I knew that whatever scientific argument one scientist might suggest was usually rejected by another. None of the “experts” seemed to agree on anything anyway. Perhaps this was why there had not been any really unified presentation, much less any unified approach of all the sciences to solving the problem.
And the same was true of the Church. I could just imagine some fundamentalist preacher expounding from his electronic pulpit on Sunday morning that Moses had been guided through the desert by a space craft.
I began to laugh. I sat on my balcony looking out at the minuet of the sandpipers and just laughed out loud. It was absurd. Everything was upside down.
One thing was for sure. As a child and adolescent and now as an adult living in the free land of American democracy, I had not been educated to think beyond the perimeters of what my traditional teachers had wanted me to know. Now I had to learn to think for myself. Maybe all of this was crazy, but Columbus wasn’t the first person to say the world wasn’t flat. And when you came to think of it, how arrogant of us to assume that we were the only rational, reasoning race in the universe.
Eventually David called.
“How’re ya doing?” he asked.
“Oh, just sitting around with my head on crooked.”
“Well, do you feel like taking a trip?”
Before I thought about it I said, “Sure. Where?”
“Peru.”
“You mean the Andes?”
“Why not?”
“Why not? I have a couple of weeks. I don’t care where I go. I just want to go somewhere.”
“Meet me in Lima at the airport in two days.”
“You’re on.”
Chapter 19
“I am certain that I have been here as I am now a thousand times before, and I hope to return a thousand times.… Man is the dialogue between nature and God. On other planets this dialogue will doubtless be of a higher and profounder character. What is lacking is Self-Knowledge. After that the rest will follow.”
—J. W. VON GOETHE
Memoirs of Johannes Falk
On the night flight to Peru it was like the old days when I took off whenever I wanted to—free and unencumbered. Spur-of-the-moment adventure—alone and traveling swiftly. I dropped contentedly to sleep.
When I woke up I was over Lima. Somewhere under the soup of smog there was a coastal city. It was worse than Los Angeles. I filled out my entrance card, declared the money I had brought with me and wondered what a South American military dictatorship would be like.
I disembarked at the Jorge Chavez Airport to a chilly morning and an open airport that was made out of cement. I hadn’t told anyone where I was going. I hadn’t wanted to. I just said I was leaving town on a trip. Most of my friends and my agent were used to that. There were many international travelers on board, not only returning Peruvians. Obviously Lima was a center for international business … mostly shady, illegal, and having nothing to do with helping the plight of the poor, I thought. There I was again: a rich bleeding-heart liberal. No one recognized me and when I produced my papers and passport it didn’t make any impression. The customs, police, luggage carriers, airport authorities … everyone … wore uniforms that looked like leftovers from the Keystone Cops. And the people acted that way too. I expected rigid Gestapo-like military behavior even though the government was supposed to be a left-wing military group. I didn’t know anything about Peru. I only knew of the Inca civilization, the Nazca Plains, and the fact that most of Peru had mountains.
I had packed one fair-sized suitcase with warm- and cold-weather clothes … a pair of combat boots and lots of tapes and a tape recorder and note paper. Whatever was going to happen to me I wanted it down in writing.
Except for the fact that I didn’t fill out one document in triplicate, nothing untoward happened as I passed through customs and waited for my suitcase on the other side. The sun had just come up to take the chill off the air when I looked over at the wall where people waited for arrivals. I didn’t recognize anyone. The cement airport couldn’t have been more depressing. The baggage carousel turned and down tumbled my suitcase. I picked it up along with my hand luggage and made my way to the street where I would look around some more and then decide whether to take a cab into town. I wasn’t frightened.
I walked toward the front entrance of the airport and just as I saw a dilapidated cab that looked as though it might take me to the local Sheraton I felt someone take my suitcase out of my hand. Quickly I turned and looked into the face of David.
“Hi,” he said. He had a woolen scarf wrapped around his neck and a combat jacket zipped up the front. He was tanned and smiling.
“Hi,” I said, “you’re Mr. Livingstone, I presume?”
“Anything you say, ma’am. Did you have a good trip?”
“It was okay.”
“Welcome to the mountains I love very much. They have saved my life many times. They are peaceful.”
I looked into his eyes, not needing to know any more than that.
“Come,” he said, “don’t mind my jalopy, but I couldn’t get a Land Rover. That’s the best way to travel in the mountains.”
“The mountains?” I asked. “We’re going right away to the Andes?”
“Sure. It would be hard to avoid. Peru is the Andes. But wait ’til you see them. They’re different from the Himalayas but just as gorgeous.”
He picked up both bags and led me to an old, red, rental Plymouth which was parked alongside a dirt road adjacent to the airport.
“Did you eat breakfast on the plane?”
“Yep.”
“Okay. Then we’ll stop and get some provisions before we head straight for Llocllapampa.”
The pollution mixed with fog made me cough. I had thought of Lima as a sun-splashed resort city by the sea with perfect climate and people running around in South American muu-muus. This was dank, damp, dingy, and depressing.
