AustLit

' A strap of bark soaks curled up in a bucket of red liquid beside a man outside the Hospital Adolfo Guevara Velasco. Next to him an old woman sits with a top hat on, beside a blanket piled high with dead cicadas. Their thoraxes glow golden yellow behind papery wings. We step closer. They're not insects but a type of fruit. The woman offers us a stuffed bag full. I shake my head. Through the cement struts of the walkway I can see snow on the distant mountains that surround Cusco: the place the ancients called The Navel of the World.' (Introduction)