Spent a weekend in Paucartambo, a five-hour bus ride on rocky dirt roads through the mountains. Not much to the town, except for a festival in the summer when the people all wear crazy costumes and celebrate some Incan thing. The rest of the year, life seems to revolve around the river.
Unlike Cuzco and the other towns I{ve seen, many gates and courtyard doors were left open in Paucartambo, and you could catch a glimpse of the inside. Sometimes, some things are better left behind closed doors.
Dirt courtyards were the center of the housing complexes, many with goats or chickens. People cooked in big pots on wood fires in the courtyards, and hung meat out to dry on clotheslines. They said that after five days, the meat would keep for a month.
One old boy, very drunk with a mouthful of coca leaves -- which they use to stave off hunger pains more than anything else -- serenaded me through town in Quechan, a very old, indigenous language, to many a laugh from the locals. The more they laughed, the more excited he got.
Finally, on the bridge in the middle of town, I turned around and said, "No mas, Waiky" -- and his eyes bulged and he coughed out a wad of gooey coca. No mas, of course, means no more in Español, and waiky is Quechan for brother. He must have thought for a moment that I understood more, and I took the opportunity to move on down the road.
As for the food? Didn´t eat much. Not only did people up the length of the town wash their clothes in the river, as above, but I saw at least 50 people carrying five gallon buckets of water from the river to their home -- and a couple of small restaurants.
Most houses are not on any kind of sewer system, and the people use the water straight from the river. Que sera, sera.
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