Escape Through the Andes

by Thomas M. Daniel

  Back at the Quispe home, Señora Quispe told us that two ANSEB agents had come by asking questions. “I told them you had taken a group of four German tourists out to see the reed boats being made.”

  After dinner we returned to the barn where we had hidden previously. “My dog, Galleta (Spanish for cookie or biscuit), whelped last evening. Five pups, one born dead. She is nursing the others on a rug just inside the barn door. Go in slowly and let me introduce you to her.” Inside the barn, Quispe petted the dog while Gonzalo and I each let Galleta smell our hands. “You’ll be fine now. Get settled in the hay. If the ANSEB men come back, Galleta and I will deal with them.”

  We had not been long at our resting place in the hay when we heard voices at the doorway. “If they are hiding in this area,” we heard Quispe say, “they are unlikely to be in this barn. My bitch whelped last evening. She’s just inside the door, and she would not let any stranger in.” One of the men—evidently from ANSEB, but not one familiar to us—stepped part way into the door. Galleta growled, loudly and menacingly. The agent took a step backward. Galleta continued her growling. The agent took out a flashlight, scanned the barn quickly, and then backed away.

  “Who is it you are looking for?” Quispe asked.

  “Two men, one of them a vicious and dangerous criminal. Violent, an evil man. We don’t know much about the other man, but he is probably also a criminal.”

  “Well,” Quispe said, “I hope they don’t show up here.”

  “There’s a reward for them. Thirty thousand bolivianos.”

  “Wow! That’s as much money as I get in a year. What would I have to do? Capture them somehow? But if they’re dangerous… Are they armed?”

  “No you don’t have to capture them yourself. Just tell us where they are so we can handle them. I don’t know if they are armed, but I think you should assume they are.”

  “So if I see them, or think that I see them, I should call you.”

  “Right. And then try to keep them under observation. And be careful. They are dangerous. Here. The number to call is on this card.”

  “You know,” said Quispe, “there are a couple of unused sheds down by the lakeshore. If I were trying to hide here, I might go there.”

  “Thanks. We’ll check them out.”

  “And if the criminals are hiding there, I’ll get thirty thousand bolivianos.”

  “You will. Oh, and keep your eyes open for a blue Volkswagen. We believe they are driving one. Although they could have switched cars, somehow.”

  The two ANSEB agents went to the lake to check out the sheds Quispe had told them of. Finding no one, they departed, once again urging Quispe to report us. After they had left, Quispe came to the barn to report to us. “You two are worth a fortune,” he said.

  “I’ll tell you what,” I said. “Give me your daughter’s contact information in California. I’ll try to get the CIA to send some reward money to her.”

  “Okay. But I do what I do for friendship and for Bolivia. Not for money.”

  “After breakfast tomorrow,” I told Quispe, “we set off for Desaguadero, this time not through Copacabana but around the southern shore of Lake Titicaca.”

  “Fine. Should be an easy drive.”

  24

  With our profuse thanks and hosts’ hopes for success in our ongoing travel, we left Huatahata after an early breakfast. We drove toward Desaguadero and Puno. I was at the wheel. Gonzalo was deep in thought, his left hand against his forehead. “Tiahuanacu,” Gonzalo said. “It’s not far off the road, and it’s part of my ethnic heritage. I’d like to see it one last time.”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “Maybe we can make the Puno train today. But not if we stop. I think we should just keep going.”

  Gonzalo said nothing, thinking about the road ahead, I supposed. Maybe even his future after leaving Bolivia. Then he sat upright, straight and rigid, put both hands on the dash board, and exclaimed abruptly, “Stop! Stop the car. Now!”

  I pulled to the roadside. Gonzalo opened the passenger door, got out and walked back along the roadside. After about one hundred feet he turned, walked back partway, turned again. He paced back and forth for what was probably no more than five minutes, but seemed much longer.

  “Tiahuanacu.” Gonzalo said with emphasis as he got back into the car. “We stop and visit it. I’m leaving my homeland forever. You have to understand that. I want to stop. If we miss today’s train, there’ll be another tomorrow.”

