Next day it was beautiful and bright. I went out for a walk, Richard said he’d catch me up but he didn’t. I walked along the stony beach and up a track to the plaza. Everybody says buenos dias or hola and although it’s before six a.m. there are a lot of people around. The lake looks good.
When I got back to the room Rich was really fed up as he hadn’t been able to walk and he couldn’t eat breakfast alone as he can’t pour out the hot water from the flask or butter bread. We have decided to go back to Puno by boat.
And that is how it was. I had good days and rough ones. My health was deteriorating and because it was unpredictable Flic wasn’t always there when I needed her. I hadn’t learned to be patient, to sit out the bad moments and quietly wait for things to get better. I allowed myself to get miserable at times. Amantani wasn’t great for me but there were good times to follow.
We went to Chucuito in a mini-bus full of women, some very wide. They piled blankets full of onions on the roof. Thus begins Flic’s journal entry describing a day trip we made from Puno. It continues: there were supposed to be stone phalluses here but they look more like mushrooms. Yes, the archaeological remains were very boring and it was no wonder that we were the only gringos in town. But there was something about the place that made us hang around for a while and we were glad that we did.
Chucuito is a small town situated a little above the main road that runs along the coastal plain by Lake Titicaca on the way to the nearby Bolivian border. We arrived there around mid-morning on a clear sunny day. After we had checked out the phalluses we wandered around the quiet streets. It was an ordinary town but there were some handsome older buildings of adobe and stone with red sandstone lintels across the doors. We soon found ourselves hanging out in the Plaza de Armas, the town square.
The square was on sloping ground with the usual formal park area in middle: little stretches of concrete path around patches of grass and trees and benches to sit on all geometrically arranged. On two sides of the square were low buildings, some of them housing modest little shops and cafés. On another side was a large modern concrete building with Municipalidad Distrital de Chucuito written across the front in big letters – the town hall. On the fourth side overlooking it all was big old church, a fine building up on a bank behind a colonnade of red and white painted arches. On the road running around the square stalls had been set up, most them bearing adverts for Cusqueña, the Peruvian beer, complete with government health warnings, Tomar Bebidas Alcohólicas es Dañino.
There was nothing going on at all but we sat in shade for a while watching the street. Flic asked a woman passing by if there was to be a fiesta and was told mañana, tomorrow. It was getting hotter and we thought of getting the next bus back to Puno but we liked this town. We wandered again, had some lunch in a big empty café, and came back to the square. There were a few more people around, the women in fairly smart traditional dress. We sat down and Flic got her journal out. She wrote: a man has just crossed the square in a silver and purple costume, maybe a dancer. We sat some more and then she wrote: also men on horseback. Now the locals began to gather by the town hall and we went over and joined them.
We sat on a low wall and watched. Half a dozen women with their hair worn in plaits that went down to their waists and an array of different hats (straw boaters and bowlers and one gorro – I have a photo here now) sat down on the kerb in front of us. More and more people turned up including some men leading horses and plenty of wide (as Flic might say) women in bright colours. Things began to happen. A brass band consisting of trumpets and tubas and a big bass drum played a couple of numbers. The mayor gave a speech. The slim young man who was sitting next to us said something about a corrida. We struggled to understand so by way of explanation he got out his wallet and showed us his union card. He pointed out the name of his profession: matador. He was a stranger in town himself, come to take part in this afternoon’s bullfight – not in the ring but to officiate in some way.
The doors of the town hall were thrown open and everybody went in leaving the square empty except for a few tethered horses. We wandered yet again and found a viewpoint on the edge of the village from which we could see the land drop away to the plain and then the lake beyond. There below us, on the opposite side of the main road, was a football field in which stood the temporary bullring, a simple affair of wooden fences with a small grandstand on one side. Perhaps the event was sponsored by Cusqueña, the beer company, for they had a big banner sign here too. The health warning seemed a little out of place in the context of what was to happen this afternoon.
Back at the square we took a look at the squat colonial church, the biggest and oldest building in the town as it is in some small towns in Peru. It was a grand affair painted pale yellow and dark red with a massive green wooden door and a corrugated iron roof. Then people came out of the town hall where, we guessed, they had eaten some lunch. The band, a couple of dignitaries on horseback and the matadors paraded around the square and set off towards the bullring. We found a place to watch from the hill as did half the townsfolk, while the other half gathered around the ring. The people around us stood quietly, not smiling much and saying little. They didn’t interact with us at all, as if we were invisible. A couple of women came along handing out homemade icecreams from insulated boxes but they didn’t look that nice and we didn’t try them for fear of upsetting our stomachs. Down below people were parking camionetas, pickup trucks, close to the ring and standing on them for a good view of the action to come.
Flic recorded: it took a couple of hours before the first bull, a brown one, was let into the ring. It tried to toss the matador but got confused as it got tangled up in his red cloak. After not long they let it go and another one was brought in, a lively black one but still small. This charged around a bit with someone on a loud speaker shouting olé. Then this one was released and a bigger brown bull came in and this one did stir up dust pawing the ground and looked a bit angry. I suggested that we leave now as I didn’t want to see anyone, bull or man, hurt so we walked back to the plaza. She went on to say that the people watching were as interesting as the bullfight itself, which was a bit of an act.
