Peruvian Ugly (Just The Northern Coast)
I think successful travel
in north coastal Peru means significantly dropping your standards. You are
going to need “Expectation Retraining”: Someone holds up a dirty old shoe and
states: ”This is beautiful”. You mumble; “This is beautiful”. The only thing that
is attractive in Peru is the work of Mother Nature, the ruins of lost
civilizations and the architecture of the Spanish. Anything touched by modern
Peruvian hands is world class, war crime ugly. They are riding on the old coat
tails of the First People and The Spanish and polluting mother nature as fast
as they can.
The culture that built the
ancient pyramid of Tucume burned it all down and started over. They practiced a sort of scorched earth
policy as they believed in the cleansing power of fire. It’s time to do it again. Northern Peru is so
committed to ugly that a firestorm is the only way out.
One would think that
Ecuador and southern Peru would come here, throw their arms around northern
coastal Peru and say, “Come on man, you’re really giving us a bad name. A
facelift isn’t going to help you. You need to burn it down and start over.”
While the humans are moving out their meager possessions (There are as many
abandoned buildings as occupied ones), they could just hang a big “Going out of
business” sign at the northern border, wait for the exodus and then burn it to
the ground, collect the insurance money and start over.
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| What 900 years of rain does to adobe. Look closely - those are all bricks.10 stories tall! |
Should
you make the mistake of finding yourself here, you’ll see hundreds of miles of
trash heaped 3 feet high running the length of the roads. Knocked down bridges
and rickshaws are more common than growing plants. You’ll see blankets being used for front
doors . . . yes, it’s that kind of poor.
When their current dwellings look like ruins I think it’s fair to say that this
isn’t a culture that has come very far. In fact, I would contend that the
finest days of this country were pre Colombian. My further proof is that 10% of the populace work in the tourist industry.
It’s as if they hired a
consulting firm to make the most unattractive and unlivable cities on the
planet.
“Picture the ugliest part
of Mexico you’ve ever seen, and then let’s remove all living things other than
humans.”
“Ok”.
“We pave nothing, which
means that everything will be covered in an inch of dust. This removes all
color except the death drab brown of adobe.”
“Oh that’s smart. I can see
it now. What else?”
“All architecture must be
rectangular. Only boxes allowed. Then we throw trash everywhere. And I mean
everywhere. Stack it as high as you can. Never bury it. We want it visible.”
“God that’s good. Keep
going.”
“Now, this is the cake
topper: Over fill every street with noisy honking tuktuks, and just when you
think it can’t get any uglier… “
Cue the devil dog. That’s
right… this is the national dog of Peru.
You don’t have to watch
movies like Mad Max to see the future. The future is the Apocalypse and the Apocalypse is Peru, right now.
I’ve never seen so many
consistent miles of ugly, and I’ve been to Oklahoma.
Shitty Cities
What
makes a shithole? With the recent Trump quotes and the paragraphs I wrote above,
I found myself wanting to attempt a list of what constitutes a CrapTown. Here’s
what I came up with. Feel free to write me your additions:
1. Moto taxis galore with no muffler &
screeching brake pads. Loud and polluting and the best reducer of life quality
a. Extra credit for running all night long
2. No pavement. Dusty or muddy. One makes you pray
for the other.
3. Is there refrigeration in the markets or just
slabs of meat rotting on wood counters? “Are these the biggest healthiest flies
you’ve ever seen or what”?
4. When the bathrooms don’t even have soap, zero paper
towels is a given.
5. Quit all construction when your buildings get to
75% of completion.
6. No smiles. Why would there be?
From Driver to Passenger
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| Poor visibility, worn brake pads, terrible roads blind corners, a heavy foot. Terror. |
Trocha means unpaved. Pista
means paved. Trocha is bad. Pista is slightly better than bad. The road to
Cutervo defeated me. I couldn’t drive faster than 4mph and most of the time my
speed was so slow that it didn’t even register on the speedometer. This went on
all day until I finally parked Elsie behind the iron gates of a soccer field,
paid a man to watch her and voluntarily demoted myself to filthy backpacker. (Not
being forced to use a public bathroom is the only way I tell myself I am above
the lowly “mochilero”. We humans love to differentiate). I wanted to avoid the
bus driving lunatics of Peru at all costs and now I am paying to be in their
vehicle. Every seat is full and there are no seatbelts. He drives as fast as he
can and passes every vehicle he can overtake to the peril of both vehicles. And
you should see these roads. I think the only question they are asked before
being hired is, “Do you have vertigo?”
Northern Mountainous Peru
The canopy vines in the
northern mountains of Peru really give the place an otherworldly look. I’d seen
that look on the war torn islands of Vanuatu in the South Pacific. It was an
introduced species to help with aerial coverage during the battles but when the
war ended the vine did not, and it continues to strangle everything to this
day. I wonder if this is where they found it. The Ecuadorians would have
cleared the land and farmed anything but these lands look untouched. I wonder
if the difference is that vine.
