Logistics, Cusco, Peru

Diane: We arrived in Cusco early this morning after a relatively sleep-free 25 hours on a bus. This following piece from one of the local museums clearly demonstrates how we all felt during the night.






At this point, Tom and TM are ready to choose our next destination based on where the train goes.

After making a sweep of many of the budget lodgings, we found our current home-away-from-home in a quaint neighborhood of narrow cobblestone streets and Incan stone foundations. A couple of blocks away are the infamous 12-sided stone, carved to fit perfectly with the surrounding stones.






As it turns out, the place is also crawling with trendy restaurants, laundromats, chocolate shops, travel agencies, and women dressed in indigenous outfits holding baby goats ready to pose for a picture for a dollar. When I walk down to the central plaza, there are also tens, maybe hundreds, of touts luring me into the closest restaurant, pub, or disco, who have no compunction about pinning things on me, putting things in my hand, grabbing onto my clothing, and trying to unzip my sweatshirt pockets. I almost forgot to mention the vendors, who want to polish my purple sneakers, shove cigarettes in my face, or hold a large bag of individually wrapped hard candy next to their imploring faces. Gosh, I can't help but love it here ;-).

Maybe not today, but very soon we need to attend to the logistics of leaving Cusco. This is not because I can't wait to leave, but because the trains, buses, planes, and hotels here tend to fill up even in the low season. The only way to get to Machu Picchu is by train or to walk in with a guide. Consequently, not only are the train prices jacked way up, but the trains tend to fill up as well. And TM's best friend Paul needs to get back to Lima to catch his connecting flight to Miami. And lastly, we need to buy our onward tickets, which begs the question - where are we going next?

Quinua, Peru

Diane: After the final Easter procession and a couple of wild days with little sleep, most out-of-towners were on their way home. We, on the other hand, decided to stay a couple of extra days to chill out and enjoy the surrounding countryside.

Peru's first empire builders, the Wari, built their capital near current-day Ayacucho. The Incas successfully covered the tracks of prior cultures, so speculation rules the day when it comes to the Wari. Current evidence suggests that the Wari empire spanned most of Peru as far north as Chiclayo and as far south as Arequipa. They worshiped mummies. Their stone carving abilities probably provided the foundation for the great advances made by the Incas. The Wari expanded their empire combining the cultures of their predecessors and then evangelizing, rather than fighting and enslaving (Update: I have subsequently read sources that indicate the Wari were no different than most other empire builders, fighting their way to the top. This is certainly a more believable version of events; although I would love to stick with the evangelizing version of events). Current estimates suggest that in its hey-dey, the capital spread over between 740 and 1000 acres. Although largely buried by sand, the ruins of the Wari capital are being preserved in an archaeological preserve that visitors may wander through. Still visible above ground are walls up to 12 feet high. Although harder to spot, Calliope can be seen there as well.






However, the large majority of ruins are covered by a beautiful forest of prickly-pear cactus.

Although the Wari ruins are on the way to the small town of Quinua, the combis (buses) that passed by were all full. After an hour or so, we ended up catching a ride in the back of a large truck hauling glass, paint, miscellaneous building supplies, and workers to a school construction project in Quinua. Just before the town, as the truck slowed to a stop, one of the passengers in the cab hopped out, grabbed a stone, and put it behind the right back tire. The stone was a tad too small and the truck started to roll downhill. We braced for impact. The back tires rolled off the road and crossed an irrigation ditch, lodging with an air of permanence. We hopped out and continued into Quinua on foot. I was fervently hoping that our additional weight did not cause the brakes to fail.

Quinua is known for its "iglesias de Quinua", miniature clay churches on top of their houses that are purported to bring good luck. We learned about the custom of placing small sculptures on rooftops back in Cuenca. In Cuenca, the sculpture usually embodied Catholic iconography, generally including a cross. In pre-Colombian times, they were displayed for good luck. After the Spanish came, displaying a cross on the roof demonstrated their newly-imposed faith. Almost as an aside, these small sculptures were also effective lightning rods.

In Quinua, these rooftop sculptures ranged from simple affairs to elaborate productions.