I remember that the first bull seemed to tire easily and lose interest in the matador. The second one was a little timid. They weren’t injured in any way and I imagined that later in the day they were grazing quietly in a field somewhere wondering what that had been all about. Did the bullfight get more serious after we left? I don’t know.
We caught the minibus back to Puno glad to have witnessed, by accident, an extraordinary part of life in Peru. It was a memorable day, something that happens when you have the time to travel independently far from home.
After our day at the bullfight at Chucuito we went on around the lake and across the border into Bolivia. We stayed a few days in a town called Copacabana. You’ve already heard a little about this place and I’m not going to say much more here. It was seedier, scruffier and smellier than any place we had visited in Peru but we liked it. The landscape around was rocky and steep and the town felt safe and friendly. Our idea was to travel on to La Paz, the capital city of Bolivia but the roads were closed because of some political action. We got impatient waiting and decided to see more of Peru. We took a bus back across the border to Puno and then headed for Cusco, the Sacred Valley, and Machu Pichu.
V is for Varanasi (India)
We were in a rooftop café in Varanasi. We looked out across the water to the sandbanks on the opposite shore and at the rowing boats overloaded with pilgrims in brightly coloured clothes and at the broad sweep of the river stretching into the distance upstream and downstream. We looked down at the smoke rising from cremations on the burning ghats and at people ducking their heads in the water at the bathing ghats. We watched the monkeys gathering on the next door rooftop.
Then our food arrived. I can’t remember what we ate, only what I didn’t eat. It was a chapatti whipped off my plate by a monkey that leapt off the parapet and bou
nded past, snatching and grabbing as it went.
Monkeys are a sacred animal in India as well as a nuisance. A few years ago a government minister fell to his death from a balcony during an altercation with a monkey. There was talk of controlling the increasing numbers of these large holy vermin in New Delhi, where it happened, but I don’t think anything was ever done.
It was in Varanasi that we found a monkey skull on the ground where we walked along the river bank. Its mouth grinned at us and its empty eye sockets stared up at us. It was sinister, being almost human. Perhaps the skull had fallen from a nearby rooftop where the animal had died and decomposed. There is so much life and so much death in India. It’s not hidden away. Particularly in Varanasi.
23
The Sacred Valley
We stayed in Cusco at the Hospedaje Inka, a sort of backpackers’ hostel or guesthouse that consisted of an ancient farmhouse and outbuildings that sat on the ridge overlooking the old part of the city. Qué rústico, bonito y simpatico are some words that come to mind; yes, that’s right, it was rustic and charming and friendly. You might also use the same words to describe the proprietor, Americo, whose family had owned the property for five generations. He ran the Hospedaje with the help of two enthusiastic young men, Harry, who took time off only to look after his 300 guinea pigs, and Cipriano, whose special project was himself, if the amount of time he spent looking in the mirror was anything to go by. There was also Julio, a tiny eccentric old man dressed like one of the Blues Brothers complete with shades worn indoors and out. He said nothing and did nothing but added something to the place anyway. I think he might be described as having learning difficulties.
The hospedaje was a great place. The buildings were constructed out of the usual mixture of rough stone and adobe bricks covered over with crumbling plaster which had once been whitewashed. To get to the bedrooms you went up outdoor staircases and across wonky wooden balconies under pantiled roofs. The kitchen was across a cobblestone yard. Indoors the furniture was ancient and characterful and outdoors there were stone and wooden benches and cactus plants and flowers. Best of all was the view. The land dropped away in front of the house and all the old city lay spread out below, church towers and tiled roofs in abundance. Around the city was a ring of bare-topped hills except to the west where the valley opened out and the newer parts of town spread onto the plains. And, when the light was clear, you could see one distant snow-capped mountain making friends with the clouds.
The lovely strange thing about this place was that there had developed a kind of communal eating arrangement. When we arrived we were invited to eat by a Dutchman called Peter who had been staying there some time and during our stay we cooked (hmm... I think I mean Flic cooked) and other people cooked and people came and went and sometimes shared food in the big kitchen. It was sociable and we got to meet some interesting people.
Americo was a distinguished middle-aged man who spoke no English. The place was rustic but he had a good internet connection and liked to give little concerts of his favourite classical music on YouTube in the evenings. Peter, the Dutchman, was a nice old hippy, a true eccentric, full of bizarre theories and crazy talk and kindness and frantic inaction. We met an Icelander who knitted and a Swede who talked at length about milk and a German woman who had been to the rainforest to see a shaman and had come back to Cusco very ill. There was Claus, part Swedish, part Peruvian, completely bonkers and who believed that he had supernatural powers and was engaged in some struggle to save the world. And there were more because we stayed there for a few days either side of visiting the Sacred Valley and Machu Pichu.
