To say that I was skeptical of spending a day with a group of people–a tribe?–who lived at over 13,000 feet in the Andes near Cusco, Peru would be an understatement. The whole idea of ethno-tourism rocks my world in a strange way. Harkening back to the anthropologists of the late 19th and early 20th century who struck out for parts unknown hoping to find some isolated group of humans who were still living in a stone-age culture, we set out from our hotel in Urubamba to visit a group of people, isolated in a small Andean village outside of Cusco, to find out what their daily routine was like. No matter how you look at this, it just feels odd. We drove out of Urubamba and up into the mountains, meeting a small welcome committee on a high, isolated plain in the middle of the Andes, above the tree line at 13,870 feet. The air is thin and cool, the stubby pines that have been planted in this rarefied atmosphere are just that, stubby. The welcoming committee was gracious, and we all hiked up to a grassy knoll where the village priest or pacco or misayoq or shaman was preparing a blessing or prayer to the Pachamama or earth-mountain spirit. The ritual was very moving and very colorful. I was struck by the theatricality of the experience, the colorful costumes worn by the local people, their willingness to interact with us, the outsiders. They then proceeded to show us how they cut the local peat moss for fuel and invited some of us to use one of their locally made spades that they use for digging, tilling and planting their crops. For lunch we made our way to their village, and a brief, but expected, rainstorm, soaked everything, including us, as we gathered for lunch in the center of their community at the local one-room school. The Peruvian government has invested a certain amount of time and money into modernizing the village and its cooking, and we were offered a well-prepared and tasty lunch served up to restaurant standards of presentation and hygiene, and it was very good. After lunch we had a weaving demonstration, and we met a llama or two, and our day ended with traditional music and dancing. I am still at odds as to what I think about all of these “demonstrations” of local traditions and practices. I know that our presence brings much needed income into the area, but I am also sure that our presence is a kind of cultural contamination that will change everything for these people. On the other hand, better roads and technology have improved the lives of these isolated people, and some things, such as their health, has gotten better. Crops and harvests have improved as well as education and parallel social issues. Yet, there is a nagging question that remains: is “ethno-tourism” morally wrong or ethically acceptable? I don’t think the answer is black and white or simple in any particular way. I really enjoyed meeting these people, seeing where they lived, eating their food, checking out the livestock–llamas are not common in central Texas. In a way, they were working by interacting with us, which, of course, brings prosperity to an otherwise economically depressed area, and although the mountains are breathtaking where they live, no one can eat the scenery and life at 13,000 feet is very tough. Tourism works for these people. Perhaps change is not always as horrible as it seems, and I’m not going to idealize their authentic lives or existence all out of proportion. The problem I have with all of this is not a simple one, but it does have to do with radically different cultures clashing and what the different participants of that clash take away from the experience. There are questions of poverty, technology, language, religion, and politics which must go both unanswered and unexplored due to time and space. I would go back, though, because seeing a totally different culture practice its traditions, whatever they might be. re-ignites a person’s fires of self-awareness. You see, the contemplated life is a life worth living even if questions and doubts linger.
Category Archives: Peru
On the Cuyuni
To say that I was skeptical of spending a day with a group of people–a tribe?–who lived at over 13,000 feet in the Andes near Cusco, Peru would be an understatement. The whole idea of ethno-tourism rocks my world in a strange way. Harkening back to the anthropologists of the late 19th and early 20th century who struck out for parts unknown hoping to find some isolated group of humans who were still living in a stone-age culture, we set out from our hotel in Urubamba to visit a group of people, isolated in a small Andean village outside of Cusco, to find out what their daily routine was like. No matter how you look at this, it just feels odd. We drove out of Urubamba and up into the mountains, meeting a small welcome committee on a high, isolated plain in the middle of the Andes, above the tree line at 13,870 feet. The air is thin and cool, the stubby pines that have been planted in this rarefied atmosphere are just that, stubby. The welcoming committee was gracious, and we all hiked up to a grassy knoll where the village priest or pacco or misayoq or shaman was preparing a blessing or prayer to the Pachamama or earth-mountain spirit. The ritual was very moving and very colorful. I was struck by the theatricality of the experience, the colorful costumes worn by the local people, their willingness to interact with us, the outsiders. They then proceeded to show us how they cut the local peat moss for fuel and invited some of us to use one of their locally made spades that they use for digging, tilling and planting their crops. For lunch we made our way to their village, and a brief, but expected, rainstorm, soaked everything, including us, as we gathered for lunch in the center of their community