We filled up on soda before heading uphill to the extremely quaint central plaza and then out of town to the Pampa de Ayacucho. A stone obelisk has been erected there to memorialize the final battle for South America's independence fought and won in 1824.






My guide book says that the "battle began at 10 a.m. after relatives and friends on opposing sides were allowed to greet each other." 44 years earlier there had been an indigenous rebellion against the Spanish. As recently as the 1980's and 1990's, this area was the home of an 11-year civil war that claimed thousands of Peruvian lives. There isn't anybody left to talk with concerning the battle for South American independence, but there are lots of people to talk with about the more recent violence.

• A 25-year-old Ayacuchan, who would have been born just as the most recent violence erupted says that nobody in his family will talk about those years. His Mom just starts crying, even though they only lost one family member.
  
• Other older Ayacuchans I spoke with say that the terrorists came from other towns and from the countryside and that the movement really didn't have local roots.
  
• A foreigner who married a local woman and has lived in Ayacucho for the past 8 years says that most of the educated Ayacuchans fled to Lima and that after the violence ended, the terrorists all moved into the drug trade or moved to Lima. He felt that the people who are left don't have much interest in politics.
  
• Cedy, with whom I shared Spanish and English conversations, says that there were uprisings here, because the poverty was so much more intense than elsewhere. After the agrarian reform in the 70's, when land was taken from the large landholders and redistributed to those who worked the land, campesinos here found themselves in an untenable position. Mining had been the regional economic base. The campesinos here didn't have the expertise needed to run successful mining operations; that knowledge had departed along with the large property owners. Yet, the land was too rocky to be farmed. Although the government provided assistance to the local people; it was all directed toward improving farming methods, which was a futile activity.
  

It was obvious that most people were reluctant to talk about this tragic chapter in Ayacuchan history. However, there was one group that was interested in remembering it. They put out an alternative tourist map and distributed it for free. Instead of showing churches, plazas, and markets as primary points of interest, it highlighted sites of government violence, rebellions, and resistance.

I have a rule of thumb that I have lived by while in South America - I don't take much stock in anything anyone tells me, unless another independent source tells me the same thing. Perhpas there is a little bit of truth in all the accounts of recent history, but no two people gave me the same perspective. As a result, I'm not going to speculate on this, except to say that I'm impressed/baffled/blown-away that such a strong desire for independence has apparently been passed down through the generations for a couple hundred years.

Regardless of its prominent place in history, the Pampa de Ayacucho provided one big photo op.

Fireworks, Ayacucho, Peru

Diane: I had seen castillos in Cuenca - large structures erected for the sole purpose of launching fireworks, generally surrounded by large, admiring crowds. These castillos had been 3 or 4 stories high. Each story would launch separately, starting at the ground level working up to the very top. It was all very dramatic, with the most exciting bit saved for the finale. But in Ayacucho, the castillos were far larger and more elaborate with 8, 9, and 10 stories.














Bands played as they set off fireworks. The risk-takers in the crowd, danced within 20 feet of these structures. The rest of the crowd hung back a bit, so as not to get singed by flying sparks. And every few minutes, we were taken by surprise as a new creative display lit up the sky.














To bring this pyrotechnic display more in synch with the sacred nature of the week, most of these castillos included some sort of religious iconography.

By 2 a.m., there were still plenty of unlit castillos adorning the plaza. It was becoming clear that this would go on all night. We went back to our hostal to sleep a couple of hours, before the final pre-dawn Easter procession. We returned to the plaza before dawn to find piles of burning aromatic sticks and a mass being conducted inside the cathedral. The last monumental float sat inside the cathedral holding thousands of unlit candles.






They were still firing off castillos. We watched with thousands of other Peruvians, as they set off a couple more magnificent displays. We did not stay to see the final float paraded around the plaza, as the crowd had grown to crushing proportions and we were exhausted.

Running the Bulls, Ayacucho, Peru

Diane: TM's best friend, Paul, arrived in Ayacucho early this morning just in time for the final activities of Semana Santa.






The marvelous pedestrian promenade was now the site for "running" the bulls. I had read reports that young men were seriously injured every year trying to run with said bulls. Regardless - we headed to the plaza to be part of the action. As we waited, we watched small processions pass by every 10 minutes or so.






There were marching bands.






There was drinking.