  “But….”

  “No buts. We stop.”

  “Okay. We’ll do it, but I don’t really like the idea.”

  “Screw it! I’m as anxious to get out of Bolivia as you are to get me out. But we’re still here. And I’m still Bolivian. What you like or don’t like is too bad. We go to Tiahuanacu.”

  I did not reply to my friend’s outburst. Gonzalo was quiet for several minutes. Then he said, “You know, the skills of my ancestors were amazing. That they could have built Tiahuanacu blows my mind. It is built of huge granite-like stones. Those stones were not quarried locally. It is supposed that they were transported on rafts across the lake to this area. But the lake is a fair distance from the ruins.”

  “Maybe the lake level was different then,” I offered.

  “Maybe, but that would have to mean an outlet other than Desaguadero. And I don’t think one has been found.”

  “Where does the water leaving the lake at Desguadero go?” I asked.

  “To a salt flat where it evaporates and adds to the salt. Not much salt, really. Lake Titicaca is fresh water. But over centuries and millennia—

  “So they managed to get the huge stones here,” Gonzalo continued. “Then they carved them. Who knows how? Who knows with what tools?”

  “I remember. Monoliths, like Easter Island, sort of.”

  “Yeah. I guess you could say so. The Spaniards defaced them. They carved crosses on all of them and cut up the faces. They thought they were serving God by destroying pagan idols.

  “But there is much, much more. Most of it has been excavated since you were here. They built a substantial terrace with the big monolithic idols on it. And other structures, houses perhaps, terraces. There is a sunken terrace with carved heads in its walls. Hard to know much about that, because early and stupid, uninformed attempts at restoration made a mish-mash of it.”

  “I remember it. Weird.”

  “Yeah, weird. Now things are being done better—being done right—as they should be. Archeologists from both Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania have worked here with the Bolivian archeology team.”

  “You know,” I commented, “back in 1981, when we were living here in Bolivia, I got together with Professor Julio Ramirez, a pathologist from the university, and we looked at all the vertebrae from the available skeletons. At least those they had then. There was nothing that I thought looked like the typical lesions of spinal TB. But you know, TB has been found in Andean mummies from about that period. In fact, American and Peruvian pathologists have carefully dissected and examined several Andean mummies. They carefully rehydrated lung and bony tissues and then studied them under microscopes. Those pathologists found typical lesions of tuberculosis and even bacilli that stained like TB. More than that, they recovered DNA of tubercle bacilli. Despite those who argue that tuberculosis was brought to the Americas by European colonists, TB might well have been here, probably was, certainly was, in fact long before anyone from Europe came on the scene.” I hoped Gonzalo was impressed by my erudition and knowledge of pre-Columbian medical history. I felt very smug!

  Shortly, our conversation was interrupted as we turned into the entrance of the Tiahuanacu site. There was a small building, a kiosk but no more than a shed. A man wearing an old suit coat and a lluchu was sitting on a bench in front of it. He was whittling with a pocket knife and picking his teeth with a small stick he had sharpened. Tacked up on the wall of the kiosk was a poster with Gonzalo’s not-very-good likeness on it. It advertised the thirty thousan
d boliviano reward.

  He waved us on into the ruins. Then he stood up, looked at Gonzalo’s picture, and turned back toward us. I did not wait for him to look at Gonzalo again.

  We parked the car and wandered around. There were no other visitors present. I was surprised—amazed—at how much had changed since my family and I had visited it in 1981. What was then a hill, thought perhaps to hide a pyramid, was now a terraced residential complex. Puma Punka, represented then by only a few carved stones, was now revealed as a large elevated plaza. “Whatever is known or not known about the people who lived here,” I commented to Gonzalo, “they certainly were accomplished builders. Look at the size of some of these stones.”

  “Right,” Gonzalo commented. “Somehow they managed to move twenty-five-ton stones across the lake to this place. On reed boats, do you suppose? It doesn’t seem possible.”

