I have now landed myself in Cusco, capital of the Incas, bustling tourist town, charming old cobblestoned city that lies sprawling at the feet on Macchu Picchu like an offering at the feet of a Sun God. (Actually, I don´t know that, not having been to Macchu Picchu yet but it sounded poetic. In fact, I believe that Cusco is in fact at higher altitude than the old m.p, so perhaps I should amend to read "city that floats in the air above Macchu Picchu like an offering of grapes to a king".)
Maybe I should write no more about Macchu Picchu until I have been there and actually know where and what it is.
Riding on the Santa Ana bus to my project this morning, standing amidst Cusceño men, women, babies, bunches of flowers, bags of market produce, all staring at me silently whilst jolting up and down thanks to the pot-holed dirt road (and just imagine this scene rotated anti-clockwise, as I had to stand with my head bent so that I would fit vertically inside the vehicle), I watched as the landscape changed from one of tour company signs, money exchanges and postcard stands, into a countryside scene of rolling patchwork hills, mud-brick houses, burros (yes, the donkeys again) and dogs scavenging amongst roadside rubbish heaps with contented doggy smiles across their blinking canine faces.
I watched the scenes melt from one into another through the open window and could almost feel the land breath a rustic sigh of contentment, tinged with a hint of weariness in the eyes and slow movement of the passing villagers.
I watched all this out the window whilst being pickpocketed (I´m assuming somewhere on the bus there was also a contented pickpocketer smile, but as everybody looks at me the same way, I don´t think I´ll ever know who it was whose crafty fingers made their way into my pocket and out again without my knowledge. Even the spring flowers looked at me as if they knew something).
This did not come to my attention until much later, of course. I was too busy hanging on to the unmoveable parts of the bus (although rather like a child grasping the graspable parts of the parent, without realising that everything moves together) and eyeing the view as we all rattled along the road, men, women, children, flowers, vegetables and pickpocketer all together like a mixed bag of lollies. Dodging the wandering dogs was an attention grabber, too. Stray dogs are everywhere. They belong to nobody and rule the streets. Nobody can tell them where to go, sell them alpacca products, or pickpocket them. They can sniff bottoms or sit on a throne of garbage, whichever they please. The boys of the barrios. Queens of las calles.
There are not only stray dogs all over the outskirts of Cusco, but cows too, grazing here and there, and what always comes with these lovely velvety animals, the Splendid, Steaming Cow Pat. The impressive digestive facility of the four-stomached, grass munching, field roaming Peruvian cow is much to be admired. So much so that during a roadside stopover a lasting impression of its splendor was left as a friendly reminder on the rubber sole of our bus driver´s zapato, like the way the laundry service slips an extra business card into your bag of freshly cleaned clothes, or the stamping of your tourist card.
The Santa Ana stopped halfway up a hill so that the embarrased driver, our freshly dunged friend, could zip over to a patch of grass that those four stomachs so enjoy (in equal quarterly parts) and scrape his boot with a sitting-on-the-toilet-after-a-gianormous-meal look of concentration on his face and two bemused onlookers (being myself and Irish Kevin, the only remaining passengers at this time). Ten minutes and much more scraping later, we considered walking to our project from there but the driver promptly returned at that moment and we were again on our way.
Up in the hills, I also noticed through my observations of people walking here and there along the roadside that the stiff, coloured skirts and stockings of Huaraz have danced off with their cowboy hats and dissolved into the Andean sunset with trousers on every woman instead providing the practical comforts of the appendicular kind that always comes with a good pair of farmers´pants. (!) (Who knows, really. I don´t wear farmers´pants. Or carry a pitchfork for that matter. But the two go more hand-in-hand than puffy lime green skirts, although the latter looks cooler. Hr hrm anyway this isn´t a fashion column...)
The kitchen we are building is part of a small primary school, where probably around 90 or 100 children attend. When I say "attend", I mean running around outside flying kites and climbing all over things: the volunteers, piles of rock and dirt in the construction corner, up walls, up the soccer posts. The teachers, few as they are, round them up, and the little monkeys escape again, usually to be found back at the construction site, or again hanging off the arm of a humbled volunteer, who will typically keep a straight face but be glowing inside, like a young zoo ranger with an impressive rare bird perched on her shoulder during her very first bird show presentation. I have to admit though, the children there are very sweet with their large brown eyes, rosy bucolic cheeks and tiny flat noses. I suncream them up each day as the sun is extremely strong at an altitude of over 3,000 metres. I find the little girls quite funny. Even the incredibly timid ones aren´t afraid to climb up my sweater in search of my boobs which they seem to be curious about. They also like playing with my hair and putting it into a high ponytail. For a few minutes in the morning, the construction site is a ladies beauty parlour, with all the grooming needed to start a day of laying stones and getting covered in dust and dirt.
