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gemmeque · 12 years ago

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part 1

Septiembre, Octubre & Noviembre Hace 9 anos.

Now that I’ve spent six months in South America, its time to record the thoughts and impressions of this past half year while they are still clear.

Unsurprisingly, the first months were the strangest, because we were viewing this new place through Western lenses without realizing our biases.

Huarmey, our first temporary home and job placement, would prove the perfect place to shake us from our preconceived notions.

It’s a city I will always remember with appreciation, and I now cherish my memories there. I don’t know if I can say the same for my traveling partner Cam, but he now speaks of it fondly at least. When we arrived, back in September 2012, there were many unpleasant surprises. This will always be the beginning of the trip to me; but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start at the true beginning.

Upon arrival in Lima we take the mandatory thirty minute cab ride to the Barranco district at ten at night. Almost worth enduring a horrible international flight: your first quick view at your new environment zipping past. A flashing preview of what you will be savoring at a slower pace in the days to come, something I had experienced many times but was experiencing now with Cam for his first.

Lima became one of my favorite cities. A lot of travelers think it’s dirty, big and annoying. Which it is–but it also has a lot of character. There are different feelings to each barrio, but they all have wonderful food. The city bustles with the activity of its residents, who love their city inside out. The city has had to be rebuilt several times due to earthquakes and many building being from colonial times. It’s broken and crumbling but is loved by its residents. The decay is beautiful in its own way. It’s also the perfect starting point for adventure in the lung as of South America (Perú).

On our way to Huarmey we stopped in Caral, location of the oldest known civilization in the Americas. Since the path here is not well-beaten (as is the case with many other ruins in Peru) it proved a good primer for the art of traveling in this part of the world. We jumped through what at the time felt like a ridiculous amount of hoops. Little did we know this would become our regular lifestyle. A bus to Barranca, a confusing moto-taxi (motorcycle taxi) to an alley way, a few convis (vans that function like buses), and a hop into a station wagon parked in a random garage (these are ride shares called collectivos) and just like that we’d arrived. The whole thing is very rushed yet no one is in any real hurry, the whole process is not help much by my beginners Spanish.

This is also my first time experiencing another sensation which is now very familiar. It’s difficult to express, but it’s the sadness and confusion of seeing people living in extreme poverty, in the shadow of important world heritage sites, despite the presence of tourists and the money they bring. The village outside of Caral was one of the worst I’ve seen in South America, consisting of dirt paths instead of paved roads filled with piles of garbage which was sometimes burning, run-down futbol fields and plazas, broken power lines and mud-huts. Caral isn’t the biggest tourist destination despite its historical importance, but money is being spent, and little to none appears to make it to the struggling community living just outside.

Still, Caral is an impressive site. It’s nothing quite like the perfectly preserved, glorious ruins in the Sacred Valley around Cusco, yet it’s a relatively well preserved precursor to the Incan empire. For anyone curious to feel the energy of ancient places or interested in history, this site holds a lot of impact. The lack of tourists as well make the site meditative. But it’s north of this ancient relic where our real destination lies, and where the story progresses.

Huarmey! A real gem—for those who are really willing to dig through a pile of shit to find it. The town is growing into a small city, with little charm for the eye. Its bustling streets are littered with rubbish and incredibly loud Latin beats. We came here to work in a hostel and stay for free, but the moto-taxi ride from the bus station alone made it very clear, we would not be having many clients.

And we did not have a single client for a month. While this was disappointing, it allowed us to have a much more fulfilling experience teaching English to local children, which after six months remains to be the largest impact we’ve made here. Jaime Crazy Hostel in Huarmey advertises itself as a ¨non-profit¨ organization online. In person we found absolutely no proof of any such activity.

I can’t continue this part without introducing one of the best, most genuine friends we’ve made on this trip, Charles Severin. He’s French and lives up to the name. With much help from Charles we set up our own English classes with the local kids—after finding none despite the fact they were supposed to be provided.

