En la carretera

 

Quick stop for a pic near San Salvador, overlooking the Sacred Valley.

No, it wasn´t Jack Kerouac, but 24-year-old Rolf, a German in my spanish class, and I couldn´t pass up renting 250cc bikes from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. for $25.

Left from Cuzco southeast to Tipón, a set of ruins believed to have served as a summer home for Incan rulers, to Pikillaqta, a ancient town almost complete with ruins.

 

Pikillaqta had the base ruins of hundreds of homes, and parts, like this village pathway, were mostly intact. The village predates the Incas.

From Pikillaqta northeast to San Salvador, where a man´s figure appeared in a rock a couple hundred years ago. A church was built so that the El Senor de Huanca apparition bulges into the middle of the altar from the rockface.

From San Salvador to Pisác, with ruins on top of a mountain. Impressively high and steep.

Niños son niños

My first Tuesday in the afterschool program, we had the kids make masks. Here´s the finished product, en masse on the slide in the back.

They´re called los niños de las calles. They all have homes, to one degree or another, and at least one other person resides in the same place. Though not technically homeless, they´re only a step or two away. In the hours after school, they rely on a church program, two full-timers and a revolving door of volunteers to help them with their homework and give them an alternative to street life -- and going home.

The kids are kids, 7 to 12 years old, and just like any other kids anywhere in the world. They want to play. They want friendly, personal contact. They don´t want to be hungry. They want help with their homework, or with tying their shoes. They don´t want to be afraid.

That´s why they come to the afterschool program. We´re friendly, we provide assistence, we let them play -- without a sense of pain looming over them. We give them a little structure -- homework before games; no hitting; showers before dinner on dinner day.

A couple of new pals pile on for a picture. My mask, made the day after Peru tied Argentina in a World Cup match, had soccer balls on it and said, Estamos un equipo. We are a team.

Monday is a shortened day for the kids, as the staff meets to plan the week. Homework first, for those who have some. Then, we play games with the kids, like chess and checkers and little memory card games. We watch them in the little tiny patch in the back with a slide and momkey bars and rocks -- not gravel, but fist-sized rocks, covering the ground.

Tuesday, homework first, then some games. Then we made the masks. We tried to encourage creativity and expression.

Wednesday, we played Bingo. Whenever a kid won (and every kid did, eventually), I would yell Biiiiiiinnnnnggggggooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo like the South American soccer announcers yell goooooooooooooal after every goal. The kids loved it. After I won and got my candy prize, I ran around the middle of the room lifting my sweatshirt over my head and yelling like the players do.

I can`t imagine the diet these kids maintain at home, but judging by the reaction to the French toast, it doesn`t include butter and maple.

Thursday is shower day, because none of these kids have any hot water at home, and most of them do not have a shower or bathtub. Just a sink with cold water. All of the kids are dirty when they show up between 2:30 and 3 p.m. Some more so than others.

Thursday also is usually the least-attended day of the week. One day each week usually was some kind of dinner day. So, I had the great idea of putting the two together, and letting the kids know that they had to take a shower, in hot water, with soap and a towel, before getting dinner.

We gave showers to 20 kids, close to if not a record, according to the staff.

El gringo loco, who takes one helluva photo, mans the stove. Ray, a Brit, was the butter man and Jill, a Scot, doled out the finished toast.

I then cooked French toast for about 40 kids (we were running out of time and had to halt the showers). They never saw anything like it and never tasted anything like maple syrup. About 8 little girls, 7-10 years old, were killing themselves trying to help me. They were desperate to help. It`s weird ... they get so little at home, anything they get from us is special. It`s really sad, but still, they´re kids, and they don´t know any better and they don´t care, and they´re funny.

The boys were, surprise, the more energetic on Friday, park day.

Friday was park day. A little soccer, a lot of spinning kids on the carousels, pushing kids on swings. The park charges 50 centimos to get in, about 17 cents, and most of the kids never go unless it`s with the school. They can´t afford to.

The kids call the volunteers profesor, or profesora, or -- more informally, profi. Friday, there were about nine kids playing with us the whole time and calling me profi whom I later realized were not with our school program. It`s a poor neighborhood, and all the kids want.

Girls will be girls, hey? They prefer portraits to action shots.

