Living in Peru : your everyday companion

Richard Nisbet

“FUCK YOU!”  shouts Glen.   He drops into a lower gear, speeds up, dodging the rocks and suddenly throws the right side wheels up onto the curb.   There is a terrible crashing as we run over rocks.   The kids run like hell.   In a couple of seconds it’s over.   We are back on clear road again, both of us laughing hysterically.

NOW it should be clear.   We are almost out of  the Departamento de Cusco.

But no such luck.  Another few minutes and we encounter more rocks in the road and more kids.   There are no telephone poles this time, but neither is there a curb to leap up  onto.   Walls of earth rise on each side.   Without missing a beat, Glen slams the truck to a halt and leaps down from the cab.  

Now Glen dances.  He starts kicking rocks aside to clear a path, first with his left foot and then with his right.  What he can’t kick aside, he picks up and throws aside.  The kids, hands outstretched for the propina, offer to help.   Glen gives them a few coins and within about three minutes a path is cleared.

On our way again, Glen says, “Arrr SHIT!   There was shit on one of those rocks.  I’ll bet they put it there on purpose.  The little bastards.   They’ll have those rocks back in the road in five minutes.”   He drives with his elbow to keep the stuff off the steering wheel.   A few minutes later he spies standing water by the side of the road where he stops to wash his hands.

The barricades were finally past us.   We could settle down and enjoy the trip.  I pulled out the bottle of coca/cañazo and we each had a good swig.   Everything is tranquillo.   

We stopped in Puno around 4:00 AM.   Glen needed to pay a hostal there where his tourists had spent a night.    It had been about 20 years since I had been in Puno.   All I remembered was a dark dirt street or two and a few buildings.   Now it was almost a city.   Glen paid the bill and we struck out around the border of Lake Titicaca.

Titicaca is really an inland sea and the highest navigable lake in the world.   It is a place of mystery and lore.   The Incas claim that their first ancestors rose from Titicaca after the world had been in darkness.   The water level has risen and fallen over the years as the glaciers to the north have thawed and frozen.   An archaeological team recently found evidence of underwater structures in the lake.   South of the lake is Tiawanaku, the ancient site that some believe to be over ten thousand years old.   Someone recently published a book proposing Titicaca as the site for Plato’s Atlantis.   There are mollusks found in Lake Titicaca that occur elsewhere only in the oceans.   Some believe that Titicaca was at sea level during civilized man’s tenure on earth, that it raised suddenly through some awful cataclysm.   South of La Paz is a place called “The valley of the moon,” a place of extreme erosion like that in southern Utah.   I had visited there 20 years ago and was told by a friend that a great mass of water cascaded through this land to cause the jagged spires all around.   It fits.

All the barricades behind us, we drive along the rim of the lake.   It is first light; all is graphite gray, mountains rising beyond the water.  The lake is smooth except for little patches of totora reed rising above the surface.   As the light strengthens,  the totora reed boats can be seen floating upon the lake along with what appear to be little lateen rigged boats with bright blue sails.   The blue sails are new to me, the reed boats nearly as old as man in these parts.   All is beautiful and peaceful.  Glen presses on through the dawn. 

Got to get to La Paz by noon. 

We get to Desaguadero a little before six.   The town is named for the river that delineates the Peruvian/Bolivian border.   The Desaguadero (The drain) carries water from Lake Titicaca down to the smaller Lake Poopo.   The town is alive with activity but we discover that the border won’t open until eight AM.   We take another slug of cañazo.   Glen leans his seat back to rest and I get out to savor the ambiance of this border town.  

Just in front of the truck is a juice cart.  Two men in blue uniforms are talking to the proprietor of the juice cart.   There is a glass of something sitting front and center that looks like Papaya juice.   I ask about it and the uniformed men tell me it is “Maca.”   They use finger language to explain its virtues.   The Andean Viagra.   Fine, I buy a glass and raise it to my lips.   It’s scalding hot.   I almost drop the glass and they all get a good laugh.

I wander around the Peru side of Desaguadero feeling very loose and fine if not fired up for sex with Maca.  After a couple of hours we go through Peruvian customs and finally pass on over to Bolivia.  Immediately the attitude seems different.   The soldiers here are hardly a friendly lot.   I remember the last time I was in this country my friend told me never to look them in the eyes.   I remember that this is the country where they shot Che Guevara.

Another three hours and we come to the rim of the bowl that holds La Paz. It used to be that La Paz was all down at the bottom of the bowl.   Now it has spread up to the rim and spilt over.   All red brick and tin roofs.   We wind down into the bowl.   Glen is like a horse nearing the stable after a long ride.   When we get into town he replays his Mad Max act.   He’s driving the beast furiously, yelling and diving into the midst of lesser vehicles just daring them try to stop him.   At one point a kid gets in his way and I think he’s going to run the kid down.   

But we finally get to The Copacabana Hostal without killing anybody.  Glen has phoned ahead for a reservation for me.  (Richard... he doesn’t know my last name any more than I know his.)  I check into my room and come back looking for Glen to thank him and say goodbye.  But he’s taking a shower.  While I’m waiting I ask for another room.  Mine is on the front, just above a very noisy street, and I have plans for sleeping all day.    They move me back to another room.   It’s only window opens into the hostal’s central open area, it‘s three flights of stairs up from the lobby and the single-sized bed takes up sixty percent of the room.   But that’s all right.  I’m exhausted from lack of sleep and lack of oxygen at this absurd altitude and I’m glad to have a quiet place to spend the day sleeping.

But first, I want to see Glen.   I go back into the lobby and ask about him.   I’m told he’s out at the truck.   I go out and there he is.  He’s had his shower and his yellow hair is flying wild.   He’s standing in the truck catching loaded backpacks that someone below is pitching up to him.   He is shouting and flailing his wet hair this way and that as he catches the bags and tosses them into the interior of the truck.   He seems not in the least tired or sleepy.   

I wave to him.  “Thanks, Glen.   It’s been.... memorable.”

He catches a sack, pauses for a moment and waves.  “See you next year, Ol Dad.”

And he’s back at it, shouting for more bags, catching and tossing, catching and tossing. Wild hair flying.

See you next year old son.