at the local one-room school. The Peruvian government has invested a certain amount of time and money into modernizing the village and its cooking, and we were offered a well-prepared and tasty lunch served up to restaurant standards of presentation and hygiene, and it was very good. After lunch we had a weaving demonstration, and we met a llama or two, and our day ended with traditional music and dancing. I am still at odds as to what I think about all of these “demonstrations” of local traditions and practices. I know that our presence brings much needed income into the area, but I am also sure that our presence is a kind of cultural contamination that will change everything for these people. On the other hand, better roads and technology have improved the lives of these isolated people, and some things, such as their health, has gotten better. Crops and harvests have improved as well as education and parallel social issues. Yet, there is a nagging question that remains: is “ethno-tourism” morally wrong or ethically acceptable? I don’t think the answer is black and white or simple in any particular way. I really enjoyed meeting these people, seeing where they lived, eating their food, checking out the livestock–llamas are not common in central Texas. In a way, they were working by interacting with us, which, of course, brings prosperity to an otherwise economically depressed area, and although the mountains are breathtaking where they live, no one can eat the scenery and life at 13,000 feet is very tough. Tourism works for these people. Perhaps change is not always as horrible as it seems, and I’m not going to idealize their authentic lives or existence all out of proportion. The problem I have with all of this is not a simple one, but it does have to do with radically different cultures clashing and what the different participants of that clash take away from the experience. There are questions of poverty, technology, language, religion, and politics which must go both unanswered and unexplored due to time and space. I would go back, though, because seeing a totally different culture practice its traditions, whatever they might be. re-ignites a person’s fires of self-awareness. You see, the contemplated life is a life worth living even if questions and doubts linger.
Under the Southern Cross
Today I spent my time at about 13,700 feet. I spent my time with colleagues and a group of local native people, “Cuyuni”–Inca is probably not the right word, but they certainly were descendants of the Incas who lived here when the Spanish arrived in the 16th century. I watched a local shaman make an offering to his gods–the sky, the mountain, the earth–and I listened to his earnest pleas for peace, safety, and tranquility. Though his words were mostly Quechua, I could pick out a few others which made me feel included and a part of his prayers. I listened to the drummers and flautists who accompanied him, us. I watched as one of the women cut peat moss that would later be used as fuel. I took pictures of her llamas that would carry the peat back to her small village. I walked through a rain storm, tramped through mud and water, ate an excellent meal of locally prepared foods, ate a baked potato off of a blanket in the middle of field above the tree line–14,000 feet–top of the world. I don’t know what to make of these people–hard working, earnest, happy. I fear that if I come back here in twenty years they will be gone, replaced by modernity, but I also fear that that I am idealizing them all out of proportion. Their lives are tough, filled with long days of work dedicated entirely to their farming experience–animals, plants, the seasons, the mountains, tilling, building, without a day’s rest. Everything is always ideal in the pastoral experience, Beatus Ille, but the truth is that living in these rugged mountains is a lot of hard work, heart break, rain, cold, wind, earthquakes. Yet, one also detects a gentle stoicism about the hard work and rough life. These ancestors of the Incas are a hardy group, resilient, survivors, who take the hard breaks with a grain of salt and move on. The animals are here to serve them, but they also honor the work of those animals. The sacred valley of the Inca is a strange place filled with a river, terraces, mountains that shoot straight up, lots of brown mud, plants galore, and a hard-working people who will just never give up. The cognitive dissonance I feel in staying at a wonderful hotel is contrasted sharply by the hard life I know these people lead who live in adobe brick buildings, barely have water and lights, do not have good sanitation or good climate control–none in fact. Some dwellings do not have glass windows just 17 degrees south of the Equator. I first learned about the Equator and the Southern Cross over forty-five years ago in a civics and culture class that was a part of my fourth grade experience. Who knew that it would take me this long to actually travel below the Equator and meet such interesting people. Curiously, they were like a mirror. I could see in their efforts that the things they wanted–a house, a family, children, a job, a few possessions, were only the things we all want. They are driven by their beliefs, their culture, their desires which are only an ongoing negotiation of their cultural discourses regarding faith, religion, ethics, values. They had no cars, but they had “motocars” a kind of three-wheeled taxi vehicle which shuttles them around their towns. They are worried about the education of their children. They worry about who they are going to marry. They worry about whether their stock will increase. I worry that these people will not be here in forty years, and I am thinking the world will be a poorer place without them.
