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| Start Page | 1) Ecuador | 2) Peru | 3) Bolivia | 4) Chile & Argentina | 5) Colombia | 6) Central America | 7) Mexico | 8) U.S.A. | 9) Canada | |
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The long Road. Part 2 of 9: Peru
The extreme northwest of Peru was more or less flat. We found ourselves
between the Andes mountains and the ocean. This part of Peru was rather densely
populated. It was a feast to cycle together through the villages of the Peruvian
countryside. The population greeted us warmly and waved exuberantly to the
passing cyclists. José and I were frequently surrounded by large groups of
men, women and children. The villagers were curious about what we were doing.
Patiently we explained differnet aspects of our trip. The people were swallowing
our stories with great pleasure and responded enthusiastically. Between the
villages was the semi-desert of Desierto the Sechura, covered with dry bushy
plants with sharp thorns. One of these thorns produced my first puncture of
the trip. 
After Olmos we could climb again. Like the Brenner Pass is the lowest
pass across the main chain of the Alps, the Abra de Porcullo is by far
the lowest pass across the Andes between Colombia and Chile. Although the
Abra the Porcullo is the lowest pass in seven thousand kilometers Andes
there were still two thousand altimeters to be conquered. A lot of trucks
were snaking their way up across the many zigzags that led up to the pass.
Due to the hard work, the exhaust pipes were coughing up heaps of black smoke.
The particulate filter had not yet penetrated in these parts of the world
and the slope of the road was steep enough to ensure that the trucks were
coughing and spluttering all the way to the top. That all those black gases
proved to be bad for the environment, was not apparent from the vegetation,
which was getting ever greener. A bright yellow gallito de las rocas flew
right before us. The tropical bird was like a herald who was announcing
that we were entering the realms of the Amazon region. 
My amigo was able to organize his way through the continent, but sometimes he was less
sharp. Then he heard from a local guy that it took no more than an hour to cycle to our
destination, which meant that he could easily slow down. In his world the words of a
local guy reporesented more truth than the reality. If my maps showed that the climb
would last at least three hours, the opinion of the local population was still
the most accurate information for my friend, even though the people did not have
a clue of travel times on the bike. José proved to be a real South American
in that regard. And I proved to be real European. For me the numbers and the
statistics represent a reality. When I see that José is climbing at most
three hundred vertical meters per hour and we must climb six hundred meters, I
count on another two hours to go. At times I was angry to get him out of his slow
rhythm.
"But we are almost there??", he would respond amazed with his big, innocent eyes. 
Near Chachapoyas are the spectacular, hundreds of meters high
Gocta Falls. In two stages the water falls almost 900 meters down. The
waterfalls are surrounded by emerald green cloud forests.
Piet had taken a year off to travel. He had started his bicycle trip in Mexico
and he was already half a year on the go. We had a lot in common. In addition to
a shared passion for South America, we shared a philosophical mindset. Piet was
planning to make a calendar on the basis of his experiences on the road. Every
day would be filled with a poem, interlaced with philosophical reflections.
According to Piet we had lost the art of "being" in Europe. We were too much
involved with the future, too focused on security and routines and we had lost
touch with ourselves and our environment. Piet was convinced that Latinos and
Latinas were in much closer contact with the deeper emotional realities of life. 
Piet was a profound man. He was both a Burgundian bon vivant and a man of moods.
