Peru
4
Nov 08
San Roque, Peru: Casamiro’s chakra and friends
My jungle buddy Casamiro gave me a tour of his chakra on the first day we hung out. We traipsed through the jungle to other parts of his land and to visit friends, one of whom grows sugarcane.
I was bitten ferociously all day by mosquitoes and flies. Casamiro was completely unharmed. It was obvious to these tiny vermin that my blood was foreign and delectable.
These little guys were for dinner. They live in banana trees and are protein-rich.
1
Nov 08
San Roque, Peru: Portrait: Olivia+Casamiro
One of the great pleasures from my trip to Peru was meeting and becoming friendly with Casamiro and Olivia. We met while waiting for a ride in a pick-up truck to San Roque de Cumbaza from Tarapoto. They wondered where I was from, and what I was doing in town. After the long wait and ride Casamiro invited me to his chakra (farm) in the jungle to have breakfast on Sunday; he showed up at Casa Hunab Ku (where I was staying) at 7 and we hiked out to the chakra where I had fresh milk for the first time—incredible—along with platanos (different varieties of bananas both sweet and starchy), rice and eggs. They have cows, chickens, pigs, platanos, avocado, maize, a river for drinking and washing. No electricity, no plumbing, no gas range (firewood), no walls to their house. They were friendly, open, curious and generous and very fun to chat with.
They had two daughters, one in Chile, one in the capital. They went into town maybe once a week at most to sell or buy goods. Most often they could trade with the farmers in the area. Casamiro was understandably proud of his chakra; he built the house and cleared the land himself. This made me pause; this was clear-cutting of jungle for farming. This is bad, I thought immediately. Then I flipped it. Casamiro had created a living for his family through sustainable farming practices. He wasn’t creating pollution (outside of the initial burning) or demand for more goods. He was treating his animals well. He made a living with his hands, honestly. What do we in the First World expect people in the Third World to do? Get jobs in e-publishing? This is what they do, this is who they are.
27
Oct 08
Lamas, Peru: Festival
We took a ride in the town’s pick-up truck to the festival celebration in Lamas. There were eventually 27 of us bopping along the dirt road for over an hour, stopping along the way to pick up more people and their supplies.
It was horrifically hot with hardly any shade, plenty of grilled meat and beer passed around and around.
The indigenous people of Lamas played instruments, blew their whistles, stumbled around in circles and paraded the animals they hunt on their backs.
14
Oct 08
On the way to Tarapoto, Peru: Kids
The ride from Lima to Tarapoto was supposed to take 24 hours. It ended up taking 8 hours more, as the bus broke down at 4 AM somewhere on the road through the jungle. By early morning, people woke to a still bus and wandered outside to see what was going on.
We weren’t going anywhere for several hours; another bus had to deliver the broken part and there was no cellphone reception in the area. Some of the hurried passengers flagged down cars to get a ride to the next town. Everyone else stood around and chatted and eventually turned to me; who the hell is this foreigner?
We chatted about food, places, politics in the bare way necessitated by my minimal Spanish. And occasionally I would sneak off and shoot the kids that were playing, both local kids and some from the bus. Their gazes are so beautifully unconcerned. Like a cat crossing your path.
12
Oct 08
Cordillera Vilcabamba, Peru: Salkantay Trek
To do the Inca Trail you have to book several months in advance. I don’t do anything months in advance, so I decided to make plans when I got there. By the time I arrived in Cusco I had soured on the idea of going as part of a group. Serendipity provided a buddy and we planned it all in a couple days.
The Salkantay Trek lasts five days, the fifth day spent at Machu Picchu. The first day started with a three hour bus ride from 5 AM in Cusco to Mollepata. We hired a horseman with horse to carry our tent and sleeping bags and food; his name was Pepe, he was 20, he had the gnarly feet of an elderly man and never got tired. All we had to do then was walk and watch the landscape change gradually, come to bends with excitement, knowing another range of spectacular mountains were awaiting us.
The first night was unbelievably cold; how could I be cold with five layers on, inside a sleeping bag in a tent? I was not at 100 percent yet as the food poisoning episode was only ten days old, so the morning climb, a relentless series of steep uphills, clobbered me. But the satisfaction of reaching the 4600m pass was tremendous! After that we passed through Mordor (below) and on to a sub-tropical terrain, passing rivers and a growing number of strange ferns and flora. We camped on a shelf of land in between several mountains.
The third day ended with a ride in a truck meant for cows or pigs with dozens of other backpackers from groups whose bus had not arrived. We were pleased to ride with locals in this truck, we were paying next to nothing. These groups had paid a lot more but they weren’t complaining, as long as the truck didn’t tip over down the cliff edge, which we were dangerously close to at all times. At Santa Theresa we crossed into another dimension through the freezing cold cascading waterfall that thundered on our shoulders and back. When you walked out from underneath it, it’s like you were born again, all thoughts and feelings had dissolved and you were fresh and clean, finally.
The fourth day we took a van to the train tracks that led to Aguas Caliente, the tourist city next to Machu Picchu. The train only comes at 8AM and 4PM so we walked along the tracks, watching as the mountains became more and more like the pictures we all have seen of the famous ruins.
The next morning at 5 we climbed the huge steps to Machu Picchu for over an hour. The city in the clouds is incredible, the hype is all there. You’ve ascended to their heaven, and so a peace comes over you and we napped, watching the fog pass through slowly when we woke. The last climb to Waynupicchu, the mountain behind in all the photos, was no joke either and the sheer drop from the collection of boulders to the ground below was at least a thousand meters. I felt like I could close my eyes and float to the bottom, the magic of this place would ease me down softly and quietly.