The classes for the next month unfolded beautifully, with the most attentive, responsive and quickest kids I have yet encountered. But here the logistics start to get messy due to a man named Percy (represented to us as the ¨brother¨ of the hostel’s owner, Jaime) who is helping run the hostel, and who also had Ana (a lovely Peruvian woman we live with) charge the kids one sole a piece as a registration fee. This exchange was made behind our backs, the volunteers who created the program. Percy begins to pressure us to charge new volunteers who wish to teach English, though it is advertised as free on Helpx and the hostels website. It quickly becomes very clear that providing these English classes isn’t of much interest to the hostel unless it’s making money for Percy. Suspiciously, we never met this Jaime and he never visits the hostel, but we see Percy frequently.

Mainly due to Charles resiliency, we never charge anyone anything and continue the English classes. Percy tries to convince us that we should go to Lima to attract tourist to Huarmey, of course we never due this. We tried our best to set the program up so that it may continue once we leave, because the student were making excellent progress and it would be such a shame to see it have to end.

This continued for an awkward month but by the time we’re set to leave we find it’s been worthwhile. The kids have learned a lot, we hear them using English words on their own and they are able to use and understand pronoun affiliations and use basic English skills without Spanish explanation. Charles has also managed to set up a system in which the classes are able to continue without us, hopefully. I was happy to leave Huarmey but do so with mixed feelings, curious about what will become of our efforts—and what could have been. Watching the Peruvian Pacific coast as we return to Lima is very nostalgic for me, always having grown up on the Pacific side of my own country. But I am excited to continue into the Southern Andes of Peru. We will definitely miss Charles, that quirky, sweet Frenchman out to change the world of seven billion however he can.

Back to Lima for a short while just before exploring heading south and again it’s lovely. The people, the protests, and the food! But we are out for an adventure in Arequipa a pleasant enough city but the real draw here is nearby Colca Canyon. A well enough beaten path that one can hike and stay in the canyon for at least three days alone.

This is probably one of the best hikes to do in Peru. The first days are long and hot but very good exercise and easy as long as you have enough water and sunscreen. Available huts and camping spots are nestled in breathtakingly gorgeous, if scary, spots on cliffs and on the edge of rivers. We were able to extend this trip by befriending a kind Peruvian man who operates a hostel called Pachamama, in the village of Cabanaconde, which serves as a launching point to the canyon. He trusted us enough to lend us a hundred soles we could repay in Arequipa.

There are small communitied to see within teh canyon while you hike through, the curving path is always providing excellent views and new angles of the canyon. Its dry like a desert, the sun scorches you like a desert yes much green activity is nestled within. Still, our mistake was in not bringing enough water. The last shortest day is the most challenging, a very steep and hot four hours. If it had not been for a group of Canadians and a sweet fellow Californian we joined on the trail and the water they shared with us, Cam and I are not convinced we would have made it. We continued on with this lovely bunch to our next long-term destination, Cusco and the Sacred Valley of the Incas!

Cusco held us much longer than expected. Our first enthusiastic day there was colorful as we stumbled upon El Barratio, the best second hand goods market we’d found in South America. A market full of locals, antiques, second-hand everything and anything. Here you find cows butchered in the open, dried llama fetuses for sale, fossils and the unfortunate sight of children using the street or train tracks to relieve themselves.

We also quickly find out this is one of the easiest places to get robbed. Cam’s pocket was picked within our first hour. We learned from our mistakes. On another occasion in this same market, I have about four people each attempt to rob me with every trick in the book. Spitting, crushing my shoe-heels to keep me from moving, crouched old women simply reaching into my pocket; all without success. Oh Barratio, place of real experiences.

A half an hour outside of Cusco into the valley is where we call home during our time here and will forever feel welcome. Huambutio they call it, and we live in La Hacienda, an old monastery with a chapel, inhabited by a crazed monkey on a chain, a chupa-cabra and various hippies and volunteers passing through.

