Peru – Altituduness

admin — Sat, 02 Nov 2002 03:56:44 +0000

I´m in the Andes north of Lima in a town called Chiquian and I reackon I can say that the internet isjust about everywhere where there is electricity,although i´ve got a 4800bps connection, extremelyslow.. Lars and I left Lima about three weeks ago and took apretty amazing bus ride across the Andes whichinvolved lots of ear popping and general altitudeinduced nausea. We went through a few towns that wereof little interest, met a few people. Things startedto get interesting is we decended into the Amazonbasin, within hours there was an amazing change in theflora, we went from from austere, minimal vegetationto lush tropical shit everywhere. Before we hitPeurto Bermundez where everything really started we decended through lush cloud forests which was prettyspectcaular and army check point that had two humanskulls on it. In Peurto Burmundez, a town of about 1000 people Larsand I thought we could start a river adventure. Before this happened I met some mad Peruvian cokeheads who invited us out to the local disco. This place was a classic, apart from the 10 Peruvianssweating like pigs, talking at a million miles an hourin Spanish to me, the disco had the toilet in thecorner, not sectioned off, the whole place stank. There´s this 44 year old woman, barely any teeth,sweating so much, says excuse me, turns around ripsher shirt off wipes herself down, turns back aroundand continues talking. They were all very messy atthis stage, pouring loads of beer into me, although nooffers of coke were forthcoming, this place wasplaying the worst commerical dance, i said i thought it was shithouse and whatabout some salsa. They flashtheir flas lights on and off at the dj screaming outfor some salsa, then they became all suave and cool spinning around doing there most excelelnt salsadancing. They invited Lars and I off to their "farm"which was somewhere up the river, off another riverand off another river, they were all very wealthy, noone else around there was welathy. Although they werevery friendly, I asked one guy about the relationshipbetween mestizos and the indigenous people, two ofthem ended up in a massive argument beating theirfists on the table. Decided to avoid their most generous offer of a boat trip to the "farm". We ended up in this obscure town Peurto Burmundez inthe hope of going to some indigenous villages, I spenta day in the local indigenous peoples organisationarranging approval for us to go to some villages, itwas all looking really expensive hiring a boat and a guide. After days are stuffing around we decidedwe´ld just go somewhere, so we jumped on a boat withloads of people on it going to some village calledAsamaya, we knew nothing abou this, where it was, howfar it was, but it was cheap to get there, when we gotthere it turned out they were mestizo, not indigenouspeople. Four hours later its getting dark, we´ldturned off a number of rivers, now we´re on this smallriver, could here this singing, all quite errie, feltlike appocalypse now. On the boat this guy had givenus the run down of the rules of the village, nodrinking, no smoking, no drugs, no adultery, no sexbefore marriage, everyone has to work, no stealing, nokilling, no fighting, everyone has to share. We´retaken to this house to stay the night and this guystarts telling me about their religion, they callthemselves Israelites. They´ve got the tencommandments up everywhere, the men have long beardsand long hair, the women cover themselves in Muslimstyle headgear, they wear colourful clothing, the menin long robes. We´re taken to their church, they haveno crosses anywhere, they sing all the time,accompanied by a saxophone, the church never stops24x7. They say they´re not Catholics, they´re not BinLaden, they´re not an Americans missionary sect. Given that no one speaks a word of english, Lars speakno Spanish, my spanish is shithouse. One quater ofthe time I think i understand what people are saying,but in reality its only one quater of that. So whatare these people? Are they lost Jews, for themSaturday is the day of creation not Sunday? No theybelieve in the new testament. Are they Christians? No they have a new prophet. Are they Muslims? Nothey´re not Bin Laden. Maybe they´re some sort ofRastafarians, but drugs are banned. After muchdiscussion it turns out that this is Peru´s own newreligion of which this village of 200 people is itsepicentre, there was this Peruvian prophet 20 yearsago that laid down the new law. They say itsChristianity made practical. We were shown the gaolwe´re anyway who breaks any laws is incarcerated. Toplacate God they have animal sacrifices, which Larsand I saw, unfortunately we didn´t see them kill thecow, only it burning on a bonfire as they all sang. This place was a commmunidad, there was no privateproperty, they elect the vilalge chief, lock up peoplewho won´t work, lock up people for smoking ciggas oreven having an alchol, they have no electricity, itwas complete madness. I told the Peruvian coke headsabout the place and they felt nothing but disgust forthese people. They have no