They’re in cities all over the world. Street kids. No homes. Parents somewhere, the histories tangled or distorted, unlucky or horrible.
Searching for food in dumpsters in Cusco, well above the tourist centers where foreigners get trashed and hook up. Is it any different from the homeless in Manhattan sleeping on the streets next to clubbing kids? It’s always the same. We appreciate what we have and forget it five seconds later.
I had seen him earlier in the day, briefly, as we drove past. I was waiting outside and I saw him amble past. I hesitated, then raced to catch him. He may be an important official in town, but I was determined to get the scoop. He only wore the ceremonial hat twice a year and once the sun went down, that was it. I got there just in time.
I had contracted a mild flu when I first got to Arequipa and so I had wasted three days laying in bed and restraining my desire to get out there. I finally felt well enough to go down into Colca Canyon, one of the deepest canyons in the world, for a three-day trek with a group.
I made the mistake of getting some bananas and bread on a brief stop on the six-hour journey to the canyon. The tainted outside of the banana coated my hands, which then handled the bread. I was nauseous on the bus ride; I began vomiting everything I had eaten once on the trail, including the safe default, water. I dragged myself into town to ask about the clinic; I kept losing consciousness in the street.
Of course in my stupor I had unknowingly walked by the clinc, which had no sign and so was driven there and basically carried into it. This was a bare-bones clinic, the size of a small ranch house, just a nurse and a doctor and some beds. I got an injection, some safe liquid to drink, shivered uncontrollably under several blankets as my flu came roaring back. I stayed in a hotel overnight, drank gatorade and felt incredibly grateful to be walking around in this town of Cabanaconde.
His father was friends with him, he passed away some time ago. He was quiet and they didn’t know much about his past. He was the only Polish guy in Nasca. And now I was the only one.
You’re rolling between the mountains outside of Maras and suddenly you’re in the midst of hundreds of salt pans, plots filled with water that when evaporated, crystallize into salt. Every family in the area has a plot and takes a share of the profits from the sales. It’s a process that’s been occurring for centuries.
I was writing on a bench on the main street and eight of these girls I had been observing playing, swarmed around me and started asking questions so we traded back and forth and when I asked to take their portraits only three stayed behind and only one was so incredibly natural and fearless.
Ollantaytambo proved to be one of the most wonderfully pure, beautiful days in Peru. No tourists, no ruins, no taxis, just me and the terrain and the people. As you climb, more and more cacti appear, some as large as SUVs, others tiny like thumbs. You have to be careful, some needles are 3-4 inches long and they are sharp. I got stung once through my jeans.
And then, suddenly, you’re transported out of this dry desert into a lush Irish countryside. A stream running from the top of the mountain changes everything; the ground is incredibly soft and fertile.
The high point was seeing some boys shepherding goats across the face of the mountain in front of me, with the sun shining down and a fine mist of rain coming from my right. A single, bleating goat was stuck on the edge of the mountain.
What drew me first to investigating the pueblos jovenes was the sight of colonies of wooden or straw huts on huge dunes while on the bus to Ica. The landscape of coastal Peru is striking enough; lush oases of green immediately adjacent to giant dunes and barren mountains, and back again, over and over. I wondered, who would live out here, with no infrastructure, in a wasteland, with hardly any shelter?
Turns out, many of these towns were not invasions, like the ones I had investigated earlier. These were planned settlements, done with the approval of the government. The first of the day was located two hours outside of Lima and was populated by professionals looking to get in on a town that was developing, hoping to land a cheap summer home for easy access to the beach, in addition to workers who toiled on the farms (or chakras) nearby. This was a very young town, about five years old.
The second town, just 50 minutes from Lima and two years old, was engineered by a single man (pictured below) with the help of several investors who had skillfully attained approval and resources for the town. Only in Peru do you name a town after the new wife of the former president to curry favor to the still-powerful family around him.
There is a fair amount of speculation involved here. How many people actually live in these towns? We saw very few actual people. How much of this is a show to get resources and infrastructure? Regardless, the people of Lima need housing, the government will not provide any, so the people must provide, any way they can.
Just an hour from Cusco is the site of Pisac, a wonderful set of ruins up in the mountains, the enjoyment of which is diluted by the onslaught of tourists that take the bus rather than do the hike (that’s a common theme).