The girls tend to be a little more possessive of the staff. One of them will grab your hand and hold it for half an hour. They´ll try to dominate your time, making you play the same game over and over. The boys are more hit and run. They`re all nice. They`re all desperate, without knowing it, for attention and love. Many have rotted teeth. Most have one pair of shoes. Many will drop out of school solely because they can´t afford the school uniform.

Next door to the school is a cantina. And next door to that and next door to that. They`re just 15 by 15 foot rooms with picnic tables. They serve chicha, a type of corn beer fermented in the back rooms. At 6 p.m. on my first day at the school, a Monday, the three cantinas were packed, with 20-30 people in each. Before walking 100 meters, I passed four places where men had urinated on the sidewalk in the very recent past. At 6 p.m. on a Monday.

These kids have incredible obstacles facing them, and, in the land of family, ironically family is their biggest hurdle.

Mi familia

All native Cuzqueñans, Cesar, Belinda and son Cesar Jr., known as Cesito.

This is the middle-class fam that drew the short straw and got moi as a houseguest for six weeks. Belinda runs the show, pretty much hustling everybody to do their thing with the least fuss and mess, cooking all the meals and organizing the house.

Cesar works in tourism, picking up tourists at the airport or train station, driving them around and acting as a tour guide. What a surprise: Cesar worked in the Cuzqueña brewery for 15 years or so before he got into the tourism gig.

Cesito is 16, a violinist and student in a colegio, which is really just high school. He´s also a part of the 38-member Cuzco symphony orchestra. Even though the town is 300,000 people, the orchestra remains small because so many of the residents are poor.

The family has two daughters, both older than Cesito. One´s una profesora, or primary school teacher, and the other works in a hotel in Macchu Picchu. The hotel is apparently upscale, as the cheapest room they have is $600 a night.

Hmmmm ... the house I´m staying in is smack next door to a Masonic temple.
The house has four bedrooms, though one was added, likely for paying houseguests to bump up their income.

None of the bathroom sinks in this country have hot water. As a matter of fact, most have only the one cold-water tap.

One of the more "interesting" ways of life here concerns the toilets. No one flushes toilet paper. Ever. No where. Not for any reason. You dispose of used toilet paper in a wastecan. Always. Siempre. The pipes, I´m told, are small and old and won´t take the stress. I also suspect most places are on a septic system. Anyway, the result is surprisingly unnoticeable.

What is it with people and dogs? Four-syllable Chocolate, some kind of Pekingese, has never eaten dog food. People food all the way. And he has the run of the house.

The shower works well, with a natural gas box heating the water as it´s used. There isn´t a hot-water heater as we know it.

Many of the houses in the area are behind walls, which is a security thing. Most every house in a middle-income area has fencing around it of some sort. Many, though, are of wrought-iron, and look pretty nice.

Las salineras de Maras

Half an hour drive from Cuzco is the town of Maras and its salt mines.

Toured the salineras de Maras on Saturday, a salt-producing "facility" on the side of a mountain in the Sacred Valley of the Incas.

A small stream trickles from a well at the base of a nevada, out into a gorge -- which just happens to have a huge salt mine underneath. At least 600 years ago, locals found that the water from the mountain flowed steadily, providing a cheap means for extraction of salt.

The mountain stream that is the sole source of water for all the salt "paddies" seen above runs through the bottom left of this pic. That´s it -- a stream about a foot wide and 4 inches deep.

The salt is hauled up and spread out over hundreds of small plots that most resemble rice paddies. Each paddie is about 4 inches deep, with the salt about two inches thick, as is the water. The water from the one stream is spread irrigation-like to all the paddies. With the incessant sun up here, about 2 miles above sea level, evaporation is constant.

The locals check the water levels constantly. Small rocks are placed, or removed, from the rivlet of water running into each paddie, depending on its need.

According to the locals, salt was used to trade with other tribes for yucca, meat, animals, whatever. Everyone used salt, so they had a viable commodity that still brings in revenue today.

One of the old women seen here spent a half hour berating a young male worker for not working hard and steady enough. The matriarchs down here are pretty tough.

Your ballroom days are over, Cuzco

El gringo loco towers over the Cuzco cityscape, more than two miles above sea level.

One of the first orders of business after seizing a new town is to build a special platform from which to admire your spoils.

