mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== Find __________ [USEMAP] [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] Advertisers Index [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] Archives The Other Lost Cities of Peru - #10 December '98 Nestled amidst the clouds in the Eastern Andes sits one of the most extensive, yet least known ruins in the world. Here, the grass remains uncut and most of the settlements are unearthed. But with Machu Picchu on its way to becoming a Peruvian Disneyland, how long can Chachapoyas stay a secret? BY TOM GIERASIMCZUK The 10-seater van has just taken on its 21st passenger and the driver is circling the town square screaming for someone to fill the remaining three square feet of space. The collectivo has been packed tight with farmers and builders for the last hour. But there is still room to exhale, and therefore a few extra bucks to be made. This justifies a one-hour delay for more than 20 people and there's nothing anyone can do about it. ?Infinite patience is the price of admission to one of northeastern Peru's many remote corners. It's here that the eastern Andes tumble into the Amazon basin so suddenly that in one day of walking you can cover thousands of vertical metres through a myriad of ecosystems. At the moment, however, I'm convinced that the "maestro" behind the wheel is intent on keeping me from seeing any of them. ?Without complaint, the crowded passengers smile, talk and stare out the bus' dusty windows at the town of Chachapoyas - a commercial centre of 25,000 residents and capital of the mountainous Amazonas district. Although Chachapoyas was founded in 1538 and is one of Peru's oldest colonial cities, there are no grand cathedrals, massive palaces or sprawling plazas. Clean, white and mostly rebuilt after several devastating earthquakes, Chachapoyas, or Chacha, is a town where oxen toting plastic housewares enjoy the right of way, and ponchos are the preferred way to keep warm on cold nights. ?An old man with a face like a baseball glove passes me a filthy pop bottle in an effort to chill out this fidgety compadre. As I wipe off enough grime to see the clear liquid inside, a foul odour escapes the plastic bottle and mixes with the smell of diesel and chickens. Because I skipped breakfast to get an early start on my hike - I was being rather optimistic - I take a swig, figuring I need all the sustenance I can get. As expected it's guarapo, a sugarcane firewater more suitable for kerosene lanterns than common consumption, but drunk here with the frequency of coffee. My face contorts and gives the shy but very curious Chachapoyans a reason to stare. ?Their laughter breaks the boredom and opens the floodgates for questions. ?"Where are you from gringo?" ?"Why are you here gringo?" ?"Quiero explorar hoy," I announce. "I want to explore today." ?"Ah, you will find gold in the caves gringo," says the old man, waving at me to take another sip. The man is referring to American explorer Gene Savoy, who is rumoured to have helped himself to some of the region's ancient treasures. Savoy came to Chacha fueled by conquistador Cieza de Leon's account of how in 1550, 200 Indians came to Chachapoyas from the jungle and spoke of lands "rich in gold and silver, that lay to the east." In the 1960s, he became the first interloper to publish the area's archeological secrets in English, documenting his explorations in his book, Antisuyo. Although he claimed to have "discovered" thousands of structures, locals knew of the ruins long before Savoy arrived and simply pointed them out to him when he asked. ?Savoy, like countless conquistadors and explorers before him, came searching for South America's equivalent to the Lost Ark: The Lost Golden City of El Dorado. Ever since the Incas fulfilled a ridiculous conquistador ransom demand of a roomful of gold and a roomful of silver in exchange for imprisoned Inca leader Atahualpa, waves of expeditions have combed the northern jungles of South America, from Surinam to Bolivia. Since none of the Inca centres that foreigners pillaged contained any gold, even though it adorned even the lowliest of subjects, it was believed that a source must exist somewhere. Nothing was ever found and most expeditions ended disastrously at the hands of jungle natives or mutiny by starving crews. ?Peru has always been the archeological envy of South America, but years of Maoist terrorism, economic chaos and government corruption sentenced the country to international isolation. With the election of president Alberto Fujimori in 1990, and his vision of a Peru built with foreign capital, the terrorist threat has been reduced dramatically. Parts of the country blessed with archeological and natural beauty are now serviced with direct flights from Miami to satisfy tourists searching for living history. ?In Cusco, the ancient Incan capital and closest city to world famous Machu Picchu, street children beg for dollars instead of Peruvian soles and robbery is as common as expensive hiking boots. But while waves of tourists descend upon Peru with more force every year, Chacha rarely feels a ripple. The thought of travelling from Lima north to a province bordering Ecuador discourages most people. ?Chachapoyas does have an airport, complete with a yet-to-be-removed crashed plane. Lack of travellers means irregular flights to and from Lima with even more irregularly serviced planes. The only reliable access from the capital is a two-day bus trip. Day one is 10 hours due north from Lima to the northern coastal city of Chiclayo with the bonus of a paved Pan American Highway the