FINDING LOST CIVILIZATIONS This

Chapter 12Returning to theThirteen Stationsof the CrossMy father and I returned to the stairway on a hill inGuayabitos that led to the thirteen Stations of theCross where, on the crest of the hill, a large Christian crosshad been erected by a man called Pedro. Our journey toFinding Lost Civilizations started under this cross the previousyear.Pedro greeted us as we came upon the entrance to thestairway. He was wearing the same clothes as he wore theprevious year except now his shirt was torn and tattered. Thistime the entrance to the memorial was open and he freelytold us to pass through. We climbed slowly and rested alongthe way all the while marveling at the persistence, endurance,and vision that Pedro pursued in building this homageto his father.It was a day with the sun and sky revealing themselvesever so often between the clouds that drifted in from thePacific Ocean. Upon reaching Pedro’s Cross, Jaltemba Bayrevealed its beauty to us. It certainly was a glorious place toerect a Christian memorial far preceded by pagan worshipat that very spot by the original inhabitants of this region.As we looked about the ground we both were fascinatedby the sheer scope of ancient pottery fragments thatlittered the ground. I watched the other visitors to this memorialand not one of them looked at the ground with anyrealization that beneath their very feet was a place long celebratedby inhabitants a thousand years before. What thesepeople saw was only the present, as they looked skywardadmiring the cross that Pedro constructed. However, beneaththeir very feet the past cried out to them to be known.I could hear the ancients cry out: “See me, hear me, andlearn from me.” But, no one saw or heard anything.I remembered my visits to the fallen city of Chicomostocand again asked myself the same questions I had askedthere. On this ground an ancient civilization had been vanquishedand I wondered if our own destiny is but a cycle57