Cuzco platform? Check.

Next order of business is the Sacred Valley of the Incas.

This perspective taken from a mountainside highway several hundred feet above Pisaq, about an hour´s drive east of Cuzco.

In the expanded view, you get a glimpse of snow-covered mountains in the middle, rear. The surrounding mountains, just about permanently without snow, are montañas. Mountains with snow are nevadas.

Just thinking about where to put that platform.

Anglo tourists are easy

They´re young, as young as seven. They´re cute. They know how to charm with a smile. They´re also cold-blooded merchants looking to make a buck.

Cuzco, regarded as the navel of the Incan world, wraps itself around the Plaza de Armas. Ancient churches and restaurants featuring nouvelle cuisine square off across the plaza, both diminished by the magnificence of the mountains surrounding all.

This otherworldly playing field pits monied Anglos from around the world against the hungry, the desperate, the poor. Oddsmakers stay clear of this clash of the titans.

The top play in the locals´ playbook is the pose for a picture. "Un sol." The Peruano currency, about 33 cents.

The tourists arrive, most knowing 12 words of Spanish, thinking it´s sufficient, with pockets full of cash and the knowledge that they´re leaving in a week or 10 days. Some will hand out sole coins easily, knowing it´s only 33 cents and thus, for the conscience salve it buys, it´s a bargain. Others come armed with more of an offensive strategy, planning to wring bargains out of the locals.

The locals, however, have been here, and will be here, and have lived through all the tricks and tactics of the visitors. And forewarned is forearmed. Thus, they have many approaches and plays in their arsenal.

The soft sell takes place ironically on the steps of a 500-year-old church, which was built with funds obtained through the fire-and-brimstone approach.

The soft sell features a local who moseys up to a couple, tries ineptly to sell something and fails. Resigned to his fate, he begins a little chat, expressing genuine interest in where the turistas are from. Once they´re fattened on friendship, the local then offers a tour or something similar, and soon let´s them know his time is money. They´ve talked while his meter was running. Cash up folks, or feel uncomfortable. Most knock him a sole or two before jetting off.

Some locals rely on the old Model T approach. Make a lot, sell them cheaply and quickly, and you´ll make money.

Many of the locals, especially the older ones, slowly mill through crowds saying things in Spanish most people don´t understand. They´re just pitching their little knick-knacks. Little Incan hats, smaller hats for dolls, whistles, etc. They throw out the price for the little things -- most everything cheap here is un sole -- and they get their share of business without working too hard.

CORNERED -- the nightmare of the innocent, but ignorant, turista.

These folks resemble a swimmer with a bloody injury in the ocean. The sharks smell em from a mile away.

It looks scary, and I´m sure it is, but the locals aren´t stupid. Foreign currency has become the lifeblood of many people here, and they generally seem to respect the need for restraint. During the daylight hours, there really isn´t a lot to worry about in populated areas. There are some pickpockets and other minor thieves, as in every city in the world, but during the day they´re relegated to the fringes of daily life.

In many instances, someone pulls out a sole and suddenly three other vendors are within 10 feet. But again, they´re generally restrained. Occasionally, as with the people above, a couple of vendors get a little zealous. But I believe most cases end as the case with these folks did -- short a few dollars more than they expected, and I mean a few, as in four or five -- but otherwise unscathed. Nearly every tourist here is taller than most any local, which helps in getting out of a sticky situation.

The refined approach entails better dress and speech, and generally also means the product is of higher quality and costs a little more.

When the cost is a little higher, the approach dresses up. Some selling upscale little paintings or post cards dress well and speak 10 words of 10 different languages. Enough to close a sale. Some of these little items cost 5 soles, about a dollar and 66 cents. Sometimes the product is art -- drawings of Incan sites or indigenous kids or old folks. The vendors generally dress the part, as starving artists, which has its appeal for some.

 

The cute little girl approach is hard to say no to.

Plenty of kids working down here. Plenty. Hustling hard. A very nice girl the other day hit on me, trying to sell finger-puppet things. She was still wearing her school uniform, complete with backpack, and asked me to buy one. "Pleeze sir. Mi mommy needs me." She even sat down on the bench next to me, closer than any American kid would sit next to a stranger. School had been out for less than 15 minutes and this kid went straight into action, straight from the classroom to the retail field. Hard to say no to, unless you´re a hardened journalist who doesn´t dabble in pay to play reporting.

