Photos from Lake Titicaca

Andagua day 3

In the church

Sunday while waiting for breakfast, Salvador took me to see an ancient chapel on the outskirts of the town, part adobe, part stone. Breakfast was more rice and potatoes and a cup of sweetened milk from the family cows. Walking around town to buy my return ticket, I was twice greeted by older senoras who seemed really glad to see me. One shook my hand excitedly and the other gave me a big hug. I couldn't make out there Spanish and can only guess their thoughts. The first day I had intervened when I saw a 10 year old boy harassing a much younger boy who was crying and trying to protect himself. Maybe the women were his grandmothers. Another possibility is my resemblance to the godhead in the church. I asked Julisa if she had heard any stories but no. I guess I'll never know for sure.

The sheep in the yard began to be more restless after 2:00 in the afternoon and became more difficult to keep in the area allotted to them, there being no fence between their area and the rest of the yard. Julisa's grandmother did what she could with he 6' stick and I waved my arms. Then about an hour before my bus was to leave Julisa left the gate to the street open on her way out. I thought it was a mistake and rushed to close it but the time had come to lead the small flock to pasture 20 minutes away for their 2 hour daily meal. Dog in tow we followed behind as they went straight to there destination. Where before they had been nibbling for scraps in the bare yard, now they didn?t give a glance at weeds along the way. We left them with the dog on the grassy terraces where the milk cows stayed all day and all night.

The bus ride back started an hour before dark so I did get to see some of the scenery I missed on the way in. Again there were the reverses to get around the corners and in one place a truck had broken down. Lost a wheel, luckily on the mountain side of the vehicle, but we had to squeeze by with no room to spare as evidenced by it taking 5 heart stopping minutes to accomplish. Seemed like they might have emptied the bus first! We stopped for 20 minutes at the first village on the other side of the mountain for the toilet and a bite to eat. I asked a young girl what she was selling (que vendes) but she seemed struck dumb until the older girls next to her helped her find her voice. She had small bags of cinnamon cookies which I bought for the ride. The bus continued down more hairpin turns eventually to the plains below. I kept wondering what would happen if an earthquake should happen on the trip. If we were on the top of the mountain we were sure to roll down and if at the bottom the mountain would roll down on us!

I had to think what the cost benefit of the road really was Did it inspire the people of Andagua and the other villages it serviced to seek their fortune in the big cities? Did it allow tourists to bring more money into the village economy and help people to feel life in Andagua was more attractive? There are still many villages beyond the road where mules etc. are the only means of transport. Of course the ones I visited in Colca Canyon were on the adventure tourist circuit and received an influx of cash. 5 0f 25 families in San Juan de Cucha had guest accommodations of sorts and the light poles were in place for electricity, expected earl in 2006 for the string of villages at the bottom of the canyon. People have lived for millennium in a world where all the materials and energy for life had to be gathered close at hand and elaborated into the necessities of life with a surfeit for some trade. In the "modern world" each person holds a fragment of knowledge and most hold little or none of the parts fundamental to the foundation of life, production of food. These people of the margins hold the seed of human existence. They see food, clothing, and shelter production through from start to finish and with time and energy left over to elaborate (or embroider) a unique culture.

