After Lima, I kind of bumped around in a series of Andean towns within a few hours´ drive of each other. There is a linear continuity between these towns, in terms of their physical placement along a single highway, but also in terms of their Andes-centric cultural and historical identity. Tarma and Jauja are small towns in a poor, agriculturally-oriented region where the Quechua language and custums flourish, where the struggle between the Shining Path movement and the military were most strongly felt, and where tourists, and especially foreign tourists, are rarely seen. In a week, I saw (from a distance) a trio of Canadian backpackers, but otherwise it was all Peruvians going about their business.
For the most part, that´s great. My Spanish is improving rapidly, prices are lower for food and hotels, and things, whatever they may be, are less tarnished/burnished/available/crowded/fake/restored than they will inevitably be once this region is more widely "discovered." The absence of other travelers emphasizes the pros and cons of traveling by myself. There is commonly a presumption of camaraderie among travelers who meet each other in foreign lands, an expectation that the common bond of being from "elsewhere" but choosing to come "here" is indication of a like-mindedness. I ocasionally find myself hating this, and I generally seek to avoid it, but every once in a while I really appreciate it, too. There is another dimension to sharing a new experience with someone else for whom it is also new, that is missing when one experiences it alone. That camaraderie may most often be ephemeral, but it has some value nonetheless. Although I`ve wholly enjoyed the challenges and the pleasures of these past few weeks far from the madding backpacker crowd, I do also harbor some anticipation for reaching Cusco and again having my excitement for sightseeing and foodtasting and funhaving augmented by the excitement of others around me.
The high point of my trip: Ticlio. Ticlio is a small town on the highway East from Lima, and I know nothing about it, other than it lies at just under 16,000 feet above sea level, on the highest-altitude paved road in the world. I was asleep on an overnight bus from Lima to Tarma, but the altitude woke me up and made me feel nauseated, light-headed, and extremely cold, so I can say I`ve been there. Then we started to decend over the other side of the peak, and after a while I fell back asleep.
All through the night I was half-awoken each time the bus halted in successive unannounced towns, to let sleepy and silent passengers get on or off, and each time I drowsily marvelled at their ability to know, in the near-total darkness, which stop was theirs. I awoke for good around six thirty in the morning, as the sun began to rise. The bus was scheduled to arrive in Tarma at five in the morning, but being behind schedule neither surprised nor bothered me. We had started a little late, and all the stops had further slowed our pace. I was mostly grateful to be able to enjoy some of the trip in sunlight. Everything I could see from the bus was beautiful. Huge mountainsides towering high up into the clouds on one side; steep rocky precipices tumbling far down into winding rivers and sharp canyons on the other. The trees were lush and surrounded by dense ferny undergrowth and fed by waterfalls that foamed down along the mountains` plicatures. It was the kind of scenery they use in movies to evince exotic, exciting possibilities of unknown adventure. Seeing it firsthand was even better.
Around 8, the bus got to the end of the line. I was actually quite happy to be getting there at 8 rather than at five: it was light out, already quite warm. Businesses were open or opening, and there was a lot of bustling energy in the air. I had left Lima with good thoughts of the city, but still it was nice to be out of such a big place, and it felt wonderful to see, and feel, the sun again, unhidden by Lima`s fog and smog. I walked around for a while with my bags, had some breakfast, walked around some more, and figured it was probably close enough to noon to find my hostel and leave my stuff there while I better explored the environs. The hostel was one recommended by my guidebook, and I had the address. But I couldn`t find the street it was on, even though my book assured me it was just off the main plaza. After searching fruitlessly for a bit, I asked a shopkeeper for directions. She looked at me askance and told me there was no street by that name. I told her the name of the hostel I was looking for, and she looked at me askew and told me I needed to go to Tarma. I blinked. "This isn`t Tarma?" "No, it`s La Merced."
I went and sat in the plaza, and looked at my map. Well, it all kind of made sense: the reason my bus trip was three hours longer than expected was not that the bus was slow, just that I was 3 hours slow in getting off it. One of those towns we had quietly stopped in, in the dark, had been Tarma. I had inadvertently gone from Lima, on the coast, across the Andes and down into the fringes of the Amazon, to an area called Chanchamayo that consisted of a few towns and a lot of rainforest. Scanning nervously for malaria-bearing mosquitoes, anacondas, and capybaras, I shouldered my bags and headed for the hills, and for Tarma. There were colectivos, small taxi-vans, heading that way, but I`d been on the bus all night and I felt like walking. It was hot, and humid, and uphill. I walked for a few hours, having fun in the sun. Finally the sun won out over the fun, and I flagged down a bus and rode the rest of the way. These were my six or so hours in the jungle, on the (out of the) way to Tarma. I saw some bright-green birds, a huge plantation that grows coffee for Starbucks, and some Peruvians in shorts (which is rare).