The walls and roof are already up (the kitchen having been started in May, I think). At the moment we are putting down stones (which some of the boys in our project team break up first with hammers and gravity), like a jigsaw puzzle or a tiled mosaic, onto the floor to form the base, which will be covered with cement on Monday.
After a morning of laying stones at high altitude I have to say I´m kind of pooped.
In the tired sense, of course.
Now, I have come to realise that hard work means being very hungry, very often. I have discovered the answer in a chocolate bar that is sold here called Sublime. On Thursday night, I filled my pockets with Sublime bars and my volunteer house and I headed out to a big and much anticipated soccer match. Peru was playing Liverpool (not the English team, but Uruaguay(!)). The night air was filled with excitement, and the streets with red jerseys and flying flags, many bearing the capital letter C in blue. Despite hints that Uruguay´s team is "mas fuerte" (stronger), I have to say that their defence was terrible and the players actually looked somewhat tired. I am not sure, but perhaps the Cusceños have an advantage when the game is in their hometown at high altitude, something that they are used to. My housemates and I enjoyed a smuggled cask of Chilean wine and partaking in the chants (laaa, laaaa...corizon...vive....something...ole, ole...) and the wave that went around and around like bath water swirling anti-clockwise down the drain. A band played, consisting of continual drumming and random sounds coming from a variety of wind instruments, no particular timing but kept up throughout the match. And there was one particular stand for the craziest aficionades of all. It was hard to take one´s eyes of them; an enormous banner rippled above their heads bearing the most famous revolutionary face in South America, Che Guavara, and the stand was a sea of red (with the occasional flicker of an orange fire). It looked like a fruit stand of excited apples shouting "me, me!".
Peru won the match, 2-0, scoring their first goal about 25 minutes in. I got my face on tv (someone back at home was watching). Of course, the peruvians were happy with the win and a long night of festivities followed.
So, after laying stones all morning I think it is time for a nice long siesta and a cup of coca mate. A sublime chocolate/peanut bar might not hurt either, for that matter.
I hope the reader is well, whoever you may be. Hasta luego!
:)
viernes, 21 de agosto de 2009
viernes, 14 de agosto de 2009
Huaraz and the Cordilleras Blancas
Huaraz is a smallish town of around 88,000 that tourists generally stay in as a base for trekking in the Cordilleras Blancas. My first impression of the town as our bus trundled in was that it had just been struck by an earthquake, In fact, it had been - in 1970 - causing enormous devastation, and many houses had not been rebuilt, or had been build precariously on top of the rubble. I found it bizarre that it still looked such a mess. Apparently, a tax is payable upon every finished home, so to avoid this, people simply do not put a roof on. The typical house is flat on top, unpainted, and in need of much work.
Yes, on the corner of a street, I nearly bought a puppy - a man on the corner caught my eye, asked me where I am from (as everybody does here) and proceeded to tell me that I could most definitely take the puppy back to Australia if I get a vet´s certificate. Hrm hrm... The small, soft brown pup snuggled into me and it was hard to give back...and gushing at a dog in Spanish must have been amusing to passerbys...
The trip to Huaraz, a bus ride that left Lima at 10am and arrived at 6am, was the most terrifying trip I have ever taken in my life. I reclined my chair and tried to sleep as we climbed slowly, and shakily, higher into the Andes. Although ít was dark, I could feel my ears popping, so I knew we must have been high up. As the night grew darker, and blacker, the passengers began to put their seats back and go to sleep. Curiousity took the better of me and I drew back the curtains. I was gripped with fear... above me rose the mighty Andean mountains, a dark, dark mass that loomed seeminly to the sky... and below, a sea of nothing!! I can´t even describe the fear that took over me. The wheels of the bus appeared to scrape along what appeared to be a sharp-edged cliff, but how deep the cravass was, I couldn´t tell, because there seemed to be nothing below but a deep dark hole. Dramatic images of the bus turning a corner and plunging to the bottom flashed through my frenzied mind. My hands began to sweat and my whole body froze in my seat, as it might when faced with a dangerous enemy. The scariest part occured when we drew nearer the mountains - for as we got closer, they appeared to open up as if to swollow us, like the jaws of a monster stretching open to reveal a gaping black hole. Indeed, the mouth of the mountain appeared as though it were ready to swallow up the entire bus...