A sentimentalist pur sang. And he was someone who sets the standard very high
for himself. Piet did not have the physique, nor the earthly evenness that most
long-distance cyclists possess. He must have felt jaded and weary at times and
he would have to suffer much more when he reaches the higher mountains further
south. For me it felt liberated that a dreamy philosopher like Piet was able to
explore the wondrous South American world on a bike. It was not necessary to
have a perfectly trained body to ride the mountains of the Andes. Nor did it
prove necessary to have the skills for even the most basic bike repairs such as
replacement of a chain. If anything else failed, he sought help. And if he was
tired, he could always hitchhike a bit. Above all Piet was pigheaded. When he
thought of something in a certain way, he was not open for any objections. With
his philosophy of "being" he implicitly condemned people who do the one thing
to achieve the other thing. People who are working in an office to earn money
to buy a house. People who drive a great car to impress other people. I agreed
to a certain extent, but ultimately I thought different. The world is imperfect
and so are we. Imperfect human beings. Imperfect and human and beings. We must
strive to eliminate the imperfections, but we must be kind to others and to
ourselves also. Piet lived with his head in the skies and his feet barely
touched the ground. He believed that the world could be a better place and that
it should be a better place. The name of his blog was "El mejor camino", the
better way. It was this better way, where he and his whole being were searching
for. 
A dirt road led over a series of three large, unpaved passes from the
Chachapoyas region to Cajamarca, the historic site where a handful of
Spaniards with cunning tricks and downright treachery had overthrown the vast
Inca Empire. The first of these passes was the Abra Barro Negro, literally the
dark wasteland. The local Indian population had an even more ominous name in
store: the Calla Calla Pass. When a young woman with her crying baby crossed
the cold, windy pass, she whispered "Calla Calla" in order to bring the baby
across safely. No one could or would tell us what Calla Calla means exactly,
but smack the baby died. The naming showed that the local population was
apparently still fascinated by death. Luckily the cyclists from the Lowlands
fared a lot better. The trip went well and I felt happy with my new amigo Piet
to explore the mysterious and little-known northern highlands of Peru. 
The Abra Barro Negro lived up to its name. There were no trees in the
barren landscape and the pass was continually hidden in clouds. Occasionally we
were treated by an icy rain shower. The dirt road was well-raked, which enabled
us to bridge the long climb in a few hours. When we arrived, we had open vistas,
despite the clouds and the rain showers. From a dizzying altitude we looked down
nearly three vertical kilometers into the valley of the Marañón, one
of the major source rivers of the Amazon. Behind the valley emerged yet another
mountain range. That is work for tomorrow. First the descent. A sixty-seven
kilometer long bend paradise brought us from the bitter cold of the Calla Calla
Pass to the scorching heat of the village Balsas, in a green oasis with palm
and coconut trees. 
We, cyclists, we are free boys. We make friends easily and we also leave each
other easily. No matter how good the time together was. Like José and I
separated a week and a half ago, so parted the ways of Piet and I in Cajamarca.
Piet wanted to spend a couple of days longer in the historic city. I wanted to
continue cycling. So I cycled Further. And so Piet remained in Cajamarca.
Ultimately we are romantics. Everything is subordinate to the dream that we
live. We have left our homes, we have given up our careers and we said goodbye to
our parents, friends and relations. It hurt me to say goodbye to José and
now it hurt me again to say goodbye to Piet, but the camino requires sacrifice.
José understands that, Piet understands that and I understand that. Piet
and I had our last breakfast together in our favorite restaurant in Cajamarca.
Then we said goodbye. For Good. Neither of us could have imagined that we would
never see each other anymore.
Making up the balance I found out that I did not have any deep wounds, but
my ankle was painful nonetheless. But I could continue cycling anyway. There was
still the risk that the animal carried rabies. In that case, the dog would have
passed on the rabies to me now. In a small hospital in Cajabamba I let a nurse
look at the wound. She cleaned the wound right away. An injection against rabies
was not available though. Therefore I had to continue a few hundred kilometers to
the city of Trujillo. Just to be sure I gave up my planned route through a remote
mountain area and I headed straight to Trujillo, a city of a million people on
the Pacific Ocean. 
Trujillo is kind of holy ground for the long-distance cyclist. It is the place of the
first so-called Casa de Ciclistas. The famous 'House of the Cyclists' was run
by Lucho, who was a good cyclist in his youth and was still perfectly toned.