Under the Southern Cross
Today I spent my time at about 13,700 feet. I spent my time with colleagues and a group of local native people, “Cuyuni”–Inca is probably not the right word, but they certainly were descendants of the Incas who lived here when the Spanish arrived in the 16th century. I watched a local shaman make an offering to his gods–the sky, the mountain, the earth–and I listened to his earnest pleas for peace, safety, and tranquility. Though his words were mostly Quechua, I could pick out a few others which made me feel included and a part of his prayers. I listened to the drummers and flautists who accompanied him, us. I watched as one of the women cut peat moss that would later be used as fuel. I took pictures of her llamas that would carry the peat back to her small village. I walked through a rain storm, tramped through mud and water, ate an excellent meal of locally prepared foods, ate a baked potato off of a blanket in the middle of field above the tree line–14,000 feet–top of the world. I don’t know what to make of these people–hard working, earnest, happy. I fear that if I come back here in twenty years they will be gone, replaced by modernity, but I also fear that that I am idealizing them all out of proportion. Their lives are tough, filled with long days of work dedicated entirely to their farming experience–animals, plants, the seasons, the mountains, tilling, building, without a day’s rest. Everything is always ideal in the pastoral experience, Beatus Ille, but the truth is that living in these rugged mountains is a lot of hard work, heart break, rain, cold, wind, earthquakes. Yet, one also detects a gentle stoicism about the hard work and rough life. These ancestors of the Incas are a hardy group, resilient, survivors, who take the hard breaks with a grain of salt and move on. The animals are here to serve them, but they also honor the work of those animals. The sacred valley of the Inca is a strange place filled with a river, terraces, mountains that shoot straight up, lots of brown mud, plants galore, and a hard-working people who will just never give up. The cognitive dissonance I feel in staying at a wonderful hotel is contrasted sharply by the hard life I know these people lead who live in adobe brick buildings, barely have water and lights, do not have good sanitation or good climate control–none in fact. Some dwellings do not have glass windows just 17 degrees south of the Equator. I first learned about the Equator and the Southern Cross over forty-five years ago in a civics and culture class that was a part of my fourth grade experience. Who knew that it would take me this long to actually travel below the Equator and meet such interesting people. Curiously, they were like a mirror. I could see in their efforts that the things they wanted–a house, a family, children, a job, a few possessions, were only the things we all want. They are driven by their beliefs, their culture, their desires which are only an ongoing negotiation of their cultural discourses regarding faith, religion, ethics, values. They had no cars, but they had “motocars” a kind of three-wheeled taxi vehicle which shuttles them around their towns. They are worried about the education of their children. They worry about who they are going to marry. They worry about whether their stock will increase. I worry that these people will not be here in forty years, and I am thinking the world will be a poorer place without them.
On Peru
Getting from my hotel in Miraflores (Lima) to my hotel in Urubamba was quite a journey, involving a tour bus, an airplane, another tour bus, a home cooked meal, a weaving demonstration, a dirt road, and an indeterminate number of switchbacks and potholes which finally deposited me here, a couple of hours from Machu Picchu. I can’t say I know everything about Peru yet, but I’m learning. This probably one of the most polite countries I have ever been in, and although many of the people involved in tourism speak some English, they are tickled pink when I haul out my quaint, textbook, Castilian Spanish to talk to them the best I can. They speak a Spanish here which is crystal clear and so easy to understand–their regional features are few and far between. I haven’t had to use any slang with them, but in general I still haven’t heard anything I don’t understand. I mean, I don’t understand the rules of road in Peru, but one of them must be, if you are standing in the road, you maybe better move–there are no slow dogs in Peru. The airport in Lima, though small, is efficient and all about getting the job done: too many people going through security–open more security lines. The LAN flight to Cuzco was top-notch, and the crews were very professional. Our merry band of travelers has been shepherded around by a great bunch of local guides (thanks to Mohib at Millennium Tours of Texas) who really know what they are doing–kind, professional, communicative, understanding. Our local guides in Lima are from an agency name “coltur” and are top-notch, speak english, know everything there is to know about Lima, are kind and generous, good-hearted people who want to share their city with new-comers. After arriving in Cuzco, we went out for a home-cooked meal of chairo soup, fresh vegetables (which means potatoes) and cuy which had obviously been made by somebody’s mother. Getting used to the altitude is another matter altogether, but I can’t tell if my head hurts because of the altitude or because of my lack of sleep. Sometimes when you are traveling, it’s hard to tell. I can say this, however, that Peru is a very different place. Full of hard-working and earnst people, these first two days have been a real pleasure even though I’ve been on the move the entire time. I watched a public debate last night on who might be the next mayor of Lima–a rather post-modern experience if there ever was one. Now I am deep within the valleys and mountains of the Andes, surrounded by sheer peaks, a gushing river, green fields of potatoes and corn, villages of adobe bricks, dogs. It is, however, hard to generalize because my experiences have already been so diverse. What can you say about people who know how to make perfect potato pancakes? I attended a short seminar and demonstration on traditional weaving and was amazed at the complexity of the process and the talent of the weavers. We think we know a “people” because we can label them, but we would be wrong. What I have seen so far is this: an entire nation working hard to make ends meet, build roads and bridges, get their kids to school, get themselves to work, put bread on their tables, make a decent life for themselves, and nothing about any of that is either simple or uncomplicated. Tomorrow, Inca lore, culture, traditon, dropping back a millennium or so to visit some of the myriad acheological sights in this area–the center of the world?