Luckily, I remembered that I had a number of ABC radio programs downloaded on my phone, so like a typical gringo I plugged in my headphones and tried to distract myself (funnily enough, the program was about the enormity of nature compared to man, and at that moment I could not have agreed any more). I was enormously relieved when, around 5am, I wiped the condensation off the window and saw that we were surrounded by stretching, flat plains. The next thing I knew we were pulling into the bus station at Huaraz. I had survived!
My first few days at Huaraz were spent incredibly sick, with the flu. I took myself to the local hospital where I proudly described my symptoms to Dr Moreno: mal a la cabeza, duelen los ojos, duele la garganta, toser, etc, etc. I was prescribed some medicine and I started my trek completely loaded up with drugs. They certainly did help though.
I love Huaraz. I can really see why tourists stay on for lengthy periods of time, as the place oozes charm and tradition. The women wear exactly the same thing - a stiff coloured knee-length skirt over tights, a cowboy-like hat that is usually black or brown, a brightly coloured cardigan and usually a stripy bag slung over their bag, carrying a child or bundles of market produce, or both. They wear their hair in long, dark plaits, decorated with pom poms. The entire outfit doesn´t look exactly practical when you see them this way working in the fields, but apparently the stiff fabric of the skirt is amenable to holding things underneath. Imagine if Western fashion just stopped one day at one particular outfit, which everybody wore forever more! It seems this way with the Peruvians, as their clothing is very quirky and whatsmore everybody wears the same thing.
The day before my hike I had to return to the local hospital for a checkup. This was quite amusing, and took a long time, as nobody appeared to have heard of a Dr Moreno. So, I spent all morning wandering around the hospital, and being sent left, right and centre by the administration. Finally I was led by who I think was a patient to the influenza department, where it turned out there certainly was a Dr Moreno, the new American doctor whom nobody seemed to know just yet. I was prescribed some more cough medicine, which I have hardly taken, and sent back to my hostel with a white mask which cost 50 centimos. I looked like a paranoid gringo, walking around wearing that thing.
The next day I embarked on the Santa Cruz trek, in the Cordilleras Blancas. I would like to say that it was an adventure as worthy of a book/film as Touching the Void, but it was only four days, and didn´t require any picks or crampons. Nevertheless, parts of it were quite tough. It was around 45km, and up to 7 hours walking each day. Words can´t describe the enormity or beauty of the mountains and surrounding valleys. We climbed up steep boulders, scrambled across stony paths, meeting many a burro (donkey) along the way, either lazily grazing in the bushes, or carrying camping gear and followed by a gaucho (Peruvian cowboy), hissing to encourage the animals to continue along. Sometimes the dear things looked as though their legs would not budge another inch, and I felt quite empathetic towards them when I saw them standing forlornly at the bottom of a steep rise.
When I finally reached the pass, which at one point was such a small speck in the distance it seemed impossible that we would ever get there, I collapsed on my bag and slept. The altitude, almost 4,500m, was getting to me and recovering from the flu wasn´t helping either. When I finally woke, I peered over a large rock and saw the most incredible snow-capped mountain, that rose above a sparkling deep lagoon. To think that I was so tired I couldn´t even lift my head to witness such a miraculous sight. After that, the walk consisted of a dramatic decline, which had a phenomenal positive psychological effect on me. I felt better almost straight away.
The things that will remain in my mind from Santa Cruz are primarily the heaving, towering mountains, glistening white and pink, the yellow wild flowers that stood out, albeit humbly, against an intense deep blue sky, and the rounded, spiky cacti that seem to characterise the Peruvian bush. The water made me thirty whenever I looked at it. During the last stretch of the walk, we stopped at a running stream to wash our faces. Water, sparkling, gushing, clear, cool, lifegiving, water. There is so many ways to describe it, and all those words rushed through my head as my body and hands (and armpits!) embraced the cold stream. No wonder so many people have tried to write about the awe that they feel when they have gone without water for some time, and then come across a clean, golden, bubbling stream.