Before leaving Lima, I had bought a book of essays by Mario Vargas Llosa. I don`t hold much truck with his neoliberal political views of recent decades, but he`s a good writer and not hard to read in Spanish, and it just so happens that this book, which I´m sure to reference quite often in the weeks to come (so don`t forget I just mentioned it, now), could not be better complementing my trip. The essays were written in the 70s and the 80s, dark times in Peru`s history, and provide a very interesting counterpoint to the contemporary Peru I`m traveling through. One of the essays is about growing up in the 30s, under the repressive and corrupt regime of the dicator Manuel Odria. Tarma is known principally for two reasons: its Easter celebrations are apparently splenderous, and Odria was born and lived there. In September, of course, I found few hints of Easter wonder, but a few reminders of Odria´s influence. The colonial-era city center, its plaza and church and governor´s house, were deemed by the dictator too old-fashioned, and were remodelled to meet his aesthetic standard. 1930s dictators, unfortunately, all too often were inspired by an architectural aesthetic that has not remained in vogue, an Odria was no exception. The effect of his efforts is mostly boring. The plaza is still pleasant, lined with tall palm trees and shaded by a distinctive, if unassuming, cathedral. But otherwise, I found the town somewhat nondescript other than for its traffic, which given Tarma`s size was inexplicably and unnecessarily deafening and frenzied. My impression of Tarma may be somewhat unreliable, though: for some reason, perhaps because of the altitude change from Lima (although that`s only 2500 feet), I felt slightly unwell while I was there, a vague corporeal angst that dissuaded me from expending much energy exploring. I stayed two nights in Tarma, but mainly just sat in the plaza or on the hostel`s patio, reading. There was no one else staying at the hostel but me.
On the third day, I felt altogether better, and lit out for Jauja. On my map, the distance appeared to be about twenty miles. That`s walkable, so I started walkin` it. The walk was beautiful and initially refreshing, but longer than foreseen. Unnoted by my small-scale map, the road led uphill in a series of sharp switchbacks that zigzagged, more vertical than horizontal, up up up into the mountain range that stood between Tarma and Jauja. The switchbacks doubled the distance to a less-feasible forty miles of walking. The mountains around me were numerous and there was a great diversity of terrain. Dry, gray-brown rocky slopes patched with dust and trash gave way to auburn red soil spotted with green shrubs and cactii; at intervals there would be a sudden growth of green vegetation, a mountain´s sunny side cut into cascading man-made terraces that were tilled and furrowed and evenly lined by rows of sprouting things. From time to time, a car would pass by and honk at me approvingly - or disapprovingly, how does one distinguish? - and every so often I would pass by a homestead or even a small village of ten or fifteen houses, mules and sheep and dogs milling about while fat sows lay beside the road and suckled their teeming piles of squeaking piggy offspring.
I walked from 9 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon. It was all uphill, and I was only halfway to Jauja. A shephard, supervising his flock from the grass beside the road, watched me looking at him as I walked up the road. He hailed me and I stopped and he asked me what I was doing, then where I was from. When I told him, he broke into a grin and shook my hand and said he´d never met someone from the US before. Could that be true? He was very friendly, and assured me there was no way I could make it all the way to Jauja before dark. I sat and rested for a while and he asked me questions. Then I kept on, but I was tired, and didn`t really want to keep on keepin`on. So I stuck out my thumb, and the 3rd or 4th car that passed stopped and took me to Jauja.
The name Jauja, in Quechua, means "Never-neverland of Milk and Honey," apparently. When Francisco Pizarro and his Spanish soldiers arrived there in 1533, there was enough food stored there for the winter that they were able to stay there for months, living lavishly, without having to worry about replenishing their stock. The Indians, of course, were left with nothing. The Spanish for a while called Jauja the capital city of their new colonial territory, and the church Pizarro ordered built there is the oldest in South America. It`s a rather plain building, whose simple symmetries and restrained decoration show no hint of the guilded Baroque flair that would soon come into fashion as Spain`s wealth from - and dominance over - its American colonies increased. I`d like to think the church`s unimposing character also reflects some degree of insecurity on the part of the Spanish about their continued ascendancy over the native culture, but I know better: Pizarro was, aside from being an astute showman, too arrogant for careful half-measures. In any case, the capital was not too long after transplanted to Lima.