Within our first week our new boss Enrique is off, leaving us in charge of the house for the rest of the month, but not before we are pleasantly surprised with the arrival of Charles!

Left behind by Enrique, reunited with Charles and joined by a volunteer coordinator younger than any of us (and more New Age than we’ll ever be). This bright, spiritual soul, bringing fresh insight if little structure to the actual coordination of volunteers, goes by the name of Kayla. Which works out better for us, we got a lifelong friend rather than a mere associate at Suyai Wari, our cultural center.

Many people passed through Suyai Wari during our time there, but the ones with us the whole time, our true companions in the adventure, would be the couple of Karishma and Diego–soon to be three! Karishma was born in England and raised in the United States is now living in Peru with Diego, a French-born Peruvian. They made the most beautiful, loving, fantastic couple and I can only imagine the remarkable child they will have. I can’t wait to meet her. We spent most of our time in the house with them, laughing, sharing deep thoughts, and smoking Peruvian green—oh, and cooking! Everyone to come to this house was a good cook. But Karishma was our mamacita and Kayla provided healthy and always unique baked goods. It was a wonderful two months, and the virtual opposite of Huarmey.

Our work here with kids was well set up, but the difference we could make was limited. Every morning at the local school we worked under the unforgiving eye of a woman named Natalia. This was a very unpleasant experience as her concern was not in improvement of the students, but getting through the material as fast as possible. She also couldn’t speak English, despite being the district’s English teacher.

She was a bit horrible to the kids, which may be why they were horrible to us once she left the room. The other school we worked at was very small, quaint and pleasant. We spent good times with the kids but made little progress, sadly. Here we mostly taught and learned behavioral skills and how to work more efficiently with the most rambunctious of children.

Yet our experience living in Huambutio was the most comfortable we’ve found. We learned a lot about ourselves, New Age culture, the universe and the importance of human interaction. It proved a great place to make connections and learn lessons. We experienced feeling of love for other people and working together during hard times, including an eye opening experience of no water for two and a half weeks, something that cannot be taught in school.

Here we had to resort to retrieving water from the river to flush toilets (water that left behind a stench worse than what was there before), drawing water from a questionable man-made aquifer for dishes and boiling water from tiendas for drinking. The men worked hard to try and fix an exteremely questionable pipe, one Enrique decided to leave be before leaving us,which was rotting the side of our loving home. Our home which was made out of a lot of mud and the leak caused not only a seed to sprout in this mud but grow into a tree. Needless to say we all got very sick when there was no running water. While this is our state the house continues to fall apart with age and spring leaks. Daily you find bugs mating in the kitchen—they won’t go away because they find our compost delicious. The monkey escapes frequently sometimes attacking the women, including myself. Baby chicks disappearing by the day, and new volunteers showing up without any alert from Kayla.

With these lessons we met diverse and interesting people from all over the world along the way. Much love and thoughts were shared but one of my fondest memories was when Kayla, Cam and I saw Karishma and Diego off on their next journey. Right before we left they headed to Mexico and then to Florida to have their baby. At the convi stop we lugged all their stuff on the top, it was full of people on bottom and now it was time to say goodbye. We exchange hug after hug, kiss after kiss. Diego and I share a last long embrace, the silence lasts a moment as even the Peruvians occupying the convi are watching, and that is quickly broken by their abrupt calls of “oye! vamos!”

Remembering where we are we all quickly break away, Kayla tosses them their beloved charanga seemingly at the last moment and the convi zips away as quick as always. We watch them depart down the road as the sun sets. And I am reminded of how I watched Charles, Krystoph and Christian walk out the door, outfitted front to back with packs.

