Voyage to Viacha

Hi Everyone,

So much has happened since I left only a month ago for Peru. I miss you all and thought I would write a little about what I have seen and experienced here so as to share with you and to process all I am learning about a very different way of life.

I am now in Pisac, a small village of about 2,000 people a little less than an hour from Cusco. Pisac is in the sacred valley of the Incas, carved out of the spectacular green Andes by the Rio Urabamba, and there are spectacular Inka ruins above the town.

Anyway, I got the idea when I was on top of the ruins that I wanted to visit the tiny Quechua village I saw in the distance across the air on top of another mountain. I was hiking down (in the dark without a flashlight, another story) I could hear people blowing on conch shells high above us and became even more determined to visit.

A couple of days later my new friend Eva told me she had met a man in town who lived in one of those villages and invited us to stay there for a night with his family. Eva´s friend Otarunga (Jaguar!) who owns a small and very special store in town featuring shamanistic products told us we must bring gifts for the family and that we could pay them by buying their handicrafts when we got there. He told us we should bring flour, sugar, oil, candy for the kids, and a lot of coca to pass out to everyone we met.

We set out early in the morning with heavy backpacks for our rendezvous with Saturnino, but he was not there. Otarungo informed us that this was normal, not for him, but for people in general in Peru, so we decided to start hiking up the trail toward Viacha ourselves. About 15 minutes up we ran into Saturnino and his son Freddy on their way down to meet us so we all turned around and started hiking up again. I figured the hike would take us about an hour and that I would have no problem at all, even with my heavy backpack, but as I am learning quickly, the distances in teh mountains are far greater because you can´t get there in a straight line, but have to switchback across the mountains and that the trails wind around and around until you can no longer see where you started or where you think you are going! Also, the Peruanas always underestimate how far distances are. They either really want our money, or don´t realize how hard it is for us who are not born in these mountains to hike the way they do.

Pisac is at 10,000 feet, the ruins at 11,000. Once we got to the height of the ruins I started having a hard time breathing. We stopped at a little hut where Saturnino´s father lived, totally alone, with a burro tied up in the hard next to the house. All the houses are adobe with thatched roofs in the mountains. The inside was a total hovel littered with garbage, and I will have to admit that I was horrified that he lived there. We gave him a fat bag of coca leaves which seemed to make him happy, but he seemed a very unexpressive person. WE could only tell he was happy because he began shoving handfuls into his mouth. I figured since we had reached his father´s hut that Viacha, Saturnino´s village wasn´t much farther, which Saturnino and Freddy confirmed. However, not much farther to them, was much much farther to me, who found it increasingly harder to breathe as we ascended. Also, it began to rain quite hard and the paths, which are always rocky and uneven became slippery. I discovered that the best thing to do was not to look at anything but the path, definitely not down! I was breathing so hard I lost all pride, my breath so loud little Freddy became concerned for me and wouldn´t leave my side. I don´´t think he had any concept of altitude sickness and thought I was having a heart attack. We stopped a lot and they showed us many medicinal plants along the way, and finally Saturnino said he would carry my pack. I refused at first because he was carrying a pack, too, but he said he was used to carrying very heavy loads, especially since he was a porter on the Inka trail, and he was not exaggerating, for he seemed to have no problem at all with the load. Eva, who has been here longer than me, had no problems with the altitude, or so I told myself! On a side note, Saturnino told us that the work conditions of the porters on the Inka trail are very poor. Very little food or sleep and terrible pay, so if any of you who read this ever go on the trail, please remember to tip the porters as generously as Saturnino treated us.

Up and up, we walked, far past the original villages I saw from the Pisac ruins. It got rainier and much colder. Even without a pack I could barely walk for about the last hour of teh three hour trip. I had to literally go one step at a time, getting lost in the rocks and the plants and just wishing we would get there and it would all be over!

Finally, we reached the village of Viacha. Freddy had run ahead and told his mother Luisa we were coming. The house was a bit of a shock. I knew they were poor, but to be inside a very poor person´s house is different than looking at it from outside, which has been hard enough for me in Peru. The house was about the size of a small cottage, with two semi-walls dividing kitchen and two other areas. We went into the kitchen and unpacked our gifts and met Freddy´s little brothers Javier and Alex, who made a mad grab for the lollipops and stared at us in utter amazement. It turns out we were the first people to ever visit their house! I don´t think the little ones spoke much Spanish, just Quechua. They were very shy, unlike Freddy who was quite an extraordinary person, I could tell. He had one of those personalities that would flower anywhere, I think, bright and funny and so kind, as was the entire family.