Seemingly every aspect of life in the Peruvian Andes is a reflection of three pasts: the pre-hispanic series of Andes-centric cultures that culminated in the Inca Empire; the "modern" past that began with the arrival of the Spanish, who subjugated the Inca and transplanted the seat of power from Andean Cusco to coastal Lima; and the recent past, the terrorism, suffering, and alienation caused by the conflict between the Peruvian government and the Shining Path. Traces of these three pasts are to be seen everywhere here, but to be accurate they hardly ever stand alone. The three narratives run together and build upon (or tear away from) each other with such frequency that it becomes clear that they are very much all part of one story.
The Empire of the Inca, which stretched from southern Chile to northern Ecuador, and from the Pacific Coast into the Amazon, overcame and to varying degrees subjugated a huge range of cultures and religions. Rather than destroy the customs and the idols of the vanquished, the Incas adapted and appropriated them into their own pantheon. That said, Cusco was always the empire´s most elevated and central city (both geographically and figuratively). The theology, the mythology, the cultural and economic value systems, all looked to the Andes as their primary source.
That the Spanish came, saw, and quickly conquered, is quite a story, but not a unique one exactly. The Spanish did a lot of that, and their influence was of course world-changing. The action by the Spanish that, nowadays, still seems to most rankle the Andean Peruvians, was the movement of the capital to the coast. For the Spanish, the establishment of the Viceroyalty in Lima made sense: its proximity to the ocean simplified trade and communication with the rest of teh Americas and with Spain. It also marked the first time in 500 years that power, under the auspices of whatever authority, did not emanate from the Andes. Lima`s hegemony, from what I`ve read and heard, was total. The government, the Church, the military, the judiciary, the elite, the educated and the wealthy all called Lima their home. The mountains and the jungle were incredibly rich with natural resources; these were ruthlessly exploited and shipped to Lima and on to Spain, both of which grew richer as their sources grew poorer. Lima`s hegemony was little affected by Peru`s independence from Spain and the ensuing centuries of presidents and dictators. Today the government, the Church, the military, the judiciary, the elite, the educated and the wealthy all still call Lima their home. Until very recently (thirty years at the max) Peru had not system of regional or municipal representation. The national government and the national military were the only sources of law and order. In poor, sparsely populated areas (which description fits most of the Peruvian Andes) their presence was rarely felt or seen. The country was at least in name under the supervision and control of the Lima, but until the last decade, there was no trustworthy highway system, or paved roads, to permit for much of a physical connection between Lima and the greater part of the country. What traffic there was, was mostly logging trucks and gas- and mining-company vehicles. According to an essay about Peru, written by Mario Vargas Llosa in the 70s, some parts of the Andes were "centuries" behind the 20th century - which is to say, the Andean way of life was more reminiscent of the era of the Inca than the era of airplane.
In such an atmosphere of cultural and economic disparity, it is little surprise (from my retrospective second-hand perspective) that the Shining Path, whose aim was the destruction of the State and the implementation of a new, communist model, and whose target accordingly was primarily Lima, should have arisen and found a foothold in the Andes. It was easy to strike against the government and the military in areas of such isolation, and it was easy to inspire followers who were already disenfranchised and disenchanted. Not that people had much choice: as weak as the State`s infrastructure was in the Andes, weaker still once the S.P. started assassinating civil servants and bombing electrical stations and bridges, siding with the terrorists was more an issue of self-protection than ideology for some communities. Then, as the State began to fight back more strongly against the S.P., villagers found themselves under attack from both sides, vulnerable to retribution from either upon the slightest hint of aiding or sympathizing with the other. According to my guidebook, over 70,000 people died between 1980 and 2000, of whom over 50,000 were apparently civilians from the Andean region.
Over the last couple weeks, the quotidian reality and visibility of these three historical contexts is incredible. The majority of the people around me have spoken Quechua, either exclusively or, more commonly, in preference to Spanish, and they share a basis to the structure of their lives - food, agriculture, music, family, spirituality - whose continuity from the time of the Inca and before is undeniable. Outside of the cities, clothing and textiles are typically still handmade and a distinctive amalgam of traditional Quechua and Spanish garb. Catholicism is practiced by most, but it is interwoven with pre-columbian beliefs and practices that, among some communities, clearly take precedence over the tenets of the Catholic faith. While it is not often talked about, the recent pains of terrorism are not yet buried deep, nor should they be I suppose. Most people my age or older have witnessed, either firsthand or at close remove, the assassinations, torture, imprisonments, massacres, carbombs, and starvation and intimidation that defined three decades of life here.