I liked Hospedaje Inka and it has good memories for me so I’m surprised to read this passage in Flic’s journal: Richard is feeling hopeless sometimes about his inability to do anything, dressing, packing, washing, shaving are all getting very difficult and it’s hard to know what he will do when we get home. Walking he can do. Usually. For now we are in Peru and it’s all new and I am here and we are having a good time but the future I don’t know.
This trip was turning out differently from our trips to India and Nepal; much harder, and with bad times almost as often as good. I have got into the habit of discounting the horrible stuff. It’s the good experiences that matter, isn’t it? I have to think of it this way and I would like to keep Mr Parkinson out of this story for a while but I can’t. We had fantastic, really fantastic, adventures despite his presence. It makes me sad to think how preoccupied Flic had become with my illness. I’m sorry to have caused her so much worry. But despite the problems the good times continue. My state of health is increasingly up and down. But I have, as my son Kit recently observed, a miraculous recovery several times a day. Not many people can say that.
From Cusco we went to El Valle Sagrado de los Incas, the Sacred Valley of the Incas, a few words about which might be a good idea. We shouldn’t really call them the Incas as that is the name of their kings; the people we might describe as Quechua, which is also the name of their language, still widely spoken today. They had a short-lived empire centred around what we now call Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia for the hundred years before the Spanish turned up in the 1530s (i.e. not that long ago). Their architecture was amazing; sometimes massive blocks were fitted together with great (but not inexplicable) accuracy. They built Machu Pichu and other monuments and the foundations of Inca buildings are clearly visible in places like Ollantaytambo and Cusco, where the present day buildings, which date from colonial times, sit on top of them. The Sacred Valley is also referred to by the name of its river and central town, Urubamba.
First we travelled by bus, a real bus with real people, as Flic described it, from Cusco to Chinchero, high above the Sacred Valley at 12,500 feet. The town, she wrote, is set in marvellous scenery, huge rocks, valleys with winding streams, and Inca terraces, stretches of flat lawns, small curved terraced fields. Some of the great rocks have steps carved in them. We looked to see some sheep wandering into a field of barley and children running after them and chasing them back, hitting them with their jumpers. We had lunch at a stall in the market place: roast pork, potatoes and sweetcorn, all fished out of a vat of bubbling oil in which floated the pig’s tail. We sat on a tiny bench and ate, like everyone else, with our fingers, cleaning up afterwards with toilet paper, a roll of which is found on the tables of cheap cafés in Peru in lieu of napkins. Here we encountered a new hat, a maroon flying saucer, which was quite common here alongside the aforementioned hybrid somewhere between a trilby and a top hat in white or cream colour.
In Chinchero we stayed the night in a small tacky cold hotel and ate fish and chips off cold plates in a cold dining room. In the morning we walked down and down a steep path along the side of a little valley that led eventually into the Sacred Valley. We found a moderately unpleasant place to stay in the town of Urubamba and went back by bus to Chinchero to pick up our things.
This was one of the fullest buses we have ever been on and we foolishly had seats at the back. When we got near to Chinchero we had the laughably impossible task of pushing our way through the people standing in the aisle to get to the door. I really hadn’t thought about it but had assumed that the impressive girth of Peruvian campesinas was one part woman and an equal part layers of petticoat and skirt. Not so. How can I put this delicately? Let’s just say that the idea of obesity as a feature of decadent lazy Western society is myth. There are fat people and thin people scattered about all over the world. But on the bus to Chinchero that afternoon the thin people were noticeably absent.
Flic says that I use the word beautiful too often. What can I do? The walk down the valley and the bus ride back took us through an impressive and wonderful landscape. There was snow on the peaks and extraordinary flowers and insects on the ground (including stick insects that we had never seen in the wild before). There was red earth, purple dust and green rocks; agave plants and huge cacti and, lower down, acres of maize, fields of flowers, avocado, papaya and peach trees. It was pretty damn good. An
d at the bottom, after seeing no-one for most of the day, we came to a house where the people were taking a rest from the making of adobe bricks. They invited us in to drink chicha, maize beer, and eat some salad. Both these items could possibly give us stomach troubles but we accepted their hospitality and survived. It was a very good day.
On the following morning we found a great place to stay on the edge of Urubamba. Flic thought it was delightful,
we have a balcony overlooking a garden full of blossom and fruit, hens, guinea pigs, bees, humming birds, passion fruit vine, peach, pear, tree tomatoes, a brown bird on a nest at eye level, a ping pong room, shame Richard doesn’t play. Humming birds seem to purr more than hum and they cheep too. They are tiny and iridescent green and blue and brown and grey. Our hotel is on a dirt road on the edge of Urubamba. Beyond it are fields of maize and potatoes and cabbages. Mud walls. Beyond the fields are mountains.
Large bundles of barley are sold and you see people lugging it home on their backs. Sheep are herded along. There’s a town square with beautiful trees in blossom, blue, pink and red. Red petals fall to the ground and look like parrots beaks. Hibiscus trees line the road. It feels like summer.
The Road to Zagora Page 20
