From Tinamastes to Las Tumbas (the Graves)

by Corey Walker
I often found myself walking the road from Tinamastes to Las Tumbas;it is a truly amazing and scenic road. It appears to me that the floor of the valley below the mountain had fallen down off the precipice from high above, laying there as if it was smashed. Now, as rolling cow pastures, they are filled with tumbled rock and dense jungle pressed together. The jungle looks free and wild as it climbs its way out of the pieces of the rock remaining at the bottom.
It is either all downhill or all uphill depending on your perspective, and if you go too fast, I am afraid to tell you that you will be bothering someone with your dust, and you will be missing something very beautiful. Everyone says that the new road is much better than the old one, and I add, the new bridge standing next to the old one over the Las Tumbas river proves it.
I often talked to others, who at the time were walking the same road I was in. I have been able to catch a glimpse of a legend and history, although, somehow confused by the language.
Allegedly, to the indigenous of this place, it was home, a sacred place, or the last refuge for people who found a sanctuary within the jungle, beyond the waterfalls and canyons that once sheltered the valley from the world. This mystical place is called Las Tumbas, apparently, because this is where they wanted to rest.