Andagua day 2

Andagua 2

The next day, Julisa’s 15 year old brother Salvador led me on the family mule on a 6 hour tour of the countryside south of town. The mule was in no way stubborn aside from pausing to chomp off a branch or 2 from the course shrubby plants here and there. He would walk along eating the tips sort of like someone eating spaghetti by nipping of the end in his mouth while holding the rest between his lips. One mouth full could satisfy him for 10 minutes sometimes. We took a side trip to a deep crater, “Crater del Volcan Canilla Mauras” through a breach on one side to look at the walled center, apparently a ceremonial place still being maintained by the people of the area. The short cut back to the road was too steep to stay in the mule so I walked down the 100 yards behind. The area around was dry desert with 8’ cactus here and there and scrubby compositeaes 3’ tall in low areas which may have heal more moisture. Extensive areas of volcanic rock and scoria gave a bleak and harsh feel until we came to the tiny town of Sopoto where Julisa’s grandfather lived. Irrigated terraces again filled the landscape but there was evidence of terraces with insufficient water for irrigation reverting to desert. The school sported a satellite dish and photovoltaic array for internet instruction. Salvador introduced me to his grandfather who at age 76 was bright eyed and quite interested in talking with his visitor from the US. He had been a bullfighter and although he could use both hands, his left arm was crippled from a mishap in the ring. I shared some mandarins bought before coming to Andagua and as Salvador had brought his grandfather some of the birthday cake, and that was shared in return. A portable radio crackled in the background and I noticed it had a wire antenna wrapped around it. Asking if I could experiment, I unwound the wire and attached it above bringing in a clear signal. This made the grandfather quite happy and we had more cake.
Before leaving grandfather posed on the mule for his grandson’s camera and I got a photo of them both. We headed down through the terraces and across more bleak rock strewn terrain to the base of a small 500’ volcano with steep sides and I cringed at the idea of climbing it after the previous day’s breathless walk up much gentler slopes but the coca tea must have had it’s effect as I made it up with only moderate struggle. The near perfect cone was crowned with a near perfect crater 100 yds. across and 200’ deep. A panoramic view of the valley of the volcanoes and the larger mountains around was the reward for the climb. I shared my bread and cheese as well as the rest of the avocado with Salvador and we made a game of getting back down the cone sliding on the scoria while avoiding the calf high cactus along the zigzag path back to the mule. On the way back I got to hold the reigns most of the way though the mule made most of the decisions as to the exact route.

I had moved my gear to Julisa’s Parent’s house for the last night. The spare room, was actually a storage room in one of the 3 adobe buildings that made up the family compound The small yard was shared with half a dozen chickens, a dozen sheep, a burro, mule, and horse shared the area enclosed, plus a sow and 2 piglets in a walled enclosure. Diner was prepared in a separate kitchen room over an open fire the smoke drifting out the front door. At seated level the smoke was fairly tolerable and I sat in the stream of air coming in the window. I imagine if the roof ad still been Thatch, more less of the smoke would have been trapped inside. There was rice, potatoes with a really tasty tomato etc. glaze, chicken and as a special treat a guinea pig. After dinner there was white whiskey for Julisa’s father and me. A little sweet and with I think a relative of absinthe for flavor. Probably 80% alcohol, we had only an ounce each but it definitely had a warming effect. Julisa took me to the main church, very plain on the outside (compared to the topiaries close by) but with several beautiful sculptures and an incredible rococo alter piece with smaller versions of Bernini’s (?) spiral columns, all gilt except for the carving of the head of god which bore a remarkable similarity to my own grey bearded face!

Andagua day 1

Andagua 1

I was traveling with a young woman who was one of the main staff persons at my hostel in Arequipa. Julisa was returning to spend the weekend with her parents and to celebrate her mother's 40th birthday. She would be in part guide and advisor in my time in Andagua. To begin with she set me up in a hostel for the rest of the night. After a few hours sleep Julisa met me for a hike outside the village through the terraces to an overlook of a 300’ waterfall. There must have been old lava tubes at the top of the falls as water came out not only the main channel, but at several places along a horizontal seam to the side. Having gotten used to the thin air of Chivay, I was surprised to be so out of breath in an area 1,200’ lower. Then I remembered I hadn’t had coca tea for a couple of days (and missed breakfast.) Managed to get back to the hostel and locked the key in the room while using the bathroom so had to find the attendant. Luckily I had seen him working on a project on the way out of town for the walk. There were a dozen or so men digging up several hundred yards of side streets by hand for I’m guessing for water and sewer. He was quite perturbed to have to interrupt his work to find me a spare key but seemed satisfied when I apologized and gave him 2 Sol (about 66 cents) for his trouble. Made a couple of cheese and avocado sandwiches (the avocado I had gotten 2 weeks earlier in Colca Canyon was finally ripe.) Then, having found there was no place to make tea at the hostel, I went back to the store where I had bought the bread and the woman in charge boiled water for me and lent me a cup to make some coca tea them refused any money for the favor! There were at least 6 tiny stores around the plaza, and more on the side streets for a town of maybe 500 people. Usually about 200 square feet and very basic, but they seemed happy to do extra favors one would never ask at the local convenience store. After a brief rest, I went to take photos around the plaza. Some one had spent years creating a couple dozen topiary sculptures around a big cement fountain (no water while I was there.) There is an assortment of people and animals and some figures I just couldn’t figure out. Defiantly a world away from Versailles. Most of the houses of Andagua retain the thatched roof once universal in the towns of the Andes. Metal roofs almost universal in Chivay are rare here. Nearly 1/3 of the houses were empty, many with no roofs remaining and others in various stages of decay. Again the move to the city was apparent yet there were signs of new construction taking place here and there. In one case one of the older town buildings was being dismantled, the rock being reused to rebuild on a near by site. And as I mentioned a major ditch digging project was going on some side streets. It was a bit surreal seeing light posts in neat rows running down streets with 1/2 the houses abandoned.