Cyclists can reside in a Casa de Ciclistas as long as they want to. Plenty of
"famous" cyclists have stranded here before me for a longer or shorter period
of time, like Heinz Stücke with his "never-ending tour" which has been
going on for more than 45 years. A map of the world showed the places where he
had spent the Christmas holidays and was labeled with the text "Alles endet
unvollendet". Everything ends unfinished. Another classic was a clock without
clock-hand with the inscription "El tiempo no importa". Time does not have
any meaning. It could be the motto of many South Americans. 
In the Casa de Ciclistas I met Andrés, a 27-year-old Colombian cyclist and
Françoise, a French lady of nearly 63 years old, was cycling from
Venezuela to Tierra del Fuego. A spirited woman who wanted to cycle the route
along the mines, which I had just descended despite my warnings. The Swiss Oliver
and Milena also joined in. We visited the adobe pre-Inca city of Chan Chan and
the fishing town of Huanchaco, where fishermen in tiny reed boats braved the
waves and tides of the Pacific to catch ocean fish. In one of the fish
restaurants we tested the catch. And that catch turned out to be excellent.
The fish tasted exquisitively fresh and was perfectly balanced with spices and
sauces. Trujillo and Huanchaco proved ideal places to refuel for the heavy
alpine routes in the coming days and weeks to come. 
There was almost no traffic at all in the gorges of the Rio Santa. Loneliness
reigned superior in the valley. The only sound came from the river. Two or three times
a day a tourist bus or truck passed by. I was in one of the most beautiful places
of the world and I was virtually alone. In the area were neither restaurants
nor hotels. I lived on stocks of biscuits and dried fruit that I carried in my
panniers and I stayed overnight in the yard of a friendly farmer. It was a hot
evening and I only needed to roll out my mattress for a comfortable night's sleep.
I slept under the twinkling stars of the infinitely vast sky. 
In our existential loneliness we are looking for grip in the world
around us, but in fact we are like leaves in the wind, subjected to much larger
forces than ourselves. The philosophical reflections on the vanity of human
being were amplified by the bare flanks that rose up four to five thousand meter
high into the sky, like giant gateways to the mystical mountains of the
Cordillera Blanca. 
The fourth and final climb over the Cordillera Blanca led through open,
panoramic landscapes. The stoney pathway led between the stiff yellow grasses of
the cold, high and dry puna. I slowly approached the snow of the Cordillera.
I passed a strange red lake at the foot of the mountains. A bit further the scenery
was dominated by slopes with the weird Puya Raimundii, a plant species
which only occurs in a few places in Peru and Bolivia and which is different in
all respects to the other vegetation on Earth. An adult specimen is no less than
twelve meters high and consists of a narrow black base of two meters high,
topped with a globe of three meters in diameter with giant spikes, and above
that a ten meter long stem, which is pointing straight up and which sways with
the wind. According To a well-known travel guide the giant plants would flourish
only once in every hundred years, all of the species together at the same time.
But the ranger told me a more credible story. He said that the mysterious plants
bloom every year in the spring. 
From Huallanca I found myself on a route that I had cycled again during my short
trip in 2003. The fifty kilometer descent of the Corona del Inca Pass I still
remembered well. At that time it was true dog inferno, the worst that I had
experienced back then. I felt the terror again, now that I approached the area eight
years later again. Moreover, a few weeks ago a dog had bitten in my ankle.
The climb to Chavín de Huantar a few days ago was still fresh in my memory.
I was surrounded by six dogs of one meter elevation, who made some serious
attempts to attack. More and more I was closed in until a car driver manuevered
his car skillfully between the dogs and me and by doing this he provided me the
chance to escape. 
"A difficult opponent," according to the men with whom I sat at the table,
"But nothing is impossible for this Peruvian team." 