freedom, religion gonemad, etc. The village chief sang us three songs, thenasked us to sing a song, I sung him the only song Iknow, Bob Marley´s "Smoke 2 Joints". He wanted me tosing it in the church but Lars talked me down fromthis. Although it is now one of my life timeambitions, to belt out "smoke 2 joints" in a church. After two days there we headed off, I reackon thisplace was the best we´ve been to so far, it was socompletely out there, Lars will give out a differentimpression of the place, he didn´t like it. I thoughtthe place was amazing, I´m strangely attracted tofanatics. In many ways they´re one of the greatestrepresentations of humanity, they have some obscurebelief that is completely irrational, God, and theytake it to such an extreme, this completelytheoretical contruct. Its completely removed from animals who are practical. My last point on religion,missionaries are everywhere, all these American fundedlunatics going around trying to convert people fromcatholicism to mormonism, or seventh day adventists toall sorts of obscure sects that i´ve never heard of. All the crap about the muslims needing to get theirfundamentalists under control is just hypocritical. The west has to reign its own fundamentalists, theseculture destroying lunatics who are trying to savepeoples souls but leave them drinking contaminatedwater, all sorts of medical problems and poverty. Itssickening. All the secularists in the world need toteam and and turn on their own fundamentalists andcollectively destroy them. The lunatic orthdox Jewsstealing Palestianian land, the Christian missionariesand abortion clinic bombers, the Hindu fanatics, tehBuddhist Monk lunatics in Sri Lanka that call for waragainst the Tamils when everyone else wants peace, andthe Muslims and their own terrorist lunatics with alltheir anti-Semitism and murderous rampaging. This all brings me to my next point which is politics. Lars and I have been lucky or unlucky enough as thecase may be, to be here in Peru during local electiontime. Everywhere there is poltics, in Asamaya onepolitical party rocked up and gave the town a wholelot of new instruments, new tshirts with how to votecards printed on the front. In towns with electricityall the different political parties, there are fivemains ones, would have speakers set up and a 30mintape that looped over and over agin belting out themost obscene political propoganda at distortion volumelevels. In a previous town they had a political rallybrass band, fire crackers, speakers, marches and allin the rain. No one hung around to watch except Larsand I. On rock walls in the middle of no where,between two villages, some political loon has paintedup a how to vote card, on peoples houses they get anew paint job and a how to vote card on their house,everywhere its politics over the top. The currentpresident seems like a bit of a dunce, the one beforehim was Fujimori, who is currently in Japan, havingfled the various corruption charges against him her. Apparently he was quite dictatorial allthough hefinished off these maoist terrorits called shiningpath, they depopulated the entire amazon basin of peruin order to free the peasants. Asamaya went from apopulation of 3000 to 200. They sounded extremelybrutal. To the green nature stuff around me, its incrediblyhot here, i´m melting, losing weight through sweatingso much, sun burnt after 30mins in the sun, they´vegot leaves that are 1.5m by 1m, lush green and loadsof logging. The river we´re on eventually flows in tothe Amazon and 6000km later flows out into theAtlantic. It rains and rains and rains, and the wetseason hasn´t even started. From the Amazon basin weheaded back up into the Andes, its difficult todescribe the change in scenerary, every 10 mins itschanged completely, the lushenss departs, the coldkicks in, the sweating stops, the beanie comes out,the trees think out, the humidity disappears. We alsoleft the coke growing region which meant the bus wasstopped and search 4 times by the drug sqaud. Thepolice generally set up road blocks and collect bribesall over the place. On one bus journey i got stuckfor half an hour as the driver and the police arguedover the size of the bribe. At this point Lars and Iheaded seperate ways for 10 days. I picked a pointon my map and caught a bus there, turned out to be at3800m. The effect of this on breathing is disastrous,imagine smoking ten bongs in a row. If i´ld had asmoke at this altitude I would have stopped breathingall together. Its difficult to sleep, I´ld wake upout of breath. The bus ride to this villageQueropalca was absolutely amazing. Normally Icouldn´t give a shit about non human life, itshumanity thats interested me, but this bus ride wasincredible. Not rolling hills but jagged mountainscovered in rocks, rivers and streams defining themover eons, beautiful little villages with a few dozenmud brick houses. The raw power of the earth, tectonic plates smashing together, little humansscampering around on it, potato fields on 60 degreeangles, unbelieveably cold, an average temperature of7 to 10 degrees over the year. At night I´ld sleepwith all my clothes