A group of teen and twentyish people were setting up a volley ball court on one side of the square, tied between 2 lamp posts on opposite sides of the main street, the street being the court. Noticing the sides were un even I asked if I could join in and was welcomed as part of the team. There are basically no cars in Andagua, or pickup trucks for that mater. Foot travel, burros, mules and a few horses are the local transport. We did have to pull down the net for a minute to let an evening bus go through but otherwise the street was ours to use. We plated for a 2 liter bottle of soda. With 6 to a side, that meant a sol apiece for the losers. I ordered a cup of coca tea from a restaurant/store next to the ?court? to help with the altitude. I gave the owner a Sol and she held the 30 centimos as a deposit for the cup. Unfortunately my side lost both games but it was still only one bottle of soda and when I went in to the store where the winners gathered to share their prize, I was given a cup even though I was on the loosing team.

Andagua the road to the past (future?)
Andagua, how do I describe my 3 days in this town on the crossroads of existence? One can set things in motion which half way through begin to seem a mistake. Yet after all, when calculating the challenges against moments connected in some deeper way beyond the normal commerce of human interaction, the equation collapses. I chose to go to Andagua to see a more remote town, in the "Valley of Volcanoes," near a trout stream, and a reputation for being tranquil. What I found was both more and less.

The road to Andagua starts off well enough. The Pan American Highway leaves Arequipa in good condition and as far as the surface is concerned remains a fine road, with a few curves thrown in. The scenery is grand. Desert with irrigated terraces, every field is walled and terraced, whether 100 yards wide of only 20'. Fields we would never bother to level either because they were already tolerably flat to begin with of too steep to bother with, are here all terraced. Water being at a premium, slope is extremely critical to allow the water to soak in father than run off. Yet it is hard to justify the time and effort spent in the narrow terraces with 6' walls and 12' of surface. In the time before the conquest they may have served a different economy as indeed today some of these narrow fields have been left to the gradual decline of time, untended. Yet, their crumbling state points out the time spent in maintaining those that remain in cultivation.

After about 4 hours of good road, the climb over the shoulder of Nevada Coropuno, 21,000' at its summit. Starting at about 2,000' the road changes to gravel more or less, and climbs to 16,500' before descending to 10.500' at Andagua. What would be 45 miles in a straight line is a 6 hour mission improbable. By now it is night and though a gibbous moon is some help in appreciating some of the landscape, most of the landscape is out of sight, though to some degree inferred. Switch back after switchback, the road almost parallel with itself most of the way the bus climbs the mountain. At first there a few scattered towns cut into narrow valleys, surrounded with terraces. I note fig leaves in passing. Higher up the villages give out and the real climb begins. Several times the bus has to back up to get around the corner. Quite nerve racking as you might imagine though only slightly more so than the corners the bus squeezes around without backing up! One isn’t sure even the driver knows how close the wheel is to the edge. Across the wide flattish shoulder of the mountain there is a half hour of relatively relaxed travel, the white snowfields of the massif drifting in the distance as the bus turns left and right. Again on the decent there are several times the bus has to reverse to make the corners and many more time one might wish the driver had. It's 3 AM when we pull in to the Plaza of Andagua

Yanque

The last day before leaving Chivay I took a van to Yanque 20 minutes west along the south bank of the river. I had been told of an interesting garden at a hotel there. Assuming it being a small village it would be easy to find this garden, I asked at an art gallery on the plaza but the artist had only a guess and it turned out to be a wild goose chase. The village was small but the associated area was large. The hotel I got to after a 10 minute taxi and a 10 minute walk wasn't the one so I wandered back in the direction of town. I did find a very unusual prickly Orange flower on a prickly vine, A woman spinning alpaca yarn as she walked along and a group of men hauling 100 lb. loads of firewood 200' down a steep winding trail and a hot spring. But the day was too hot and the road back to town too steep and long for a bath at that point.