  We ambled around the site, and I noted many changes since I had visited with my family more than twenty-five years earlier. Bolivian archeologists had been at work, in company with North American ones, Gonzalo noted. The sun and moon gates with their enormous lintels were as I remembered them. Also the monolithic figures. “Notice the crosses that I told you about, chiseled into the sides of these figures,” Gonzalo commented. “The Spaniards did that. They thought they would somehow Christianize them this way.

  “These people were not just builders” he continued. “They were architects. In fact, a whole civilization. And all well before the Incas. I guess the Incas ultimately conquered Tiahuanacu. At least I suppose so, but I don’t really know. They conquered everything else around the lake—and everywhere else they went. But, you know,” he continued, “this civilization may have been pretty much in decline by the time the Incas got here. That’s what I was told when I was in school, but I don’t remember being given any explanations for it.

  “Anyway, the Incas imposed the Quechua language on all those whom they conquered, including remaining residents in this region, I think. But not the Aymara along the shore of the lake over by Huatahata. The Aymara there were skilled healers, and so the Incas left them alone to practice their healing arts. At least that’s what my Aymara parents told me when I was a boy. We’re proud of being Aymara.”

  As we were about to leave, we were approached by a boy whom I assumed to be in his early teens. He unwrapped a clay head from a dirty cloth in which it was hidden and asked us if we would like to buy it from him. “Muy viejo, muy autentico,” he assured us.

  “No, hijo,” Gonzalo said, patting him on the shoulder. Turning to me, he commented, “Well, I guess it is authentic in having been made by an indigenous person here—perhaps his father.”

  As we drove out of the site, we encountered the tooth-picking man at the entrance kiosk. He held a rifle cradled in his arm; an old one, I judged. “That’s an old Enfield, I think, except I really don’t know one rifle from another,” Gonzalo commented. “Back in the sixties, when Barrientos was president, he gave rifles to campesinos who supported him. If he tries to shoot it, it is probably more likely to explode than actually fire a bullet. In fact, I would be surprised if he has any bullets for it.”

  The guard, if he could be called that, stepped into the road, stopping us. I rolled down my driver’s window. “You,” he said, “pointing at Gonzalo. You are the wanted criminal.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said. “Let us through. We have to get back to La Paz.”

  “But he’s the man in the poster. A dangerous criminal.”

  “Look, my friend,” I said with annoyance in my voice. “We are Americans. Tourists. Not dangerous criminals. My friend doesn’t speak Spanish. Please step aside and let us pass. And what poster are you talking about?”

  “There.” He pointed to the poster offering a reward for Gonzalo and pulled out his cell phone.

  “Well,” I replied, “that’s certainly not us. I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” I pulled the Datsun onto the berm, driving around him and back onto the road to the highway. The guard pointed his gun at us and fired. To my surprise, the ancient gun actually launched a bullet. The missile hit the road behind us. As we drove on, the guard seemed to be reloading the weapon, but we were back on the highway before he was ready to fire the gun again. And he had a cell phone out. “I suppose he is calling us in to the number on the poster. Hoping for some reward money, maybe.”

  “I don’t like being famous,” Gonzalo said, “and now they will know that we are headed for Puno. And no longer in a VW.”

  “Yeah, but I think they should have already figured that out. Where else would we go? And you will just have to take your fame where you can find it!”

  “I’d rather not.”

  25

  Back on the so-called Pan American Highway, we drove on toward Desaguadero and the Peruvian border. Gonzalo was silent, pensive. It must be sad, I thought, to be leaving one’s homeland forever. What would I feel if I had to leave America and move to—well, anyplace?

  After our visit to Tiahuanacu, it was late in the morning when we approached the border. We were making good time, I thought, but we probably would not reach Puno in time to catch the Cuzco train today. And the good time we were making would not last. We were in sight of the Bolivian emigration point, when we were stopped at a road block. Two uniformed officers approached the car. Not the usual plain-clothes ANSEB agents, I noted. “Please get out and step away from your car,” one of them commanded. Passports in hand, we did so. “Open the trunk, please.” The two men were courteous, but firm and commanding. They searched the car, examining the back seat and the trunk. One of them used a flashlight to look under the car. “The auto registration, please.”