Despite the cold night I slept excellent and I started fresh on the climb
to much colder and higher regions. I headed towards the Abra Chonta, a pass of
4.860 meters. The gravel road followed a wide valley. I slowly gained altitude
and soon I found myself way above the tree line. I was surrounded by the tall,
yellow, greasy grasses of the puna. Just after sunrise and just before sunset
the puna has a golden sheen and then she is at her most beautiful. I was early
and through a golden landscape I climbed toward the pass. The higher I got,
the further was the space between the mountain ridges and the scenery all the
more panoramic. I got a foretaste of the Altiplano in southern Peru, where the
distance between the mountain ranges is even larger.
Ayacucho was the base of the Shining Path in the nineties, an organization with
leftist ideas which was funding itself with drug trafficking and was not afraid
of violence. After that turbulent period which ended fifteen years ago, the
leaders were caught and I found out that Ayacucho has since turned into a
surprisingly pleasant colonial city. Here I prepared myself for one of the
classic bike routes of our planet, the road from Ayacucho to Cusco, the ancient
Inca capital in Southern Peru. 
The first night on the way to Cusco, I slept Ocros, a tiny mountain village halway
between the mountains tops and the river valley. Here I met Moshe, a fellow
cyclist from New Zealand with the appearance of a hippie and with a bunch of
dreadlocks that would make Bob Marley jealous. He traveled the route in the
opposite direction. Moshe looked rather dusty. His skin was white beacuse of
moisture deficit and his dreadlocks were gray of the dust that had gathered
in the dreads. I could not tell what hair color he would have in normal
conditions. My bike colleague proved to be extremely helpful. I continued
my journey with lots of useful tips about the route and armed with accurate
altitude profiles.
The route from Ayacucho to Cusco was easy to comprehend.
Five long climbs, five long descents. Many hours of climbing were needed to
reach the pass, many hours were needed for the descent on the other side. Down
below would be a bridge across the river and there I could begin to climb again.
After the first descent was a little surprise. A very little surprise.
The little mosquitos were not visible individually, but only as a collective
they were perceptible as a black haze that was hanging static around me. The
black haze was not only passively hanging around me though. There was also
plenty of activity, as was testified by my arms and legs in the evening. These
were transformed into a moonscape of red craters. I looked like a frantic heroin addict
completely gone out of bounds. On my left arm I counted seventy red craters.
Counts on my left leg, right leg and right arm would have led to comparable
results. 
The mountain village Chincheros was under the spell of the feast of the bull.
The inhabitants from the village and the surrounding valley came together and
gathered on a hill with a view over a little arena. The local brass band was
blowing the local dance music, the huaynos, with full force out of their horns.
Visually the spectacle should be provided by bullfights, it was the feast
of the bull after all. The bullfights were never to be a dazzling show. The
toreadors were waving red cloths like crazy, burt the bulls would rather
enjoy a little nap. Vainly the toreadors were pushing and shoving the bulls
but after an hour there was still no movement of the animals and the show was over.
Fortunately, the protagonists of the festivities were kept alive. The
bulls represented too much value to slaughter for a little party.
During the "bullfights" I was talking with a French-Argentine company of clowns
that traveled South America to show up for gigs at parties and events such as
the feast of the bull. I promised to come to watch. They would be there at
six o'clock in the evening for a performance on the main square. The festivities
moved to the square anyway around that time and it was up to the clowns to
attract the people to gather and watch the show. That was not an easy task,
which they executed perfectly. The company seemed to have walked straight out
of a Fellini film. The two young men and three young ladies lived by the wind
and had nothing but a few simple costumes, an accordion, a trumpet and a
drum kit for children at their disposal and further a few bowling pins and some
burning torches. All five members of the group could play the clown and mastered
one or more acrobatic tricks and played at least one musical instrument. They
had enough to offer this way to captivate a crowd one and a half hours.
Highlight of the show was the act with the bowling pins. 
"Muy Peligroso ..." they repeated unnecessarily. "Very very dangerous ..."