On Peru
Getting from my hotel in Miraflores (Lima) to my hotel in Urubamba was quite a journey, involving a tour bus, an airplane, another tour bus, a home cooked meal, a weaving demonstration, a dirt road, and an indeterminate number of switchbacks and potholes which finally deposited me here, a couple of hours from Machu Picchu. I can’t say I know everything about Peru yet, but I’m learning. This probably one of the most polite countries I have ever been in, and although many of the people involved in tourism speak some English, they are tickled pink when I haul out my quaint, textbook, Castilian Spanish to talk to them the best I can. They speak a Spanish here which is crystal clear and so easy to understand–their regional features are few and far between. I haven’t had to use any slang with them, but in general I still haven’t heard anything I don’t understand. I mean, I don’t understand the rules of road in Peru, but one of them must be, if you are standing in the road, you maybe better move–there are no slow dogs in Peru. The airport in Lima, though small, is efficient and all about getting the job done: too many people going through security–open more security lines. The LAN flight to Cuzco was top-notch, and the crews were very professional. Our merry band of travelers has been shepherded around by a great bunch of local guides (thanks to Mohib at Millennium Tours of Texas) who really know what they are doing–kind, professional, communicative, understanding. Our local guides in Lima are from an agency name “coltur” and are top-notch, speak english, know everything there is to know about Lima, are kind and generous, good-hearted people who want to share their city with new-comers. After arriving in Cuzco, we went out for a home-cooked meal of chairo soup, fresh vegetables (which means potatoes) and cuy which had obviously been made by somebody’s mother. Getting used to the altitude is another matter altogether, but I can’t tell if my head hurts because of the altitude or because of my lack of sleep. Sometimes when you are traveling, it’s hard to tell. I can say this, however, that Peru is a very different place. Full of hard-working and earnst people, these first two days have been a real pleasure even though I’ve been on the move the entire time. I watched a public debate last night on who might be the next mayor of Lima–a rather post-modern experience if there ever was one. Now I am deep within the valleys and mountains of the Andes, surrounded by sheer peaks, a gushing river, green fields of potatoes and corn, villages of adobe bricks, dogs. It is, however, hard to generalize because my experiences have already been so diverse. What can you say about people who know how to make perfect potato pancakes? I attended a short seminar and demonstration on traditional weaving and was amazed at the complexity of the process and the talent of the weavers. We think we know a “people” because we can label them, but we would be wrong. What I have seen so far is this: an entire nation working hard to make ends meet, build roads and bridges, get their kids to school, get themselves to work, put bread on their tables, make a decent life for themselves, and nothing about any of that is either simple or uncomplicated. Tomorrow, Inca lore, culture, traditon, dropping back a millennium or so to visit some of the myriad acheological sights in this area–the center of the world?