Meredith and I went out for a very rewarding Peruvian beer and dinner when we got back, in the popular gringo quarter of town. The next day we went to the hot springs at Monderry. We soaked our bodies in brown, hot, sulphuric acid, got rather sunburnt, and had lunch with another person from our trekking group, Elan. After lunch, we walked into the village and got ourselves chocolate icecreams, which we ate in a deserted soccer field, next to a hospital.
Goodbye Huaraz. I hope I will see you again...
Yes, on the corner of a street, I nearly bought a puppy - a man on the corner caught my eye, asked me where I am from (as everybody does here) and proceeded to tell me that I could most definitely take the puppy back to Australia if I get a vet´s certificate. Hrm hrm... The small, soft brown pup snuggled into me and it was hard to give back...and gushing at a dog in Spanish must have been amusing to passerbys...
The trip to Huaraz, a bus ride that left Lima at 10am and arrived at 6am, was the most terrifying trip I have ever taken in my life. I reclined my chair and tried to sleep as we climbed slowly, and shakily, higher into the Andes. Although ít was dark, I could feel my ears popping, so I knew we must have been high up. As the night grew darker, and blacker, the passengers began to put their seats back and go to sleep. Curiousity took the better of me and I drew back the curtains. I was gripped with fear... above me rose the mighty Andean mountains, a dark, dark mass that loomed seeminly to the sky... and below, a sea of nothing!! I can´t even describe the fear that took over me. The wheels of the bus appeared to scrape along what appeared to be a sharp-edged cliff, but how deep the cravass was, I couldn´t tell, because there seemed to be nothing below but a deep dark hole. Dramatic images of the bus turning a corner and plunging to the bottom flashed through my frenzied mind. My hands began to sweat and my whole body froze in my seat, as it might when faced with a dangerous enemy. The scariest part occured when we drew nearer the mountains - for as we got closer, they appeared to open up as if to swollow us, like the jaws of a monster stretching open to reveal a gaping black hole. Indeed, the mouth of the mountain appeared as though it were ready to swallow up the entire bus...
Luckily, I remembered that I had a number of ABC radio programs downloaded on my phone, so like a typical gringo I plugged in my headphones and tried to distract myself (funnily enough, the program was about the enormity of nature compared to man, and at that moment I could not have agreed any more). I was enormously relieved when, around 5am, I wiped the condensation off the window and saw that we were surrounded by stretching, flat plains. The next thing I knew we were pulling into the bus station at Huaraz. I had survived!
My first few days at Huaraz were spent incredibly sick, with the flu. I took myself to the local hospital where I proudly described my symptoms to Dr Moreno: mal a la cabeza, duelen los ojos, duele la garganta, toser, etc, etc. I was prescribed some medicine and I started my trek completely loaded up with drugs. They certainly did help though.
I love Huaraz. I can really see why tourists stay on for lengthy periods of time, as the place oozes charm and tradition. The women wear exactly the same thing - a stiff coloured knee-length skirt over tights, a cowboy-like hat that is usually black or brown, a brightly coloured cardigan and usually a stripy bag slung over their bag, carrying a child or bundles of market produce, or both. They wear their hair in long, dark plaits, decorated with pom poms. The entire outfit doesn´t look exactly practical when you see them this way working in the fields, but apparently the stiff fabric of the skirt is amenable to holding things underneath. Imagine if Western fashion just stopped one day at one particular outfit, which everybody wore forever more! It seems this way with the Peruvians, as their clothing is very quirky and whatsmore everybody wears the same thing.
The day before my hike I had to return to the local hospital for a checkup. This was quite amusing, and took a long time, as nobody appeared to have heard of a Dr Moreno. So, I spent all morning wandering around the hospital, and being sent left, right and centre by the administration. Finally I was led by who I think was a patient to the influenza department, where it turned out there certainly was a Dr Moreno, the new American doctor whom nobody seemed to know just yet. I was prescribed some more cough medicine, which I have hardly taken, and sent back to my hostel with a white mask which cost 50 centimos. I looked like a paranoid gringo, walking around wearing that thing.
