The place of the Andean ghosts goes by many names and is referred to the sculpted stones that stand on the very edge of an arched sandstone outcrop, near to the shore of Titicaca Lake, and is known as "the stone forest."
At some time in the distant past, sediments from an very ancient sea bed were compressed forming the sandstone. Then they probably were up-ended by tectonic forces shifting in the Earth's crust giving them the right to stand upright, as the Andes rose above the South American Plate. Later, the glaciers rasped at their surfaces, making the first icy cuts to create what became these curious formations. Then time continue the art work by sculpting the stones into a variety of phantasmagoria forms that excels in embellishment and creates an unusual and unique acoustic resonance in the place. You can stand several hundreds of meters away and hear the words spoken softly by those who stand immediately in front of the stony figures.
The Andean people belief the sculptures were once gigantic living beings with enormous power that angered their creator and he turned them into stones dominating the skyline. Some stones can be visualized forming a natural bridge with the appearance of a mammoth's struggling under a heavy burden. Other rocks appear to waddle like obese giants lumbering down the steep inclination towards the bed of the Lake. The terrain then flattens out into a hollow so shallow that is barely perceptible until the waters of Titicaca Lake became noticeable by glistening in the mountain sunlight more that 1.6 km / 1 mile away.
The waters of the Titicaca Lake once were an inland sea, formed from the dregs of the much larger stretches of water that covered the High Plateau (Altiplano). The waters used to lap against the very foot of present day sculpted stones. The Lake has grown steadily smaller since the time it was formed.
The stones now stands at least 15 meters/45feet above Titicaca's present water level.
The threshold of the place of Spirits points towards the Island of the Sun on Lake Titicaca, nearly 9.6 km / 6 mi long. The place also points to the most important sacred place in the whole of the Andes: the Foundation Stone, or Sacred Rock, known as Titi Q'ala. The sacred rock lies at the North end of the Island of the Sun. It is the point (Pacarina) from which the whole Andean civilization unfolded. This is the place where the creator god Viracocha is said to have created the Sun and the Moon after the frozen age of Darkness. The Titi Q'ala was also the place where the progenitors of the Incas, Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo, arose from the waters of the Titicaca Lake to restore the Andean civilization that had been reduced to its lowest level. The sacred rock was also known as the Lion Cliff, because it is said that it was once the site of a statue of a puma. The rock's natural morphology is associated with the form of a feline as seen from a very specific angle.
It is interesting to observe that in the centre of the peninsula that divides the Titicaca Lake into Great lake and Little lake, sits an enormous volcano called Khapia. The volcano's plateau is constantly visited by the Andean healers and is home to a number of huacas and sacred objects, such as the representation of a toad sculptured naturally in stone formations.
The volcano together with the sacred rock Titi Q'ala and the City of Spirits form a equilateral triangle of sacred power. This is not the only example of triangles that can be observed between sacred places in the Andes. An equilateral triangle also joins the peaks of the volcanoes Illimani, Illampu with the site of Tiahuanaco in Bolivia. The ancient Andean people possessed the ability to recognize these geometries which included an innate appreciation of spherical and at the same time triangular sacred forms.
The interaction between the sacred and the natural forms of energies seemed to have been of great importance to the ancient Andean people. The relationship between the physical and the unseen world was in such extent that it empowered the human will to exercise control over the negative input of forces that attacked the weak wall made by human emotions. .