On Lima, Peru
I am so glad I’ve finally come to Lima. I arrived this morning on the red-eye from Miami, and took off to see a pre-Inca ruin called Huaca Pucllana in the middle of the Miraflores township of Lima, which rises almost two hundred feet above the surrounding buildings. A huge mound of hand-made adobe bricks, the bricks are stacked vertically with space between them to fight the earthquake problem so common in this coastal city. This “pyramid” was totally unknown thirty years ago and three pre-Incan peoples occupied this sacred space. The people of Lima had collectively forgotten what it was and thought it was just a large, dusty (or muddy) hill in Miraflores. On a short tour we got to experience first hand all of the plants, fruits, and vegetables that the local people had eaten or sacrificed on this spot. We also got to meet, first hand, the famous Peruvian Cuy, Llamas, and Alpacas–live and in the flesh. Later, we went down to the ocean front to check out the beautiful Pacific before going to the most excellent ceviche lunch you have ever had. We stopped in at a sidewalk terrace for some well-deserved espressos afterward. Since there is no rest for the wicked or the foolish, we then got onto our tour bus to head downtown to the Plaza Mayor and check out the center of Lima. We visited (or observed from a distance) the city hall, the president’s mansion, the archbishop’s house, the cathedral, a Franciscan monastery (which had an enormously interesting bone pile underneath it), and the largest private museum of native indigenous artifacts that exists in Peru. We finally got back to the hotel for a bite of dinner around 7:30 p.m. Big thanks to Millennium Travel of Texas who had us controlled and directed from airport to hotel to Plaza Mayor to museum to the hotel. I was amazed at how kind the people are, how clean and wonderful the city is for a city of nine million souls. It’s not perfect, and no city is, but my experience was wonderful, having coffee, touring an ancient ruin, having ceviche, having a beverage down at the bay, walking the streets of this strange Lima. I bought the Sunday paper, read about the mayor’s impending recall election, watched a black cat cross my path in a city park, went to the “Parque del amor” with a giant statue of a couple locked in a passionate kiss and embrace, rode in a taxi which made up its own rules of circulation, ate real authentic ceviche, found out the difference between a llama and an alpaca, looked a Cuy square in the eyes, climbed to the top of a pyramid built almost two thousand years ago. I rather doubt I could have done much more before toppling over in exhaustion considering how little sleep I got last night–none. So Lima is complicated; I don’t understand how cars figure out who has the right away in this city. I love the coffee, which is very flavorful, but not at all bitter. Ceviche has a million textures, tastes, sauces. The people of Lima do what all people around the world do on their day off–go out and have a good time. The local buses are a mystery to me, especially what seem to be the suburban buses who pick up people in the center and take them out of the city. Nine tenths of the cars appear to be taxis. Now, it’s time for bed–great hotel, hot shower, and time to catch up on the writing, although I’m dead sure the second I stop moving, I’ll be asleep. Postscript update: the mayor survived her recall election by garnering 52% of the vote.
On Lima, Peru
I am so glad I’ve finally come to Lima. I arrived this morning on the red-eye from Miami, and took off to see a pre-Inca ruin called Huaca Pucllana in the middle of the Miraflores township of Lima, which rises almost two hundred feet above the surrounding buildings. A huge mound of hand-made adobe bricks, the bricks are stacked vertically with space between them to fight the earthquake problem so common in this coastal city. This “pyramid” was totally unknown thirty years ago and three pre-Incan peoples occupied this sacred space. The people of Lima had collectively forgotten what it was and thought it was just a large, dusty (or muddy) hill in Miraflores. On a short tour we got to experience first hand all of the plants, fruits, and vegetables that the local people had eaten or sacrificed on this spot. We also got to meet, first hand, the famous Peruvian Cuy, Llamas, and Alpacas–live and in the flesh. Later, we went down to the ocean front to check out the beautiful Pacific before going to the most excellent ceviche lunch you have ever had. We stopped in at a sidewalk terrace for some well-deserved espressos afterward. Since there is no rest for the wicked or the foolish, we then got onto our tour bus to head downtown to the Plaza Mayor and check out the center of Lima. We visited (or observed from a distance) the city hall, the president’s mansion, the archbishop’s house, the cathedral, a Franciscan monastery (which had an enormously interesting bone pile underneath it), and the largest private museum of native indigenous artifacts that exists in Peru. We finally got back to the hotel for a bite of dinner around 7:30 p.m. Big thanks to Millennium Travel of Texas who had us controlled and directed from airport to hotel to Plaza Mayor to museum to the hotel. I was amazed at how kind the people are, how clean and wonderful the city is for a city of nine million souls. It’s not perfect, and no city is, but my experience was wonderful, having coffee, touring an ancient ruin, having ceviche, having a beverage down at the bay, walking the streets of this strange Lima. I bought the Sunday paper, read about the mayor’s impending recall election, watched a black cat cross my path in a city park, went to the “Parque del amor” with a giant statue of a couple locked in a passionate kiss and embrace, rode in a taxi which made up its own rules of circulation, ate real authentic ceviche, found out the difference between a llama and an alpaca, looked a Cuy square in the eyes, climbed to the top of a pyramid built almost two thousand years ago. I rather doubt I could have done much more before toppling over in exhaustion considering how little sleep I got last night–none. So Lima is complicated; I don’t understand how cars figure out who has the right away in this city. I love the coffee, which is very flavorful, but not at all bitter. Ceviche has a million textures, tastes, sauces. The people of Lima do what all people around the world do on their day off–go out and have a good time. The local buses are a mystery to me, especially what seem to be the suburban buses who pick up people in the center and take them out of the city. Nine tenths of the cars appear to be taxis. Now, it’s time for bed–great hotel, hot shower, and time to catch up on the writing, although I’m dead sure the second I stop moving, I’ll be asleep. Postscript update: the mayor survived her recall election by garnering 52% of the vote.