The next day I embarked on the Santa Cruz trek, in the Cordilleras Blancas. I would like to say that it was an adventure as worthy of a book/film as Touching the Void, but it was only four days, and didn´t require any picks or crampons. Nevertheless, parts of it were quite tough. It was around 45km, and up to 7 hours walking each day. Words can´t describe the enormity or beauty of the mountains and surrounding valleys. We climbed up steep boulders, scrambled across stony paths, meeting many a burro (donkey) along the way, either lazily grazing in the bushes, or carrying camping gear and followed by a gaucho (Peruvian cowboy), hissing to encourage the animals to continue along. Sometimes the dear things looked as though their legs would not budge another inch, and I felt quite empathetic towards them when I saw them standing forlornly at the bottom of a steep rise.
When I finally reached the pass, which at one point was such a small speck in the distance it seemed impossible that we would ever get there, I collapsed on my bag and slept. The altitude, almost 4,500m, was getting to me and recovering from the flu wasn´t helping either. When I finally woke, I peered over a large rock and saw the most incredible snow-capped mountain, that rose above a sparkling deep lagoon. To think that I was so tired I couldn´t even lift my head to witness such a miraculous sight. After that, the walk consisted of a dramatic decline, which had a phenomenal positive psychological effect on me. I felt better almost straight away.
The things that will remain in my mind from Santa Cruz are primarily the heaving, towering mountains, glistening white and pink, the yellow wild flowers that stood out, albeit humbly, against an intense deep blue sky, and the rounded, spiky cacti that seem to characterise the Peruvian bush. The water made me thirty whenever I looked at it. During the last stretch of the walk, we stopped at a running stream to wash our faces. Water, sparkling, gushing, clear, cool, lifegiving, water. There is so many ways to describe it, and all those words rushed through my head as my body and hands (and armpits!) embraced the cold stream. No wonder so many people have tried to write about the awe that they feel when they have gone without water for some time, and then come across a clean, golden, bubbling stream.
Meredith and I went out for a very rewarding Peruvian beer and dinner when we got back, in the popular gringo quarter of town. The next day we went to the hot springs at Monderry. We soaked our bodies in brown, hot, sulphuric acid, got rather sunburnt, and had lunch with another person from our trekking group, Elan. After lunch, we walked into the village and got ourselves chocolate icecreams, which we ate in a deserted soccer field, next to a hospital.
Goodbye Huaraz. I hope I will see you again...
sábado, 8 de agosto de 2009
The road to Huaraz
So, here is my blog, which I have to say is not quite the same thing as scribbling pensively into my diary on a roof-top terrace, sipping mate tea, with the occasional glance up at the pink snow-capped mountains and a satisfied, inward sigh. Rather, the glare of the computer screen and HTML editing options make blogging somewhat unromantic, but at least it is a record (albeit sketchy) of my goings-on in this wonderful vast continent that I´m happy for anyone to read, and confirmation to the family that I´m still alive and heading in the general direction that I´m supposed to be.
(And excuse any poor spelling - any attempt to squeeze an extra item into my already bulging backpack, such as an English dictionary, would mean the bag exploding every time it is opened...but I´m sure no-one cares about spelling that much other than my dear Mum!)
Admittedly,I have not done a great deal since I arrived here in Peru. In a nutshell (and my blogs will probably end up being nutty-shellish given I have exhausted myself already writing the same account of things a number of times in emails and in my diary...but we´ll see if the words flow or not...how much I want to be exploring outside!!) the most interesting things that have happened thus far is:
Stuff it. I´m going off to explore.
Watch this space, though. Things just might appear there.
I will tell you all about the scary, scary road to Huaraz where the mountains just about swallow you up, my experience in the local hospital, and how I nearly bought a puppy, all in due course :)
Hasta luego!
(And excuse any poor spelling - any attempt to squeeze an extra item into my already bulging backpack, such as an English dictionary, would mean the bag exploding every time it is opened...but I´m sure no-one cares about spelling that much other than my dear Mum!)
Admittedly,I have not done a great deal since I arrived here in Peru. In a nutshell (and my blogs will probably end up being nutty-shellish given I have exhausted myself already writing the same account of things a number of times in emails and in my diary...but we´ll see if the words flow or not...how much I want to be exploring outside!!) the most interesting things that have happened thus far is:
Stuff it. I´m going off to explore.
Watch this space, though. Things just might appear there.
I will tell you all about the scary, scary road to Huaraz where the mountains just about swallow you up, my experience in the local hospital, and how I nearly bought a puppy, all in due course :)
Hasta luego!
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