whole way up. Day two is another "13 jaw-jarring, spleen-splitting hours," according to one of only a handful of travellers I ran into. _________________________________________________________________ The collectivo still hasn't departed. In the meantime, more bored passengers have taken the liberty to plan out my week of trekking. The maestro behind the wheel insists his town is better than others, playfully grabbing a passenger's ear and screaming the name of his town into it. The youngest driver I've seen here, his gold-capped front teeth shine when he smiles. A tight T-shirt that reads in Spanish: "Only I can stop cholera and diarrhea" does little to hide an unusually large belly. The arguments get heated with each town resident having so much to boast about. ?There's the village of Leimebamba, the departure point for treks to the Laguna de los Condores (Condor Lake), where over 200 Chachapoyan mummies were discovered in dozens of burial caves last year. There's Choctomal, the gateway to a three-day walk in the jungle sprinkled with ancient paths and massive, crumbling cities that were already overgrown when the Spaniards arrived. And then there's my destination today: the cliff sarcophagi of Karajia - where life-sized coffins resembling Easter Island figures are stuck in sheer cliff faces. ?The van starts moving and I drum my knees in excitement, knowing that today I might stumble upon any one of the area's rumoured 500 archeological sites; or perhaps sit down to a freshly-roasted guinea pig dinner with a farmer. Regardless, one thing is guaranteed - I'll probably be the only gringo doing it. ?"Have you been to Kuelap?" asks another old man. In these parts, the locals prefer to have this bit of information before even your name. ?Everyone wants you to see the massive ruined fortress of Kuelap. Built with three times the amount of stone used in Egypt's great pyramid of Giza, it is considered the most important archeological site in northeastern Peru, and called by some the largest edifice in the Americas. Its setting atop a fortified mountain crest offers fabulous views over violently-carved valleys that drop 1,500 metres. Made public to the world in 1843, the 30-metre limestone walls remain relatively undamaged by 1,400 years of earthquakes and erosion. Despite the grandeur of the exterior walls, the best part is the ancient village they contain. ?Hundreds of round, single-room stone houses decorated with zig-zag designs pepper the site. Most still have their fire hole and the stone corn grinders used by inhabitants over a thousand years ago. There are also ruined watchtowers and a massive inverted cone rumoured to have been a torture chamber. All this, like the rest of Chacha, is wild, uncleared and looks comfortably one with the jungle. Ferns, bromeliads and orchids have taken root in the crevices between bricks, while larger cavities in the ruins sustain entire trees. ?The entire area is a rare bio-occurrence called a cloud forest, where low clouds and frequent fog dump heavy rain on mountainous terrain, keeping it green and frequently inaccessible. The resulting carpet of moss gives you the sense of walking through a fairy tale. ?The word Chachapoyas, according to Kuelap custodian Gabriel, comes from Sachapuyos - sacha meaning mountain jungle, and puyos meaning fog. ?Vying for votes before his election, Fujimori planned to develop Kuelap into a world tourist attraction equivalent to Machu Picchu. Gabriel's family had been given this responsibility. That promise, as well as Chacha's Institute of Culture, have since disappeared, leaving the unrestored site the way it has been for hundreds of years. There's no way to lock Kuelap's three gates, so Gabriel stacks branches in the unlikely event that anyone who goes there after hours will get the hint. His long, bony face stares out at the ruins as he talks about them. He wants more tourists to come and can't figure out why there aren't any. ?At a time when the world's great archeological sites are being sanitized and equipped with Disney-esque light shows, untouched cities like Kuelap are increasingly rare. The place is so undeveloped that one British traveller I met pulled a human femur out from between two blocks of stone. _________________________________________________________________ A poncho-clad man in the front seat of the collectivo announces that he forgot to give his wife some keys and runs off down the street. I finally snap and ask if the 90-minute delay has inconvenienced anyone. ?"It gave the man with the keys time to remember his duty to his wife," says the old man. "I think he is angry about the wait." The van erupts with laughter. I give up, eventually dozing off. ?I wake up after the van hits a larger-than-usual pothole, launching everyone into the air. Being the only one even close to six feet tall, I rake my head against the exposed bolts above the van's window. A woman grimaces at my misfortune and hands me a banana for the pain. ?On the narrow, dusty road we're climbing, an oncoming sheep wouldn't have a prayer of squeezing by. I try not to think about how Chachapoyan collectivos use hand-me-down tires from Lima. ?The van cautiously negotiates yet another switch-back as we crawl up the mountain, travelling so slowly there's not the slightest hint of wind from the open windows. The western Andes are now on my side of the van and I get a long look as they swell on their way to the coast. The mountain range looks like a pair of hardened, worked hands, intertwined as if ready to pray. Each twisted knuckle is just a little larger than the previous one. ?A glance outside the