To the great amusement of the audience, I wriggled some clownish faces, which did
not cause too much effort at thte time. A drum roll on the children's drum
followed and the the spectacle could begin. And indeed, the pins were thrown.
Exactly at the same time they threw the pins, one just before my face, the
other just behind. And again. And again. From the corner of my eye I could see
that the pins flew by each exactly the same time. The clown-acrobats once again
proved extremely skillful. The pin did not hit my head once and frequently a
pin hit the cigarette in my mouth. The cigarette was Unfortunately very sticky
and thus remained dangling on my lips until the very end of the act. Too bad for
the clowns, because the public probably could not see that they regularly
hit the cigarette.
After the dazzling show of the clowns it was up to the local brass band to lift
up the audience. A nice woman of about thirty years old asked me to dance and
with her I was swinging on the traditional huaynos music. Dancing on the huaynos
is not as difficult as dancing salsa or tango, so even I could do it with my
stiff Dutch movements. You take one hand of your partner in the one hand and
the other hand of your partner in your other hand and you hop a few
steps to the left or a few steps to the right, on the rhythm of the beat and
in sync with your partner. And occasionally you give your lady a sweep so that
she spins around her axis. I had a great time and my lady asked me to continue
dancing on the terrain where the night party was to be held. Her brother and her
friends would also go. During the act of the clowns and the short dance on the
main square most men had been drinking firmly. And so did the men in the group
of friends. The organization was not running smoothly. It took hours before the
group had moved from the central square to the party area half a mile away.
In those hours everybody kept on drinking. Except my dance partner, her brother
and I, everyone in the company was in a state of delirium or severe intoxication.
When we finally arrived at the entrance of the party area, no one appeared to
have money and the fights began. One of the drunken friends started hitting
another drunk friend straight in the face. This guy did nothing to prevent the
guy from hitting. The victim had a crush on my dance partner and wanted revenge
by fighting against me. My dance partner jumped bravely between us to prevent
trouble. I could easily master the drunk guy, but what good would that bring me?
The atmosphere was turning completely wrong and I felt a romantic evening slip
through my fingers. It was twelve o'clock in the evening now and I decided
to back off to my hotel. Despite the 24-hour service the gate was closed. After
fifteen minute calling and yelling the patroness finally opened the gate. I fell
asleep against the background of the night sounds of the disco music and the
drunk stammering and fumbling of roaming-around drunk men. 
The Europeans carried diseases with them, such as the flu, diseases where
the Incas and other Indian tribes had no resistance against. The eleventh Inca
leader Huayna Capac also died of such an epidemic. He had two sons, Huascar and
Atahualpa. Both sons competed for the power, which culminated in a heavy civil
war. This war was eventually won by Atahualpa. When the Spaniards, led by
Pizarro, led expeditions in South America, they found an empire that had lost
its forces due to the long conflict. After the Spaniards captured the Inca
leader Atahualpa in 1532, the Inca empire was effectively robbed of its governance.
It took some time before the Incas were able to organize a kind of daily
management again, but at that time the Spanish conquitadores had already received
reinforcements from Spain. In 1536 the Incas, led by Manco Inca, besieged Cusco
and they almost managed to win back their capital. The last major uprising against
the Spanish domination took place in 1572 under the leadership of Tupac Amaru.
But this uprising was also beaten and Tupac Amaru was quartered by the Spanish. 
At the time of the Incas Cusco had a large central square. The Spaniards
kept the location of the square and so the square still exists.
The square is smaller now and is flanked by the Cathedral and the elegant
Francis Church. The Spaniards destroyed the houses of the Incas, but the
building blocks of the Inca buildings were so large that it took too much
effort to destroy the houses to the last stone. In the narrow streets of Cusco
that it can still be seen that the whitewashed colonial houses houses have the
large, dark gray stones of the ancient Inca buildings as their base. Lost in
thought about the cruel history I strolled over to the Plaza de Armas. Dozens of
vendors were on the square, trying to sell ponchos, scarves and cheap
knickknacks. I was no longer just a gringo but here I was called amigo and I was
offered many services, from cleaning my shoes to massages in various techniques. 