David said there was a legend based on fact about Lima. When Pizarro invaded the Inca civilization, by way of a peace offering, the Incas directed Pizarro’s armies to make their base camp here in what was now Lima. They proudly showed their conquering masters this territory during the months of January and February, which were the most exquisite months for weather locally and, indeed, anywhere in the world. But that was it. The rest of the year was dismal. As soon as the armies settled in, the weather changed. The Incas professed it to be an accident. But, of course, it never got any better and in no time most of Pizarro’s armies had pneumonia.
“Hey, what about those Incas? How come they were so intelligent?” I asked.
“I guess they were easy to help,” David said. “Primitive people don’t fight miracles, they relax and figure somebody else knows better than they.”
“Like who?”
He just winked,
“Oh,” I said. “I forgot,” and I pointed upward and patted my knee.
David lit up one of his Camels and asked if there was anything special I would be needing because where we were going if there was a kerosene lantern around we’d be lucky.
“I know you’re used to roughing it,” he said, “but this time there won’t be any Sherpas or bearers or anybody to do anything for you except yourself.” He suggested toilet paper, basic canned food, a hot water bottle, and anything to keep myself warm. He said there was no heat where we were going either.
I thought of the time I spent in a hut in the Himalayas when I was sure I would freeze to death. My only recourse had been to employ some sort of mind-over-matter technique, so I concentrated on the hottest thing I could think of—the sun. Shivering and chattering I lay down on a makeshift cot, closed my eyes and somewhere in the center of my mind I found my own orange sun. I concentrated as hard as I could and before long I felt perspiration drip from my midriff and finally I had the impression that daylight had come in my head. Every night for the two weeks I spent in the Himalayan snow I used that technique. Now it looked as though I might have to do it again and I
was afraid I was out of practice.
The road leading into Lima was paved but clogged with smoke-spewing trucks and dirty cars. People nonchalantly walked around in gray overworn business suits and I wondered what offices they worked in so early in the morning.
“Lima is on the brink of revolution,” said David. “The rate of inflation is climbing so rapidly that people find it impossible to live. It’s awful. And as usual it’s the poor who suffer most. Their salaries stay the same—the prices rise. Anyway—I’m not too interested in how the government here is screwing things up. It would just be a question of time anyway. And it’s only symptomatic of what’s happening with governments all over the world. Right?” I nodded. “Now to a Peruvian supermarket for basics—okay?”
It felt strange to be in a new place and yet know at the same time that it’s being new was not really why I was here.
The so-called supermarket was a little like a small New York privately owned market—not quite a delicatessen on First Avenue, maybe, but I had the feeling the proprietors could raise their prices whenever they felt like it. The meats and cheeses and breads and pastries were housed in glass-enclosed cases and a soft drink called Inca Cola seemed to be David’s favorite staple. He bought a case of it and a bottle opener. He opened one bottle right there, shook the fizz out of it and drank it down.
“Between cigarettes and this delicious crap I guess you could say I’m not exactly a health resort.”
Remembering my low blood sugar, I bought canned nuts, tuna fish, cheese, and a dozen eggs that I hoped I would be able to hard-boil somewhere. There were many Peruvian pastry delicacies but I couldn’t eat them, and I found myself wondering what it would be like if I had a low blood sugar attack in the mountains.
David spoke fluent Spanish. I was surprised, but said nothing, and as he rattled on with the cashier, the shape of his face seemed almost to mold itself around the Peruvian words. He seemed to have the facility to become the nationality he was portraying.
“Ah, yes,” he said as we left the store. “The world is a stage, isn’t it, and we are all nothing but actors portraying the scenario.”
“You have an advantage,” I said. “You seem to know how the script is going to come out.”
“Something like that,” he answered, lifting his case of Inca Cola into the back seat. “Only you never can tell about those actors who haven’t read the script.” He winked and opened the door of the used car.
We never did drive through Lima. So I couldn’t say what it was like. I knew there was a Sheraton Hotel in there somewhere and the Museum of Natural History tracing the civilization of the Incas and even pre-Incas.
We drove northeast further out of town and toward the foothills of the Andes. David said he had been to Peru many times and that it was about three times the size of California and had, because of its varying terrain, three different climates. He said we were on our way to a city of about 100,000 inhabitants called Huancayo, located high in the Andes. We wouldn’t be actually staying in Huancayo because it was too dusty and crowded. We would be staying along the way in a little place that barely existed at all except for the fact that there were mineral baths, some food, a place to sleep and the most incredible view of the heavens available on earth. He winked again when he described it and even though the weather on the outskirts of Lima was sunless and dismal I began to feel happy. Huancayo was 225 miles away—all uphill …
We stopped in a bazaar just outside the city where David suggested I buy a poncho made of alpaca wool. He said the very style of the poncho would come in handy because it would act as a blanket as well as a wrap. It was lovely and soft and an oatmeal color I loved. David said nothing about my Ralph Lauren leather coat and I was just as glad to cover it up. Along with the poncho I bought a neck scarf to match. The price of both items together was eighteen dollars. At the moment I was sweltering in my blue jeans, but I had traveled enough to know that where mountains were concerned nothing was warm enough when the sun went down.
The road, with native Indians draped in their own ponchos alongside, began to wind. About forty-three kilometers outside of Lima we passed a community called Chosica.