window reveals a potentially long tumble to the bottom of the gorge, where a hydroelectric plant channels the Utcubamba River, granting Chachapoyas a standard of living that surpasses some of Lima's suburbs. Eventually the road widens, as we pass roadside markers indicating the sites of fatal car accidents. Collisions are rare. It's the road itself that pushes collectivos over tight, blind corners where the closest thing to guard rails are eucalyptus trees and jagged rocks about a hundred feet down. ?We arrive at 11 a.m. in Luya, a tiny colonial town of about 5,000, identical to almost every other settlement in the province. My plan is to hike to the sarcophagi in three hours and make it back for the last van to Chacha at seven. The path I want is on the other side of town. Walking through the Sunday market at Plaza de Armas is unavoidable. ?Before I departed to Amazonas, Peruvian friends had told me that if gringos were ever going to fit in, Chacha would be the place. I quickly found out what they meant. Some residents were taller, more blond, and lighter-skinned than the coastal Peruvians of Spanish descent. These "gringos," as they were called by locals, don't claim roots from anywhere else. ?For hundreds of years the natives of the area have been called the "cloud people" - in part because they lived in the cloud forest and, according to elders, because of their unusually light skin. This enigmatic folklore, combined with a 400-year-old Spanish chronicle that describes the region's natives as "the whitest and most attractive Indians of all," means one hell of an unsolved ethnological mystery. ?Locals and archeologists alike attribute the light-skinned natives' origin to anything from a rogue conquistador settlement, to an 11th-century, pre-Columbian Viking community. Regardless, I don't pass for either, and the curious begin yelling at me. "Hey gringo! De donde eres?" screams someone from a crowd gathered around a bull. "Canada," I yell. ?"Ah, si, Canada, Ot-TA-wa, Montre-AL, Toron-TO," three different voices yell back. ?I finally make it to the path I've been looking for and start climbing. As with all travelled paths in the area, it was used by the ancient Chachapoyans and later the invading Incan armies. What was little more than a dirt path from Luya has blossomed into massive, six-foot flat rocks, intricately fit together for kilometres at a time. Some rocks have grooves carved in them - brilliant ancient drainage systems to keep the roads usable in the rainy season. This ancient highway constantly disappears around villages and reappears again. ?"People are greedy everywhere, gringo," said a Chachapoyan hotel owner when I asked about the incon-sistency of area paths. "They rip up their village road to have good, flat rocks to build with," he told me. "But now they walk through pig shit and the rain causes flooding." If it was up to him, he said, he would buy all archeologically-important land, relocate the people and begin much-needed preservation. ?The noon sun forces frequent water breaks and the view of Luya shrinks behind me. As expected, there is no one else around, making the sprawling hills seem even more desolate. All that crowds this vast openness are the low clouds that have been rolling in for the last half hour. At 4,000 metres above sea level, and with the sun gone, I throw on another layer of clothes. The climbs and descents are relentless, snaking every 20 minutes through three or four houses qualifying as villages. The houses are typical of the area - a single room with a red shingled roof, or sometimes simply a layer of ichu grass, mud and chopped eucalyptus trees. The walls are tapial, an effective and simple building process of ramming layers of earth within a mold until hardened. ?I reach out and touch the earthen walls, unexpectedly chipping off a handful of dried horse shit and straw. Throwing it down, I hope no one is watching, but quickly discover that people are the least of my worries. Something big and black emerges from behind a house across the path. Although a lot of things in the Amazonas are unreliable, the ratio of three hungry dogs to every resident is pretty consistent. ?In this particular locale, a massive Rotweiller-looking thing charges right at me. Having been in Peru for almost a year, I've gotten into this situation as often as I've endured ass-numbing bus rides, and experience has taught me well. I instinctively pick up a rock and hold it high and obvious. With one swift pivot, the dog retreats - opting not to deal with a panicky gringo. Deep, long, growling barks come from a distance, as I drop into yet another valley. ?Hunger and fatigue grip my legs and force me off the ancient trail. At about 2,200 metres, this valley is the lowest point I've been at all day. The sky remains gray, while low clouds blanket the distant peaks, making them seem like lifeless monoliths even though they've been yielding corn, root vegetables and spring water to farmers for centuries. A single beam of sun penetrates the cloud cover and illuminates the field of yellow ichu grass. The blades sway and radiate against the colourless background so brightly that they look plugged in. ?It has been almost three hours and I have not seen one person. A gust of wind carries my mind back to Machu Picchu and I wonder for all its tourists and for all its foreign investment if it was ever like this. How long did it take tourists there to start tipping children who are now being told by parents to forget school and start a career in begging from anything brandishing a camera and rolled-up socks? _________________________________________________________________ After a banana and carrot lunch, I pull out a plastic bag of coca leaves - the Andean walker's trail food for centuries. I place a handful of them deep in my mouth. An ox herder I had once met on a hike instructed me to chew the leaves into a wet, compressed wad. This, he said, allowed saliva to pass through the wad and numb the mouth, eliminating hunger and thirst for hours. Chewing coca leaf, the main ingredient in cocaine, also means energy. Nothing drastic, just an extended, hour-long buzz equal to three or four coffees. ?Since that first introduction, I've rarely chewed coca alone. The ox herder told me that the leaf works better in company. It always goes down smoother over great conversation. There's even a verb here that I haven't heard in the rest of Peru: cocear - literally, to coca. ?Recently, an American investor, eager to build a hotel in the area, successfully negotiated everything with a local work crew except the coca break. He said 10 minutes, they said 20. The shovels didn't break ground until this vital aspect of the contract was recognized by the employer. ?During coca breaks, workers sit and talk, green saliva packed with bits of shredded leaf passing through their teeth. Some use calleros, small decorated gourds containing ground limestone. A top with a steel stick is licked and used to collect the powder. The limestone is then placed deep within the coca wad and is the catalyst for a more intense buzz. Like a favourite stout, the taste is definitely an acquired one, but quickly appreciated. ?I savour the leaves with each chew, disappointed that I can't enjoy this ritual at home. It is illegal to bring the leaves out of Peru, even though they are grown here like corn and sugar cane, and consumed almost as much. There are many plantations in Amazonas that grow coca for export into Colombia to fuel the growing demand for cocaine. Although Colombia gets tagged with the cocaine reputation, Peru provides most of the raw coca leaves. ?The low clouds are threatening to do more than just block out the sun. And due to my delay in leaving Chachapoyas, I am several hours behind schedule, if a schedule even exists here. It's almost 5 p.m. and I'm at least two hours away from making the seven o'clock van in Luya. I decide to forget about the sarcophagi, and start thinking about where I'm going to sleep. Ultimately, I'm not too worried about it; I know from experience that a knock on a door and a look of sheer confusion is usually enough to get you a bed in these parts, no matter how small the village, and a potato and coca tea breakfast is all but guaranteed. But with just over an hour of daylight left, I take my chances at making the seven o'clock Chacha van in Luya. ?I pass a tiny stone house on my way back. I approach it in a desperate search for directions. An old couple dressed in black is sitting on the dirt floor eating guinea pig and a corn soup consisting of warm water and some kernels. Neither of them have any teeth and their bare feet look like beat-up leather shoes. The woman smiles a broad, open smile, spilling the unchewed corn in her mouth all over the floor. The man, who has been struggling to rise since the moment I walked in finally does and rubs my back in a gesture to sit. I shake his hand and can't believe how soft it is. The old woman catches me staring at her feet and stretches her legs out toward me, laughing and spitting out more corn. ?"Vieja y fea," she yells pointing in the direction of her feet. "Old and ugly." She then starts laughing and kicking, her long black dress catapulting what looks like a week's worth of dust and dried kernels across the damp, cold room. ?Their dog pays no attention to me and drinks out of a bowl cut from a piece of rock and decorated with zig-zag designs. The old man says his dog is lucky because he has such a nice bowl to drink out of. I ask where he got it and he points to a small hill crowned with the scattered rock remains of an ancient city. ?"Our bricks, too," he says, pointing to his walls, which consist of 40-kilo blocks which were precision cut to fit perfectly in their original ancient structure. ?The table rests on a carved feline head I had seen in explorer Gene Savoy's book. The old man passes me a guinea pig paw with little more than a tendon or two. The woman notices my prolonged staring at the dog bowl and says something to her husband. He goes out around the back, pulls something the size of a hockey bag from a decrepit wooden box and brings it inside. As he peels off layer after layer of animal hides, I realize that he's holding a mummy. ?"How much for this in your country gringito?" he asks, using the diminutive because he likes me. "Buy this from us and take it to your country, gringito." He quotes me a price of about $3. I look at the cross-legged mummy again. The skin is browned and cracked but barely decomposed. Brown and orange zig zags can be made out on the wrappings. The hands still have fingernails. Out of shock and naivité, I blurt out something about Peru needing to keep its native treasures in the country. ?I thank the couple for the meal and sprint down to Luya. Exhausted and sick of glancing at my watch, I curse how long it took the van to get going this morning. I roll into Luya at 7:30, half an hour late and dreading a night on a dirt floor or straw mattress. I decide to ask if there will be a late van tonight. "Late van, gringo?" asks a man munching on a fried plantain. "The seven o'clock hasn't arrived yet. Be patient, gringito, the collectivos are always delayed." Back to the Table of Contents [ top ] [USEMAP]