And there was non-stop dancing in the streets. It was a very mild form of dancing, in which the revelers hold hands with one person leading the line in twists and turns and figure-eights in time to the music.






TM and Paul joined in, spending hours dancing around the central plaza. A panic would arise every 15 minutes or so, when all those in the street thought that a bull was coming. They would all lunge for the assumed safety of the sidewalks. I managed to keep my position on the sidewalk, but I was pushed, pulled, and jangled in any number of directions. Thankfully, I befriended a family standing next to me, who helped protect me from being run over by the crowd. Sometimes these false alarms were the result of horses riding through the crowd. And sometimes, I had the feeling that a bull must be somewhere near due to the level of intense alarm all around me, but I never did see one.

It was a hot afternoon and those dancing, including TM and Paul, were working up a sweat. The local firefighters brought a pumper truck to hose the crowds down every half hour or so. In between the large water blasts, many in the crowd implored those watching from upstairs balconies to pour water on them.

After a few hours in the midday sun with no bulls in sight, TM came running back to me to report that he had just touched the horn of a bull that had come charging down the street. There was corroboration from Mikki. TM had been trying to run away from the bull, but the bull had been more successful at running away from its driver and had come within inches of maiming my sweet baby.

Calliope and Tom had decided that they'd had enough of standing around sweating and had already retired to the hotel. TM and Paul decided to join them.

I hadn't realized that any bulls had actually been in the vicinity, but now it seemed that all those around me had seen several. I decided to make my way past any security and get a front row seat in one of the balconies. I was intent on seeing a bull. The hard part was breaking through the crowds on the sidewalk. After that, the rest was easy. Mikki and I walked into a building, found the stairs leading up to a restaurant, and joined in with those on the balcony. We must have been charmed, because there were thousands of people on the streets who would have loved to do the same thing, but there were only a couple dozen of us who had succeeded. Although the feeling upstairs was not as spirited as down below, we did have a great view of the firefighters spraying water on the crowd. We also watched from above as folks created human pyramids.






We watched caballos de paso prancing down the streets. And finally, we watched a bull run through the central plaza!

After finally seeing a bull come ploughing through the crowd, I went home to review the videos I had shot. I was astonished to find that I had shot footage of several bulls running through the plaza, even though I had not actually seen any at the time. I had been holding the camera over my head, so it's possible that all the bodies in front of me had obscured my view. However, this was unlikely, since all the short Peruvians around me had seen the bulls. As a thought-provoking aside, with these videos, I have created a new reality of my own experience.

Tom Buys a Rug, Ayacucho, Peru

Tom: Semana Santa takes place mostly at night; the candlelit processions, ornately decorated floats, elaborate street murals and massed chanting faithful all appear mainly at night. During the days the people of the Ayacucho region put on displays of the products of their quotidian labors. These fairs encompass agricultural products, livestock, traditional functional and artesanal crafts, music and dance. Today, we went to a fair that highlighted locally produced honey, luscious jams, idiosyncratic wines and liquors, fat and succulent cuy (guinea pig), highly detailed ceramics and colorful and exotic textiles.

During the course of our trip, I have been tempted by lots of gorgeous wall hangings, rugs and garments. I have not bought anything mainly because I have not wanted to carry anything along as we travel. I also am leery of returning to Florida with delicious llama or alpaca wool treats to feed the legions of the moths and other hungry critters who share our living space. Today, I found something I wanted and felt secure about bringing home.

The Conquistadors left Spain confident that they represented the pinnacle of world civilization. They confronted and destroyed a civilization that was equally certain of its’ being the acme of human achievement. Technology, disease, selfishness, arrogance and serendipity were among the factors that made the Spanish victory possible. When the Conquistadors made their sweep through the Incan empire they were faced with wonders and achievements that made their victories seem unlikely if not impossible. Indeed, the ease with which a huge, well organized and militaristic society was dismantled by a tiny number of men made it clear to the aggressors and the defeated that the Spanish triumph must be the will of God. The success of the Conquistadors was sped by the extraordinary Incan road system. One aspect of the road system that amazed the Spanish was suspension bridges that were far beyond anything that existed in Europe. Suspension bridges were to be one of the wonders of the industrial revolution. Steel cables made possible spans that were inconceivable previously. Four hundred years earlier the Incans made this leap without iron or steel. They hung spans high over impassable abysses containing churning rivers; some of these bridges lasted for centuries after their empire had been destroyed. These wonders of engineering hung upon cables fabricated from twisted fibers of a plant most of us think of only when wondering where tequila comes from, the agave plant.