on, beanie, scarf, thermals,jeans, 5 tshirts, hoodie, jacket and 4 blankets. Ileft my sleeping bag in Lima cause I figured it wouldbe to hot in the Amazon basin. Its difficult todescribe how beautiful the mountains are, theausterness, life battling against the altitude, snowcovered peaks in the distance. Humanity carving outlittle plots for sheep and cows, a patch work of landdivided by mud brick fences for all sorts of crops,mainly potatoes. Forget Ireland and potato faminesand curry and chips, this is the land of the potato,this is where it came from, there isn´t a meal thatdoesn´t involve it. The farms are not tiered Asian style, not even attempting to carve flatness out ofladn that is always at an angle. After one nightssleep at this altitude i went for a 7 hours walk whichi still haven´t recovered from, my knee hasn´trecovered, my face is peeling from sun burn, my handsare blotched from sunburn, my 6 month old globesrunners are falling to bits and everything is wet. The end of my nose is hard from blowing it to much andsunburn. Problem with this town Queropalca was the people, they were fucked, constantly trying to rip me off andunfriendly. Decided I had to get out, there are guyswith pick up trucks that will drive between villages. So i negotiated a $5 ride to the next main villagethat had a hotel and restaurant, it was a majorproblem eating in this town, they wanted to charge me5 times the normal rate to eat the worst food in southamerica. Off we headed in the pick up truck, half waythere in the middle of no where he stops and demandsan extra $7.50 to continue going, I argue with him for15 mins, he won´t budge so i jump out and walk off, heruns after me screaming wanting money for bringing methis far, i tell him to fuck off, which he doesn´tudnerstand cause he doesn´t speak a word of english. At this point I´m thinking the Peruvians are fucked,its the middle of the day, i hadn´t eaten that morningcause iwas sick of getting ripped off, i was walkingin the rain, struggling to breath with my pack on. The first village I came accross wouldn´t sell meanythign to eat. Packs of dogs, 5 at a time wouldattack me as i passed peoples houses. I´ld have tobeat them off with my umberella and with a pocket fullof stones i´ld try and maim the biggest dog. I laterfoudn out that you don´t have to throw the rocks atthe dogs but away from teh dogs and they would run offafter them. At this point I´m thinking the Frenchshould start nuclear testing in this country, then asoften happens when travelling, a million differentemotions and conflicting thoughts per hour, the suncame out, the dogs seemed to vanish, i came across atown that gave biscuits and 4 hours later I´ld hit avillage called Banos, which means toilet, the best place i´ve been so far. The people here wereextremely friendly, they had hot spring baths that are600 years old that the Incas used to use. They were unbelievably hot and would briefly unthaw mycompletely frozen body. Banos is at 3400m, a littlemore acceptable, not as completely freezing. Still itrains half the time and this makes it damn cold. Ispent my days lounging aroudn in these, eating allsorts of excelelnt meals in peoples houses, no onewanted a cent, fishing for trout, caught nothing. Went and checked out some old Inca city that hadpretty much all fallen down. Spent the rest of mytime wandering around this valley, everyone wasincredibly friendly, all the time beunos dias, goodmorning. Even though its cold the sun comes out foran hour and i´m burnt red. Made some friends in thistown, an obssesive 60 year old woman that insisted onfeeding me all the time and a 65 year old guy who wastwice as fit as myself who was right into politics. Ithought there was somethign familiar about this areathen I was talking to someone about the trees and theysaid they´re all eucalypts, they give us coke, we givethem eucalypts. After Banos I was planning to head back to Lima, Icouldn´t get a bus out so got a car to this othervillage that turned out to be in the wrong direction. My map showed no road out of this place, luckilythey´ld just built a new road through the mountainswhich had led me to this other town in the moutains which has a road back to Lima where I´ll meet up withLars tomorrow and my Irish friend Ciara and we´reheading off to Machu Pichu and Cusco. On a finishing note, after 10 days with not a word ofenglish i think i´m finally starting to get somewherewith my Spanish, starting to understand what peopleare saying. Still making lots of mistakes, for awhole week i´ld been saying huevo which i thought wasrain when in fact its egg. When i´ve been sayinglittle i´ve been saying pikitu when in fact itspokitu, pikitu means kiss. On the food front Lars andI ate this meal, not too sure what meat, wasn´t in the dictionary, so she said its like Bambi.

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admin — Fri, 01 Nov 2002 08:29:33 +0000

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Peru – Altituduness

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Peru – Altituduness

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