Many locals, the rural folk in particular, don the traditional attire and empower their arsenals with animals. Check the enlarged view -- he´s got his hand in his pocket, and she´s got her eyes on his hand -- all the while with her hand out.

The campesinos, the rural folk who really seem to border on the peasant life we´ve only read about in regards to the French Revolution, work the hardest. Probably because they live the hardest. They´re the first in place, and the last to leave. They bring llamas, lambs, mules and horses with them, depending on their location.

They dress in colors and designs that tell of their place and family, much like plaids in Scotland and, to a lesser extent, Ireland. Many also speak Quechua, the ancient language that pre-existed the Incan peoples. Just about all of their stuff is cheap, one to three soles, with a few 10 sole items thrown in.

Occassionally, you get the boisterous, amusing salesman who finds it tougher to take no for an answer. But he will, eventually, especially if you get up and leave.

It´s a tough life, and I´m sure in many cases it stokes hard feelings on the locals´ part. But they keep coming back, because they have to. And the tourists keep coming, because they can. Which means the daily joust between need and desire will go on.

Old music, old church

Attended a Suzuki school concert in a 500-year-old church last week, and no, the roof didn´t fall in when I entered.

Public schools down here don´t teach music -- that must have been a hell of a tax-vote battle. So, any families that want their kids to learn music send them to a private teacher or school.

The 15-year-old son of the family I´m staying with has been in his Suzuki school for six or seven years. He´s the boy with classes in the middle of the picture above. Some of the students have been in longer. They put on a semi-annual concert involving a cello, played by the unofficial conductor of the group, a piano accompanist and several violins.

The concert was held in the Iglesia de San Blas, iglesia being Spanish for church and San Blas a ritzy neighborhood. The music was classical, and sounded no different than any of the high school or college orchestras I´ve heard, once the introductions were over and the music began. Two people even clapped during the lull between the first and second movements in the first piece -- a mistake often heard in U.S. concerts.

The wall behind the altar in Iglesia de San Blas is at least three stories tall.

The church is known for three things: 1) it´s very old, 2) the wall behind the altar, about three-stories tall, is mostly gold plated and has many little vignettes depicting Biblical individuals, as well as at least a couple of popes, but I couldn´t get close enough to tell.

The third thing, not pictured, is a pulpit, added to the side wall some years after the church was opened and rebuilt by a mid-1600s earthquake. The pulpit is wood, and incredibly detailed. Apparently, it has international standing as unique, valuable and incredibly artistic in its craftsmanship.

This church also is known locally as one of several that are super hardass on banning photographs inside. Instead, they make dough selling pics they´ve taken. I got lucky because by going with mom, dad and grandma to watch sonny boy, we were on off-peak hours and security didn´t mind photos -- they just asked we not use a flash.

So, except for the fact that we were in a church more than twice as old as the U.S., everything about this school concert was the same as in the U.S., except that they didn´t go for ice cream after.

¡Huelga!

The traffic circle at my school at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, amid a citywide work stoppage.

The same vantage point 24 hours later, when things were back to normal.

Sure enough, less than a week in Cusco and a work stoppage just about paralyzes the town. The Friday before I arrived, high school and college students protested over an increase in bus fares. Tuesday it was the bus drivers´ turn. If fares are going up, they want a piece of the action. Tuesday wasn´t technically a "huelga," or strike, but it was close.

The bus drivers, however, made the students look lame, because the bus drivers union got all the other unions to join their 24-hour work stoppage. And the whole town just about shut down. The vast majority of cars over here are taxis, and while I don´t believe most taxi drivers are in a union, it was clear the unionists didn´t want the taxis plying their trade during a work stoppage.

Rows of rocks deterred taxis from working during the stoppage, and also provided handy ammo for unionists when a taxi did drive through.

Unionists gathered at corners and harrassed anyone who drove by, including the few private cars in town. They yelled, blocked the road with rocks, whistled, jeered and tossed a few stones here and there, but no major damage was reported. Banks, post office and cops were all on duty -- just about everything else was shut down. Even little shops that sell snacks, if they dared to open, kept their doors only slightly open, hoping to avoid the wrath of unionistas. This action was simply a shot across the bow -- a warning that things could get ugly if the unions were pressed.