Our time here we were also able to experience the jaw-dropping ruins that (for lack of a better word) litter this area of Cusco, including Machu Picchu. We chose to go about visiting some of these ruins in an unusual fashion. With a group from Suri Wayi, beneath a full moon, we camped among abandoned ruins in the corn fields of Ollyantaytambo village, for the purpose of waking up in the middle of the night to sneak into the majestic ruins there, some of the most beautiful we’ve seen, the ruins of Ollyantaytambo.

Exploring by moonlight where Incans once had victory over the Spaniards was rather uplifting. The ruins rised and fell among the mountain sides, glittered with beautiful shape. Then, almost as soon as the sun rose the owners arrived, and we were busted. Being in Peru, no cops were called, we signed a document claiming we were not doing business at night, brought them some biscuits for breakfast and we, still sleepy but excited, were on our way.

We visited Machu Picchu in the cheapest (but an increasingly popular) fashion. We took a bus to Santa Maria, then took a collective along the most dangerous cliff we’ve encountered yet to a hydroelectric station; we trekked along train tracks, across a rickety breaking bridge and through sketchy tunnels, finally to reach Aguas Calientes. We spent a night here, feeling very out of place in this Disneyland-like town, we rose before the sun to begin a two hour hike through the jungle, to finally be rewarded by arrival at the pristine Machu Picchu. If this wasn’t enough for three days we continued to big Huayna Picchu. It was a gorgeous yet damp, hot and very sore day.

Cam´s visa in Peru is up and it’s either border hoping time or biting the bullet to pay one hundred thirty five dollar reciprocity fee to enter Bolivia. Facts are facts and we want to go to Lago Titicaca either way! So we are forced to venture to the unwelcoming rough city of Puno. Here I was greeted with a reality check, dished out by no one other than myself. After a bad bus ride which even a shared flask of vodka couldn´t alleviate, I left my precious leather purse in a moto taxi, along with my previous notebook of all this writing, Spanish school notes and the most expensive thing I´ve every purchased (other than my bike) an awesome canon camera with all my memories of Peru.

Puno will always be remembered here on as my closest thing to a mental breakdown. It was also very odd to hear myself speaking Spanish through tears; I couldn’t help regretting not learning enough Spanish yet to express myself properly in such an unplanned occurrence. It was a hard sort of tense that I had never used.

Cam and I stuck it out though. Or should I say Cam stuck it out with my crazed self, took a couple of hits and humored me while I insisted on chasing moto taxis and posting reward flyers around Puno for its return.

But enough screwing around. We moved on to the highly anticipated Bolivia and the next beginning. Leaving Peru on the bus to la frontera and Copacabana Cam had his own reality check, as if we had been having too much fun on this trip and needed to remember where we were and what the lives are like for those living in our play land. Cam on the highway to Bolivia saw a dead body on the side of the road. I somehow missed this, but recall only seeing Peruvian peasants gathered on the side of the street and, despite this being nothing out of the ordinary, finding the sight of them eerie.

I only glanced over but realized everyone was staring, the Bolivians and Peruvians returned to chatting but Cam seems speechless. He told me what he saw: a boy with a bloodied face laying face-down with his pants around his ankles. I felt fortunate not to have seen this; even writing it here makes me feel sick. We’re not stupid and can only imagine what happened, but we didn’t dare speak of it much.

I believe a lot of people feel sympathy for the poor out of a sort of social habit: you feel bad for those with less. But I believe this is misplaced sympathy. We should feel for the injustice the poor suffer, not the fact they are poor but what made it this way, and this isn’t just liberal cant. It is possible to distribute money efficiently to poorer communities in countries making money in tourism. It is possible to be underdeveloped yet have healthy, happy people.

This is much too grand of a subject to elaborate on with this one instance. But this is the single worst injustice plaguing humanity, the manipulation of poorer countries rich in natural materials or labor. The lack of control over one’s health and well being; the scarcity of clean water, access to a proper diet, and security. Having the opportunity for a better life, rather than having only a fate beyond your control

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