The next day I boarded a bus bound for Arequipa. As it stopped at Pata Pampa, I waved out the window at my fellow strandees. I thought they might look up and give me a little wave but no. All the artisanas grinned and waved ecstatically and the younger of the teenage girls ran towards the bus waving and chattering greetings. I aws sad to have to leave without stopping but the bus wouldn't wait.

Chivay area day 4-5
Wednesday morning, I went to the local high school to talk to the Science teacher about the plants I was seeing. I thought that my photos might be of interest to the school and I might find out some of the names and families. There were a wide variety of interesting house plants showing the variety of plant types and various adaptations but no native plants and besides the llareta, cactus, and lupine he was not familiar with them either. The lab was nicely arranged, with tiled stations each with a sink. Among the teaching aids was a pre Incan mummy of a 7 or 8 year old child in fetal pose from a local tomb. There was no shroud and I would guess the tomb had been looted before the school acquired him or her. As the Science teacher had no English and my Spanish is very basic, there was a lot we couldn’t communicate, although scientific names were universal, if pronounced differently. He offered me the chance to return the next day when the English teacher would be back.

I got a bus ride 1/2 an hour towards Pata Pampa to a wetland area called Japo, only 2 houses. My main reason for going there was to see  a bofedal close up. These wet areas occur in many places in the Andes on gentle slopes where springs supply a steady source of water. They are important grazing areas for the alpacas, llamas, and in wilder areas Vicuñas and Guanacos. The main plant is a kind of sedge about an inch high with stiff leaves in a line (comb sedge) which builds low mounds a yard or so wide and 6-8" high, the plants themselves only 1/2 inch. These mounds are very resilient, the tips of the leaves topped with a tough callus and one can walk on them without getting wet. Amidst the sedge (probably Oreobolus species) are other minute plants I am still seeking to identify. There were a couple of the standard adobe houses at the edge of the road and a couple with a toddler, were watching their herd of llamas and alpacas grazing in the sun. I followed the flow of water until it became a stream at which point a path led to a short section of well made stone paved road 6´wide and 60´long, although the 2´stone wall on the low side ran for a couple hundred feet. I felt sure it was the remains of an Incan road no longer used except for the llamas and their herders. The walk back to town was interesting. Most of the time, I found shortcuts between the long zigzags of the highway. Several species of cactus from mat forming to 6´tall were scattered along the mountainside. In one place some creature had made a soccer ball sized nest of branched thorns. What ever it was must have scavenged a large area as the only plant with such thorns was widely scattered. That night was the night I returned to the hot spring with my armed guard. We spent 3 hours in the 30 x 50´ main pool outside. There were people from around the world as well as Peruvians there. I managed to surprise everyone including myself by swimming the length of the pool underwater. Maybe the weight of the water counteracted the low oxygen pressure, at any rate, I felt thoroughly refreshed.

