Pico Iyer

On a cool December day, I stepped out my front door and walked 3 miles to downtown Orlando. I took with me a camera, a voucher for a free meal at a restaurant, and a can of pepper spray just in case the neighborhood pitbull Cujo was off his leash again. I could have taken my bicycle, but I chose to go slowly to see what might present itself to me....

Journey to the heart of the Bolivian Andes in this spellbinding book, where a professor’s unexpected encounter with a shaman on a sacred mountain sparks a transformative pilgrimage of the heart and mind. In August 2022, I traveled to a town in the Bolivian Andes to do research on a pilgrimage to a sacred mountain called Cerro Calvario — the Hill of the Skull. I wanted to keep some distance between me and my work....