That kind of sounds like a downer; well, it is. But: given the history, I think this is a very special time to visit the Andes. It feels that way. There is a lot of optimism about the future. Words like development, change, education, integration, and tourism are everywhere. The government, aware of its mistakes in the past and seeking (superficially? we`ll see) to make up for them, and the local populations, determined to keep history from repeating itself, are working to improve things in a conscientious and undestructive way. The greater part of the highway along which I`ve been walking and bussing, for instance, did not exist ten years ago. It leads along a route known in Quechua as the "Qapaq Ñan" or "Sacred Path" that for the Incas was important both as a trade and communication route, and also for its (obviously) sacred connotations. This overlay of asphalt on top of the Qapaq Ñan is not sacrilegious, but rather is welcomed, both as a recognition of the intersection of the contours of the Andean culture`s physical and historical contexts, and also as a potential conduit for tourists, and their dollars. Dollars that if put to the right use could both improve the quality of life, and also preserve and celebrate the traditional way of life, of local communities. The Qapaq Ñan and its modern paved two-lane reincarnation, after all, lead directly past nearly every significant landmark and monument of the Incas´ empire.
The process of attracting tourists has not yet come to fruition. There are tourists, but few, not enough to provide the funds necessary for the upkeep and restoration of the sites tourists want to see. Most tourists from abroad still prefer to either fly directly, or take the quicker coastal highway from Lima to Cusco. My decision to take the Andean route was mostly influenced by my map: it looked simpler on paper to come this way. I´m happy I did, but mostly because it did lead me off the well-trod Gringo Trail and into territory that lends itself to exploration and discovery. I´m always slightly surprised, almost a thrilled, to walk through the mountains and see men and women in traditional clothes watching over mules and sheep or tending to their crops with scythes and wooden hoes - and it is often equally surprising to them to see me. My guidebook promised that after the harrowing decades of the Shining Path, many Andeans would be downright delighted so see outsiders consider the region safe enough, and interesting enough, to visit. And so it has proved to be.
Back to Jauja. The town was in the midst of a comprehensive process of overhaul and upgrade when I showed up: the streets in the vicinity of the Plaza Mayor, which were either lined with cobblestones or just dirt, were being fitted for sidewalks, electric streetlamps, and asphalt pavement. This was all being done at once, on all the streets in question at the same time, which had the pleasant result of blocking off the best part of town from cars. People maneuvered around the holes and wires and piles of gravel, and the workers sitting and chiselling out cobblestones one at a time with a chisel and hammer, on foot or on bicycle, and there was a blissful respite from the normally incessant hogging and screeching and screaming and horning of cars, buses and mototaxis. In the evening, the workers left and the streets filled up with people, families and couples and friends and schoolkids, walking around, shopping, eating snacks and sweets from the food carts along the half-finished sidewalks. Stores - a significant number of which for some reason used an image of Britney Spears on their signs to entice potential customers to buy a TV or a bag of chips or get a haircut or a puppy - stayed open late into the night, and their lights and soundsystems poured brightness and music into the streets and spread energy through the crowds walking past. Then it started raining, hard, and within minutes the streets were nearly deserted and the stores had pulled down their giant garage-style doors. The dirt in the streets turned to mud, which then slowly began to flow downhill and fill the holes and cover the wires and sluice through the piles of gravel. The rainy season had officially opened for business.
The next morning showed up bright and clear, however. I walked a little ways out of town to a lake, which was clear and large and surrounded on all sides by rolling hills and trees. It felt like an Oregon lake, for some reason. Although there was one novel addition: the middle of the water was freckled with small, man-made "enchanted islands." These islands were about ten feet by ten feet, from the look of them, and they each had grass, a small tree for shade, and a bench on them. For a few dollars, according to the billboard in front of a boathouse on the shore, a boat would deliver people to one of the islands, and leave them there for an hour. The hills around the lake were immediately remarkable for a plant that was growing on them, that looks just like a 20-foot tall asparagus. I thought that was amazing, and took pictures. It turns out they are pretty ubiquitous in this range of the mountains, and I'm not amazed by them anymore, but they do still look like asparagus.