  We gave them the Hertz documents. We also gave them our American passports and explained that we were American tourists heading for Cuzco and Machu Picchu. They looked at us carefully, and compared us with a long out-dated picture of Gonzalo. One of them pulled out a cell phone and made a call.

  “He’s not calling his wife,” I said softly to Gonzalo.

  “I hope we pass,” Gonzalo replied quietly.

  “You are Americans?” one of the men asked.

  “Yes,” I replied. “You have our passports.”

  “Where do you live in America?”

  “Cleveland. In Ohio.”

  “And you are tourists here? Just the two of you?”

  “Yes, we are. We are good friends in Ohio. We wanted our wives to come with us to Bolivia and Peru, but they decided to stay home. So we are traveling together. Just the two of us. This mountainous region is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.”

  “¿Hablan español?” one of them, apparently the senior one, asked.

  “I do, a little,” I replied. That should have been evident as we had been conversing in Spanish, mine deliberately bumbling with common errors. “My friend does not.” Gonzalo had remained silent during this interchange.

  “What do you do in Ohio?” Not a question that I was really prepared for. And I thought I should not tell him I was a professor interested in doing studies in Bolivia.

  “I am a businessman. I own a car dealership. Two of them, in fact. I sell automobiles.”

  “Oh. What make?”

  I was uncertain why these questions were being asked. Part of generally evaluating us, I supposed. I replied. “Chevrolets and GMC trucks at one. Toyotas at the other.”

  “And this other man here, your friend? What does he do?”

  “He has a company that installs and services heating and air conditioning units in homes and small commercial properties.” I doubted that the officer understood what that occupation might be, but he seemed to accept it.

  Once again, the officer paged through our passports. He handed them back to us. “Bueno. You may proceed.”

  The border stations—Bolivian and Peruvian—were open. There were two trucks ahead of us, and then we found ourselves with the Bolivian emigration officials. We assumed they would have been alerted and, lik
e the men at the road block we had just cleared, would also be looking for two men. We hoped that they had been told these two would be driving a Volkswagen. I rolled down the window and presented our two American passports.

  “¿Americanos?”

  “Yes. Si.”

  He took our passports, walked into the building, and returned with another agent, evidently a more senior official. “¿A donde van?” he asked. I explained in stumbling Spanish that we were tourists visiting South America, that we had rented the car in La Paz, and that we planned to take the train from Puno to Cuzco and then take the train to Machu Picchu before returning. He asked to see the car rental papers, which Gonzalo retrieved from the glove box and I presented to him. That this examination was necessary after we had just cleared the nearby road block probably had more to do with Bolivian bureaucracy than Bolivian security, I thought.

  “Can you suggest a place where we might leave the car?” I asked.

  “Not at the railroad station,” he said. “It would not be safe there. There are several garages in Puno. Arrange with one of them to keep the car.” While talking to us he paged carefully through our passports. He then took the entry forms from them. “You are leaving Bolivia,” he said. “You will have to complete new immigration and customs entry forms when you return. Do not bring any food or any drugs.”

  “Claro,” I said.

  He waved us on. We then stopped for Peruvian immigration and customs. “Anything to declare?” the official asked.

  “Nada.”

  He saluted us and waved us forward.

  I turned to Gonzalo. “We’re out of Bolivia. Do you think we’ll be followed here—in Peru?”

  “Oh, I expect so. Yes, for sure. Of course they can’t arrest me here, but with a gun in my back, what could I do?”

  We drove north toward Puno. About an hour, we surmised. We were not going to be in time for the nine-o’clock departure of the train to Cuzco. After about a half-hour, I stopped the car, opened the trunk and found a screw driver and a wrench. I removed the license plates, front and rear. One I tossed to the right, as far from the road as I could. Then, after driving another hundred yards, I tossed the other to the left.