It’s not all Incan (Tawantinsuyo)
I know when you think of
Peru you think, “Ah, the land of the Incans.” Over the 13,000 years it has been
inhabited there were thousands of other different indigenous tribes. Were the
Incan notable? Absolutely, but in actuality, they were the last on the scene,
and built on the shoulders of giants. They were the best documented, largest
empire in the Pre-Colombian Americas (since history witnessed their defeat and
enslavement - but not extinction, their ancestors are everywhere) and get all
the majority of the credit for the ruins. But…Then you witness Kuelap
Kuelap – The Macchu Pichu Of The North
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| Built in the 6th century AD, and inhabited for 1000 years |
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| The outer ramparts |
Kuelap is only going to get
better. Now there is a tram that will take you there and as they get more money
they can unearth more of the site. Or….. It will turn into another Chitzén Itsa
where every wall has been rebuilt and nothing genuine is left of the terrain
they lived in. That predicament is for future generations to decide. I saw what
I saw and was left gasping for superlatives.
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| At it's height up to 3000 people lived here (archeologists interpretation) |
Huanchaco
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| Constructed in 450 AD with 130 million adobe bricks it was the largest pre-Colombian adobe structure in the Americas |
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| The early tomb raiders cut directly into it. The Spanish diverted a river to wash away 1/3 of it, so as to get to the treasures |
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| The Moche people added layer over layer like the skins of an onion so the insides are perfectly preserved |
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| Chan-Chan. The largest Pre-Colombian city in South America. All made with adobe. Built 900 AD. Defeated by the Inca and incorporated into their empire 1470 |
La Galgada
From Trujillo to Caraz we
passed numerous blue signs that say, “Sitio Arqueologico”. Peru does a
wonderful job of denoting their ruins of ancient civilizations. When the long
shadows told us it was time to stop driving, we came upon Chuquicara; an almost
nonexistent place with one gas station, some empty low ceilinged buildings that
looked like they were probably built to corral llamas and a couple places with
dirt floors under a tarp that would sell food. It was at one of these restos
that we asked: “Any blue signs around?”
The lady sent us to an old man.
The man said he remembered one from when he was a kid up in the canyon. A few calls
later and we had arranged a guide for 7am the next morning to drive us.
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| Suicidal Diego - the destroyer of tires, eardrums and lives |
Diego
pulled up in a car that should have been scrapped 5 years ago. It was loaded
with humans and sacks of produce. He drove at breakneck speeds on one of the
most dangerous dirt roads with sheer “drop offs to death” around every corner. 3
times he stopped the car to check the right front tire because he knew it
wasn’t safe. But it didn’t slow him down any. He’s cranking the music as loud
as it will go and honking his horn just before every scary corner to alert oncoming
drivers on this single lane death road, whom, I would imagine, are
concentrating intently for the sound of a horn. That’s a fantasy. I’m sure they are doing exactly the
same as he because, you know: Latins! We’re screaming at each other to
communicate but turning down the music is not an option. There are 2 things in
the world that are destructive to stereo speakers: 1.) Water. 2.) Latins. The
music doesn’t sound right until the speaker is blown. Twice I heard myself
curse in terror as we slid around a corner with our tires touching the last
inch of dirt before oblivion. At certain points I could look back and see that
the earth had eroded out from under the road. It looked like the letter “C”.
Certain death for a future car. AB was wedged like a potato in the boot, with a
65 year old lady and a bag of tubers.
Diego stops at a blue sign.
We see nothing but a hill. Then our eyes come to focus on the minutia and we
behold La Galagada for the first time.
It’s 4000 years old. I
think buildings in Europe are ancient when they were built in the 1500’s. 4000
years old!
(Tunnels so deep that when
I turned off the light, the anxiety rushed in and I had to do a panic check)
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| AC means Before Christ. The sign says: "2400 - 2000 BC" |
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| 4000 year old appreciation to detail still stands |
Canon Del Pato
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| Very little room for error and Peruvian rocks aren't very soft |
Caraz
There are places where
Overlanders dig in and stay for a week. And then the campsite achieves critical
mass and you stay another week. It didn’t hurt that we were in the shadow of
the spectacular Andes, but at this point the attraction was the camaraderie we
felt with our fellow drivers. We went up to Laguna Paron and enjoyed small town
Peru.
Simply wow. Sometimes the
stars align and the cosmos smiles upon you and gifts that "brass ring" experience. Those moments are few and far between but we scored with this
place.
We parked late in the
afternoon. The archeological site had closed for the day. We were enjoying a
glass of wine on a public bench next to the entrance of the ruin. I sometimes
bring extra cups, as it’s a great way to meet people. A man exits with a full
leather satchel slung over his shoulder with charts and blueprints protruding.
“Can I interest you in a nice glass of wine? Say, are you an archeologist?”
Yes, I am a whore for archeologists.
Turns out - John Rick has
been the lead archeologist at Chavin for 24 years and we met him on the evening
of his 40th wedding anniversary. He had a glass with us and then
invited us to the party with all his grad students. The next day when we saw
him on the site he invited us to step over the “scientists only rope” for a
personal tour.
This place had it all: San
Pedro cactus, water works, sensory deprivation cells – it was an unearthly
temple with a hit religion. It had been continuously inhabited for maybe 10,000
years by the ancient Chavin forebearers prior to the temple being erected in
1500 BC. It was abandoned around 550 BC when an earthquake hit, the priests
were shamed and the cult collapsed. But prior to that it had been visited by
the major civilizations of the area as far away as Ecuador for 1000 years.
3,500 years old – I can’t
get enough of this stuff. Stick around for the next installment of Peru because
the ancient civilizations get older still!
Your man on point,
Captain Bobby
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