There were purported to be Incan ruins in the hills, too, that are "rarely sought out" by visitors (sez the guidebook), so I sought to seek them out. And I may have found them; I'm not sure. I found lots of stacked rocks, but there was no indication of who had done the stacking. More continuity between the 16th century and the 21st: the Quechuans use the same rocks. They also stack them in the same way. Rock walls in fields and for small buildings were/are constructed without mortar, and plastered with mud. I'm sure some archaeologists trained in the subtle intricacies of carefully stacked rocks can tell the difference between an Incan-era farmer's wall and a modern one, but I can't. I stared at some circular stone-wall enclosures, about three feet high, and tried to decide if knowing what century they were built in would (or should) impart a greater or lesser sense of appreciation for them. Then I went for a long, quiet walk up the mountain. The meadows along the mountain's summit were completely empty except for a handful of heads of cattle, grazing unfettered and unsupervised among the giant asparagus. I was wearing my red shirt and the daunting thought of being charged upon by an enraged bull crossed my mind. Does that happen? I think I read somewhere that bulls are actually colorblind, and that they attack the torero during bullfights not because he's waving a red cape in their snout, but because he's sticking a sword in their shoulders. In any case, these bulls just stared at me.
From Jauja to Huancayo, I again chose to walk as far as I could before finding transportation. This time, the road led not through the mountains, but down the middle of a long valley. The Mantaro Valley is dotted with small towns but predominantly filled with cropland. It was a Sunday, and the fields were nearly empty of workers. In the little villages, there were a few gatherings of families and friends seated at tables under the trees that shaded the side of the road, enjoying what must have been hours-long midday meals judging by the amount of food spread out before them. As I passed they would wave and smile at me, and several times they called me over to ask where I was from and where I was going. When I told them, they offered me a chair to sit and rest in, and insisted on giving me a plate of food and a glass of corn beer. Most found it strange that an American should be travelling, and on foot, in the Mantaro Valley. They were all proud of the valley's beauty and listed out things that I must see while there. At the same time they assured me that it was not safe for me to be travelling by myself in such a poor place, and that I ought to be very careful because (they said as they heaped my plate with food) everyone would try to take advantage of me or rob me.
These generous people may have been right, but I felt nothing but welcomed by all. They were certainly poor though. The skin on their faces and hands were scarred, cracked, lined, the lines black with accumulated years of exposure to sun and dirt. When they smiled, their teeth proved to have nearly as many holes and stains as their shirts, pants, hats and shoes. Middle-aged and older men and women spoke mostly Quechua; teenagers and children seemed only to speak Spanish. Food was almost universally prepared in the same style of huge battered tin (or aluminum?) pots with red lids, and each pot's contents appeared to be the contribution of a different family's matron, but it was all being shared among everyone. I did my best to politely turn down their proffered food, but their insistence was too great.
The night before, I had been reading a report written by Mario Vargas Llosa, about an incident that, coincidentally, had happened in the mountains not too far from the Mantaro Valley, in the early 80s. An isolated cluster of villages, overwhelmed both by their treatment at the hands of the Shining Path, and by the inability and disinterest of the military to provide any kind of protection, decided to take matters into their own hands. When next a group from the S.P. came to demand food, clothes, and recruits, the villagers surrounded them and by weight of numbers managed to disarm them and then hang them or beat them to death. Communication with Ayacucho, the nearest place with a military and political presence, was infrequent and when news of the villages' actions finally spread, the facts had been diluted and distorted by rumor and retelling. A group of 8 journalists from the most prominent newspapers in Peru got together and determined to make the trip to the scene of the occurrence to ascertain the true facts. By car, foot, and horse they made it to Uchuraccay, the village in question. But the village's residents, on edge after their unheard of resistance to the Shining Path and fearful of reprisals, were on the lookout for interloping outsiders. When the eight journalists arrived on horseback, they too were surrounded, dragged to the ground and beaten to death, before they had any chance to identify themselves.
Although this all happened thirty years ago, I still felt a certain amount of trepidation on the eve of walking through the valley's villages. Would my ingress be seen as transgressive? my passing judged trespassing? I found it in poor taste that my book had offered me that particular history at that particular juncture. In the event, though, I was again and again struck by the incredible disparity between the climate of fear and isolation that sparked those gruesome events, and the warm, welcoming treatment I received; the contrast only served to heighten my appreciation and feeling of good luck that I should happen to find myself here, now, like this.
Late in the afternoon I flagged down a bus and rode the rest of the way to Huancayo. Huancayo used to be small, but in the 80s and 90s people fled the violence and poverty of the countryside in vast numbers and settled in Huancayo, which accordingly grew into a large, dense grid of quickly-built two- and three-story buildings. It was dark when I got there, and it took me a while to track down my hostel - which, once tracked, proved to no longer be in business. A quick trip to an internet cafe offered me no shortage of alternatives, and I picked one more or less at random (called Hostal Samay, which name stood out for me) This hostel and its owners turned out to be wonderful, and had a significant, and favorable, influence on my enjoyment and understanding of not only Huancayo, but also of Peru thus far as well. More about that soon.