They like their statues big over here, and they like their work stoppages widespread. The places with roadwork going on had ample supplies of car-slowing material handy.

Many people could not work for a day, and secondary school students, who generally travel to class by bus, had the day off. People acted like it was a holiday, playing and walking in the streets with little concern -- opposed to most days, when it´s a dodge with death just getting across a street. I saw four volleyball games in the street Tuesday, and only two of the had a net.

In a significantly poor place, with unionism now on the upswing, anti-capitalist sentiment is widespread. This states that capitalism doesn´t discuss, it destroys.

Viaje a Cuzco

Majestic mounts my mind when mountains come to view. Note the phalanx of bikers on the bottom right of the expanded view.

Four hours supposedly gets one from Abancay to Cuzco on an express bus. This Saturday, however, the express was slowed a little by a careening car that couldn't cut it on the second switchback we come upon coming out of Abancay.

Sure enough, a dude in a little Toyota hit us on the driver's side right behind the front wheel. The bus suffered less visible damage than the compact, and the delay only added half an hour. That´s the good news. The bad news is that the driver tried to make it up in the mountains. Passing trucks on curves. Ay carumba.


This is my window, with a AA battery in place for perspective, on the four-hour ride to Cuzco.

Thought I was getting a break when I bought my ticket for the trip, days in advance. They let you pick your seat. On the coach bus from Nazca to Abancay, the seats were all on the second floor, with the front four seats getting their own big front windshield, above the driver. On the first floor were the driver, baggage, freight and motor. So, in Abancay, I was one of the first to get a ticket, and picked the front right window.

Different bus. Different view.

This bus puts everybody on the same level, with the front row seats behind the driver´s compartment, complete with curtain blocking any front-window view. There was a larger window on the side, but it was covered with a black screen, as around some rear-view mirrors. So, the little window pictured was all I got for four hours. Mountains, little villages, a steer in the middle of the state highway. Steep cliffs. All kinds of stuff. Could I get a picture? Ha. Frustration? I leave it to your fertile imaginations.

The steeple of a 400-year-old church towers over the rooftops of Cuzco, striving for theological dominance with the surrounding mountains.

Initial impressions of Cuzco involve mountains, incredible altitude -- 10,800 feet above sea level, in the middle of the city -- heavy traffic in the city center, and a blatant tourism industry. Most of what I read about Cuzco painted a picture of modernity running into history everywhere you go here, creating a sweetness and light that will satisfy the most intrepid traveler.

What you really get is a life-and-death, yin and yang, Celtic-snake, love-hate struggle between desperate poverty and plush, ripe tourists.

The tourists are everywhere. Mostly white, largely European. There are parts of Cuzco where you can walk for a full block or two and see no one else but anglos. It´s bizarre. Loads of punk kids with super cool dreadlocks. Loads of ignoramuses besotted with cash. Cameras everywhere.

This alley was once an Incan street, now mostly redone but in the same place and dimensions as the the original, in the swanky San Blas part of Cuzco.

It´s really weird. There are native Indians, descendants of Incan and other tribes, many of whom speak Quechua, a language which predates the Incas. They dress in colorful, tribal clothes. They are obviously poor and sell anything. One old lady trots a llama in every day, and you best not take a pic of them without paying. She WILL kick your ass.

Kids as young as 8 besiege you, flogging paintings, sculptures, jewelry, pottery, postcards, fruit. You name it. Shoe shine boys in broken English, pleeze meester -- for my deener. Touts outside of restaurants, trying to steer you in. Everywhere you go in the city center, a hand is out. This is four times worse than anyplace I´ve seen in Chicago, New York, Washington, Dublin.

The natives put a good face on it, as they love the money but hate the rich folk they have to pry it from. The tourists don´t put as good a face on it, as they think it´s cute that an 8-year-old boy is shining their shoes but wish he didn´t smell so bad, and often say so out loud.

The hardest part to swallow is the vast numbers of well-off folks enjoying their wealth among so many poor folk. It wouldn´t really be that different if you put 10,000 tourists and a dozen swank hotels, a few upscale shops and a french restaurant smack in the middle of East St. Louis, the west side of Chicago, South Central L.A., Ballymun in Dublin.

Next: Meet mi familia.