“People come to the lowlands looking for a new life and end up in a place like this,” said David, shaking his head.
There was no grass, no trees, a few cactus, but for the most part the land was barren: the hills surrounding were rock, sand and dust.
Advertisements for Inca Cola were splashed across billboards.
A truck carrying used box spring mattresses, with a picture of Che Guevara on the wheel flaps, passed us. “They admire him here,” said David. “Because he died for his ideas.”
The people along the road looked Tibetan.
Telephone wires leading to the top of the Andes crisscrossed overhead.
Tiny stalls sold fruit and ice cream and more Inca Cola.
A train transporting coal from above passed us going the other way on the tracks that ran beside the road.
About forty-five minutes outside of Lima the sun broke through the bruise-colored sky and it turned light turquoise. The air became fresher, the trees showed green and once again I was reminded of how badly contaminated our lives had become in big cities regardless of where we lived in the world. Even the smiles on people’s faces were more pronounced. I felt happy and was unconcerned that I had no idea what to expect or what might happen to me.
Small communities sprang up with mountain Indians working the fields surrounding them. The higher we climbed the greener it got. We passed Cocachacra. We began to follow the beginning of a river.
“That’s the Mantaro,” said David. “Wait ’til you see it higher up.”
A tunnel railroad wound around the cliffs which were getting steeper now. Burros appeared along the road. We passed a smelting factory.
“They smelt the coal they mine in the mountains,” said David. “These are coal smelting communities. They live and die doing just that.”
The community was called Rio Seco and behind it the soil was richer and blacker. The river bed began to grow greenery. Tea gardens were visible now underneath the volcanic hills.
The river began to tumble over rocks.
There were small square stones with flowers placed before them jutting out of the ground.
“Those are tombstones,” said David. “Here in the Andes whenever a person dies in a car accident he is buried on the spot where the accident occurred.”
Shrines of bright turquoise were placed in strategic positions.
We were at 5,000 feet now. I began to feel a bit sleepy. A woman in a pink striped serape carried water to her destination which David said must be Rio Seco, now two miles behind us.
We climbed higher.
Small valleys with grazing cattle were nestled in between the foothills and soon when the road became unpaved, dusty and filled with potholes, lumps and ruts, David suggested we stop at a roadside restaurant and have some rice and beans. We had been driving for an hour without stops and he said we had another five or six hours to go.
The restaurant looked like a Mexican luncheonette but the food could have been Peruvian gourmet as far as I was concerned. David ordered us some bottled water and we settled in to eat rice and beans, stuffed eggs with hot sauce, and cold boiled potatoes smothered with a kind of peanut mayonnaise. It was delicious. I began to breathe a little quicker. He noticed and took me in the back where an oxygen machine waited, fully equipped to assist any tourist who might suffer from altitude sickness. We were now at about 10,000 feet and since I had danced at a height of about 7,500 feet with no trouble I didn’t think I would be bothered now. But I breathed some of the oxygen anyway and left the machine feeling I was flying.
At lunch we talked mostly of Peruvian customs, how he felt the left wing military government wouldn’t last long and how Peru imported almost all of its gas and oil from the Middle East when it had a rich supply of its own right under the mountains. David was relaxed, happy that I was too, and see
med less intense than he had been back in Los Angeles. He refused a drink offered by the owner, protesting the altitude and the necessity of keeping his wits for the long winding trip ahead of us. We didn’t speak of anything personal, and soon we finished and left the restaurant. On the counter near the door were two jars. One bore the inscription, “Para Llorar,” the other “Para Reir.” Under them in English it said, “Does your woman love you?”
Back in the Plymouth again and passing a small mining village I noticed a sign saying that we were at 3,746 meters (or 11,238 feet) above sea level. So far I felt nothing really serious. If I did feel altitude nausea David said I could get more oxygen at a nearby mining center called Casapalca. But it wasn’t necessary. The greenery disappeared from the mountains and only a red-orange clay earth remained. People pounded rocks alongside the road reminding me of what I had seen in the Himalayas. Many of them smoked. David said seventy per cent of the Peruvian people were Indians and to my eyes their features could have been Oriental or Mongolian. Their hair was blue-black and their eyes like black grapes swimming in suntanned leather faces. The women wore long thick black braids and starched white hats surrounded by black ribboned brims. Their dresses were thick brightly colored cottons.
Mining iron ore and other minerals seemed to be the work around which their lives revolved. Pyramids of mineral earth dotted the valleys where the Indians worked, using hand shovels to fill nearby pickup trucks.
“There is a wealth of minerals in these mountains,” said David, “minerals that are not found anywhere else on earth.”
He talked awhile about the geological shifts in the earth under the Andes and told me that all over Peru were buried civilizations thousands of years old just waiting to be excavated if the Peruvian government would allocate enough money for that purpose. “But they won’t,” he said. “They haven’t got enough respect for the past. That’s why they will always be condemned to make the same mistakes in the future.”
Now we passed a chalk mining community called Chicla. There was a white church and every other structure was painted turquoise. Even the buses passing us were turquoise. Maybe the people were painting the color of the sky.
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