From Cusco I cycled to the nearby Valle Sagrado, the Sacred Valley
of the Incas. World famous is the Machu Picchu. The temple complex is
spectacularly located on a cliff high above the meandering Urubamba, in
the emerald green cloud forests of the transition zone of the Cordillera to the
Selva. Machu Picchu is reached by one of the most famous treks of our planet,
the Inca Trail. In four days you can hike to the magical place over the mountains
and through dense cloud forests and along many ancient Inca ruins. There are
many more interesting sites of the Incas. I cycled to the steep Inca Terraces
of Pisac and to the Inca town of Ollantaytambo.
I had to take action. I searched and found the owner of the machine, a
coarse, rude woman with the scratching and cracking voice of a raven. Her voice
was horrible, but it was her eyes that really scared me to the bone. As if you
looked straight into the eyes of the devil. I started to explain the problem. 
It was obviously a strange story, but they urged a lot. The agents tried to
convince me with the argument that if I will not do a new transaction, another
person will and he will get my money.
The next day it was clear that nothing much had happened. Out of desperation
I guarded the machine myself to prevent any new victims. At ten o'clock I had
an appointment with the police and so I had to give up the monitoring of the ATM
temporarily. I insisted again with the agents to shut off the machine. We were
talking and talking and heading owhere and in the meantime there were new victims.
The next morning - day three after the incident - the police finally began to
to make a report. At that time the heavily protected car of the "security"
came, the repairers of the ATM. I had negotiated with the police, that
I would go with the guys from the security to Cusco. That would at least save
me the prize for a bus ride. Moreover, the police report took a long time and
it was too late now to cycle the eighty kilometers to Cusco. The policemen
ensured me that I could travel with the staff of the security. But first I had
to go through the latest details of the report. That was finally finished after
three hours and was brimming with Spanish language errors. I could have done
a better job myself, even in Spanish. But at least I had an official-looking
piece of paper with a lot of stamps. In the meantime the security people had
left with silent drum. It was not possible for us to stop them, a police officer
stated resignedly. 
I could still take the bus to Cusco. That meant that I had only a few hours to
arrange my affairs with the bank. First I tried it the regular way and I asked
for help at the counter. Without result. I came back with a police escort. One
policeman said that the bank chief would speak to me at four o'clock. Two hours
later it was four o'clock but there was no sign of the chef. No, at five o'clock
he would meet me, was the new message. An hour later there was still no chief.
I explained my story to a random other policeman and he walked with me to the
room where the chef had been all the time. The police had promised to be there
for me during the conversation. There was also a technical expert from the bank.
The chief said after a few minutes that the technical expert could handle the
case alone. I agreed, but suddenly the police officers were also gone. Initially
they stood by and watched, but even that proved too much and they simply
vanished. So it was up to the technical man and me to solve the issue together.
Our little expedition was carried out by five sporty young men and the Peruvian
tour guide. We discussed our objectives for the expedition and so we found
out that the majority of the group wanted to climb the volcano Misti rather than
the Chachani the Chachani. It was a smart move by the tour provider to book a
more expensive tour due to the fact that the "others" wanted to the more expensive
tour. None of the group made a point of the small deceit. The Chachani was also
a beautiful mountain and, indeed, also a slightly higher mountain. Because of
the white domes at her top, but also because of the semantic similarity, the
comparison with the Dutch actress Tatjana was lurking. I gave a brief explanation
on the basis of the neighbor scene ("But neighbor, what are you doing now??"), and
from that moment the mountain was renamed Tatjana by the group. The Tatjana
Mountain had got five roundings though, and therefore beats the Croatian-Dutch
diva on her own strong points.