The kitchen was also the home of 15 cuy, or guinea pigs who scrambled all over the floor and competed for space by the hearth with a couple of cats and two lambs. We drank mate de coca and they made us a delicious thick soup with vegetables and beans and we warmed up a little before exploring their beautiful garden and the plain where they lived. Freddy was thrilled to show us the plants he knew and picked munu for us to make tea with (mint) and told us that tomorrow he would take us up even further to the lakes at the very top of the mountains. The views were absolutely spectacular. We could see many lush green mountains as far as the eye could see, with mist weaving in and out of them. The clouds were just above our heads! I think we were at about 14,000 ft.

After dinner Saturnino played his flute and Freddy accompanied him on a drum made out of coke bottle. When it was time for bed, they tried to give us two beds for ourselves, but considering their were only three total for the seven of us, we refused. Eva and I took one bed, a twin, the three boys another twin, and Saturnino and Luisa the other. I was glad to sleep with Eva as it was very cold. I kept hoping that we were the only ones who felt the cold because we were´n´t used to it, but they were cold, too, because they huddled up to the fire shivering, especially the two little boys. I kept wondering why they didn´t build another fireplace in the sleeping room. It didn´t seem like it would be expensive, since everything is built with adobe from the mud around them. Maybe they could only use firewood to cook with, as there were no trees around except for some eucalyptus further down the mountain. I don´t know, but it seems to me that many of the people are somewhat defeated by their poverty and the legacy of violence they experienced at the hands of the conquistadores, combined with the current racism they experience now. I can see how much of an American I am in my solution oriented way of thinking, in my belief that there is always a creative solution to any problem, and also how privileged I am to be white and American, even though I am at the bottom of the economic scale in the U.S., it is by choice, not because I have no choices or education.

Needless to say, it was very hard to sleep, accustomed as I am to comfort and privacy. Even worse was the fear that I would have to go to the bathroom in the night, which would require a trip out to the muddy yard in the pitch black darkness, in the rain. When Eva asked where the bathroom Freddy pointed to the yard. We thought he was joking at first, but then realized he was not. I would have been fine with an outhouse, or even a hole in the ground, but they really did go wherever they wanted, and no one used toilet paper as far as I could tell. Actually, I don´t think it was a common thing for anyone to ever remove their clothes. I understand now why the women always wear skirts.

In the morning, Freddy, Eva and I headed up towards the lakes. I, however, knew that I could not make it, and told them to go on ahead. I was exhausted and needed to be alone. I fell asleep on the ground and rested finally and woke up to the most beautiful silence. I don´t think I have ever been somewhere so quiet in my life. Even the cries of the burros and sheep seemed a part of the silence. I walked up to some great rocks risng out of the groudn and watched the animals walk up the hill toward me, slowly grazing. Llamas, alpacas, sheep, and burros. A woman shepherd came by with a baby on her back and another child in tow, spinning wool in her hands as she followed them up the mountain. She seemed shocked to see me. I really do believe we were the first foreigners to come to Viacha. I was feeling so sad there. I don´t know if it was the altitude or the lives of our new friends, but it hit me strongly. They live such a hard time. Saturnino and Freddy walk all the way to Pisac and back every day to work and hardly make any money. I turned belly down to the earth and asked Pachamama to absorb my sadness as fertilizer, as I read the Quero shamans advise, and I really felt a surge of energy move through me as I lay there. After awhile Eva and Freddy came down from the lake and we left for Pisac after buying some beautiful bags and mantas and belts they had made. They invited us back for Carnival in a month to dance with them, but I honestly don´t know if I have it in me emotionally to go there again. It was just so sad and hard to be there, which I think is the case because they seem to know hard their lives are, too.

I forgot to write that Eva and I became godmothers to Freddy and Alex! There is an Inkan custom that when visitor comes to the house they must cut the hair of the children and give gifts (now a little money) for their future and education. I cut Freddy´s hair and Eva Alex´s with some very bad scissors and the hair was put on a plate with many flowers and 10 soles each (three dollars) and wrapped in a manta. The children were so thrilled and I really did feel like Freddy´s relation afterwards. He and his sister who was so shy I never learned her name walked us back to Pisac, which was almost as hard as walking up because of the leg strength required, although this time I could breathe. The sister picked handfuls of munu for us the whole way down so that when we stumbled into town we had it stuffed in all our pockets and smelled quite fragrant!

It was an incredible, eye opening, and most of all heart expanding experience and I feel such a combination of emotions when I think of it all. Gratitude and sadness, and an awareness of how fortunate I am, and of how much I desire to be comfortable. I realized I am not as strong as I thought I was, which is good to know. I have so many other thoughts and reflections about this experience, but am tired of looking at this screen now. Perhaps if some of you write me back, either privately or on this blog, I can discuss more, but for now I say I miss you all. Suerte! Jen