Pata Pampa

Pata Pampa

Monday I became more adventurous and took a bus at 9:30 AM up to the altiplano at 17,500+ feet to an area called Pata Pampa. There is a renowned view of 4 of the largest volcanoes Ampato, Sabancaya, el Misti, and Chachani west and south. Tourist busses stop here for the view and Local art venders all dressed in the embroidered skirt, blouse, vest, jacket and hat renowned in Colca Canyon spread their wares along a stone wall to sell. I wandered off to look for plants in an old crater near by and was rewarded with several interesting finds. The main plant much in evidence is the llareta. A solid green mass often multi humped and growing out of bare rock. All the guide books describe it as a moss but a little research turned up its true identity as an umbeliferae (relative to the carrot)They are composed of tightly packed 1/4" rosettes of leaved solid enough to stand on (if you don’t care about bruising the leaves) and sometimes used for firewood. Ground hugging cactuses were common and in brilliant bloom. Mat forming plants, not as lumpy as llareta were common but not blooming so identification was not possible but I did find a few minute flowers tucked against rocks, one possibly a Portulaceae, and the other a Gentianaceae. A couple of Compositeae were obvious. One I am sure is a celimisea with relatives in New Zealand, the other still to be determined. Walking was a matter of moving slowly and deliberately at least when going up hill. Down hill was no problem and in fact was deceptively easy. But given a slight incline up and I immediately was made aware of my breathing and heart rate. I intended to get a return bus at 2:30 PM but that buss and the 3:45, and the next couple of tourist busses were totally full. I waited in the shelter of a stone wall happily in a warm sun and gradually more and more of the venders (all women or girls) joined me between tourist groups. after 4:00 I was tucked under my space blanket with 2 teenagers One 3 months pregnant, pinching the blanket against the wind, her knee against mine. At 5:15 we heard a bus coming and stood in the road to stop it. The driver reluctantly let the youngest children, a couple of teenage siblings, and me aboard. The 3 women who stayed behind for the 7:00 bus insisted I go and I didn’t resist though I left them my blanket.

Callalli

Callalli
Sunday, after an easy morning hanging around the town plaza and talking with the tourist police in the morning, I took a local van to a town an hour away named Callalli(pronounced Cayayi with a hint of l mixed with the ys) a bit tough for a gringo. This was my first experience of how many people can fit in a regular sized van. I couldn’t count the seats but in counting heads there were 22 people in at one time. Luckily 3 were small children. Needless to say I didn’t see much of the scenery, facing backward behind the front seat in the middle, but I had a nice conversation with the man next to me mostly about how Big Pine compared to the local area. Callalli, like all the local towns has a plaza and a large stone church about 300 years old and a couple hundred adobe houses maybe 15'x 25'. About 10% were abandoned and in various stages of decay. The move to the city is evident but as yet, the 2nd home movement is nil. Some houses still keep the traditional thatched roofs but most have switched to corrugated metal. There was a small Sunday market going on and a side street was full of colorfully dressed women and the more drab men. For some examples native dress by a Native painter that is a link to his website. As i sat next to an older woman, several 7 or 8 year old girls gathered around asking where I was from and what I was doing. I showed them some pictures on my camera of the 2 mesas near town I had photographed and flower close-ups from the day before and the chatted excitedly but when I offered to take their picture the woman told then not to accept. Most people don?t want their photos taken and most of those that do want to be paid. There was a real bus to take me back and the views of the mountains, fields, terraces, and ruins were much more appreciable on the ride back to Chivay.

Chivay day 2
The next day, I stopped in on the Tourist Police and the walked with me to visit a local guide for possible mountain climbing and introduced me to a woman selling ice cream with an optional sweet whipped egg white topping. I just got the ice cream. In the afternoon I got up the strength to try to find a trail up a small stream into the smaller (16,000?) mountains east of Chivay. Following an irrigation channel which surged along one of the main streets I passed a small hydro-electric plant and on through fields mostly brown but some with fava beans and potato sprouts. Apparently the first crop of potatoes had just been harvested. The landscape was desiccated but signs of a wetter season were evident in the growth of lichens, small bromeliads, ferns and mosses; all parched and brittle on the rocks by the trail. Along the mostly dry stream there were moist places with grey leaved lupine coming into bloom. Other plants unfamiliar to me were also starting to flower, mostly shrubby compositeae with white snake root like flowers. At the head of the irrigation system where the stream flowed free, there were 2 species of Calceolaria with their curious puffy yellow flowers. On the way back down I met a couple of young boys, maybe 7 and 9 years old and we walked and "talked" ?till we ended up at the hydro-electric plant. It turned out that their father was working there and he let me look in. It was a small building maybe 20?square with a single turbine he said put out 150 kilowatts/hour. The back up diesel system was 5 times as massive. I noticed some concrete tanks below the turbine house and upon asking was told that the plant also produced trout for the local market.