Ezequiel Gomez is a weaver from Ayacucho.

He does not work in llama and alpaca wool as do the vast majority of his colleagues. He is weaving with agave fibers. These fibers are not attractive to insects, they are extremely durable and they are colored with slow fading vegetable dyes.

The designs used in the piece which I purchased are derived from designs used by the Wari people, a predecessor of the Incans. It is thought that the Incans took many of their most successful ideas from the Wari.

I promised Ezequiel that I would put some pictures of him and his work on the web. I hope you like this Ezequiel.

Caballos de Paso, Ayacucho, Peru

Diane: Many posters around Ayacucho are advertising festivals. There's a trout festival (don't ask me what they do at a trout festival), a gastronomic festival, several crafts festivals, and lastly a caballo de paso festival. Tom says caballo de paso translates as walking horse. Since I'm not sure this is correct, I'm sticking with caballo de paso. In any event, caballos de paso are known for their graceful gait. Here are a couple of pictures of these lovely horses in the central plaza in Ayacucho. You can see a little bit of how spirited they are, how their front lower legs move, and how decorated they are.










So we headed out to the agricultural fair where the caballo de paso exhibition was being held. We got there an hour after the scheduled start time, but the horses and their owners were still milling around in a disorganized fashion.

We decided to check out the cattle show. They spent a lot of time talking about the various cow/bull varieties, how they moved, how they were hung, their size, and other items whose Spanish translation I did not understand. We drifted back to the horse exhibition after drinking some coconut water and coconut flesh, chowing on a pomegranate, trying on the latest in army apparel,






and checking out the tens of varieties of beans and lima beans. Lima beans are big here. They serve them regularly on the fixed menus. They roast and toast them and eat them as snacks. As I translated the Spanish to English and spelled it out, I realized that "lima bean" was probably named after the city of Lima and the pronunciation altered. Perhaps Lima was where English-speakers first encountered this Peruvian staple. One of the things I love about studying Spanish are all the eye-opening realizations about culture, history, and common linguistic roots. I'll have to check into this one.

But back to the horses. For this exhibition the owners were decked out in bright spanking-clean white clothing, including white straw hats.






The horses were decked out in their finest tooled leather, woven and beaded bridles and reins, cropped manes, and general finery. Mikki has a friend with caballos de paso, who spent $3000 to obtain similar high quality gear. It seems exorbitant sum by Peruvian standards.






The exhibition, although not amenable to still photos, was marvelous.

Flower Carpets, Ayacucho, Peru

Diane: The guidebooks and promotional literature indicated that tonight would be a "mystical" experience. There were two big differences that I could see, neither mystical but both full of local color. One was that people spent all afternoon into the evening using flower petals and colored powders to create murals on the streets around the central plaza.






Each square sported a sponsor and a "flower painting".






These squares covered the streets. At night, the crowds moved from mural to mural appreciating the artwork, the skill, and the subject matter chosen.

The themes ranged from Catholic imagery to pretty designs to popular cultural icons.

Many of the nights preceding this one had at least one flower carpet. The nightly procession would walk right over it, utterly destroying it only minutes or hours after it had been created. I don't know if the underlying philosophy is the same, but there are undertones of Tibetan sand mandalas here. Several monks traveled from Tibet to Sarasota a couple of years ago. They spent a week creating an intricate piece of sand art, only to throw the whole thing into Sarasota Bay soon after it was completed.






This evening, after the procession came through trampling the intricate flower paintings, young children moved in with small plastic bags, filling them with the used flower petals. The desire to collect memorabilia must be fairly universal.

In addition to a large array of flower carpets there was also a vast array of music blaring from speakers on each side of the central plaza. Instead of having an army band and a small string section or a small vocal section, there were choruses and orchestras from different parts of Peru performing. It was almost a battle of the bands. As I moved around the plaza, the music at one side would compete with the music from the other side.