stayed to watch the sky, and her widened face wore a slight smile.

“It is beautiful. I am not afraid,” she murmured.

While the frightened villagers of the floating reed islands hid in their huts, the wise one did not run from the colorful lights.

“They are a gift.” Her whispered words were not heard by anyone, yet. But centuries later they would be heard.

The wise one did not know that over 800 years later, she would be remembered as an ancestor by one of her descendants named Ana, the Storyteller for the Destiny's Dreams. 

Generations of the wise one's family would pass along her stories until Ana recorded them in journals.

The lore and the wise one's stories would live and be heard again.

By the indigo glow of a blue lantern light, Ana related the stories of the ancient wise one to eager listeners on their seagoing vessel.

One day Ana would tell the story of the colored lights, the eclipse, the comet in the sky, and the floating islands.

Then people from the ship would make a trek to see if the ancient legends were true about the cloud forest’s floating islands on the lake.

A young boy named Guapo, meaning handsome, and his Hairless Peruvian dog, Feliz, would meet the explorers at the gateway formed by the gap in the mountains.

When Captain Alfonse saw Guapo's boat made of bundles of reeds, with its curved bow and stern decorated with shapes of a puma head and a bear head, his face looked like he was in a trance. He wanted a boat like that.

His wife, Luciana and his three children would ride in the boat with Guapo out to Guapo’s home island.

Months later, a new surfboat unlike anything the sailors had ever seen before rested on the deck of Captain Alfonse’s clipper ship, the Destiny’s Dreams.

It was made of reeds in the shape of a canoe and decorated with the shape of a puma and a bear at the ends. The high curving bow and stern rose up into the air, and there was a single sail to catch the wind.

When Captain Alfonse went ashore from the clipper ship in the reed boat, with Foresta, his parrot, and Rio, his rescued monkey, riding on his shoulders and arms, crowds watched with curiosity.

On foggy days. when the reed boat with its high curving bow and stern decorated with the shape of a puma head and a bear head, glided out of the sea mists, it seemed to have flown through time, and to be emerging from an ancient world.

On the Destiny's Dreams, Ana, the Storyteller of the Blue Lantern, would tell a new group of passengers the tales of the Cloud Forest and the Floating Islands.