Notes from Cuzco
by Namit Arora
It was six a.m. when the AeroPeru jet arrived in Lima. The night
had seemed long partly because an elderly senora let her head
collapse on my shoulder every few minutes. She had earlier told
me, almost apologetically, that Lima was not for tourists anymore,
that it had lost its former charm, that it was now truly Lima la
horrible. She then warily inquired whether Nueva Delhi was better
or worse. I told her it was much the same, which seemed to infuse
her with a warm feeling for me, a silent solidarity of sorts. It
not only encouraged her to unleash motherly advice on how to
tackle Lima but just before disembarking she insisted that I take
a small bottle of homemade Peruvian Chili sauce as a gift. Not a
bad start, I thought.
 Waiting
for the connecting flight to Cuzco, I wandered in and around the
terminal. It was a dull gray morning, typical of the season.
Billboards across the parking lot advertised Inca Cola, insurance
plans, banks, beach resorts, and detergents. Beyond them lay the
city and its people, vividly depicted by the Dutch filmmaker
Honigmann in her recent movie on the Peruvian love-hate
relationship with their temperamental automobiles – Metal and
Melancholy. I opened my mouth and breathed in deeply,
attempting to verify what I had read: one can taste the air in
Lima. But the foul lingering taste of airline bacon and black
coffee camouflaged all others.
The flight to Cuzco soared over snow-capped peaks of the Peruvian
Andes. A restless kid next to me, perhaps eight or nine years of
age, drank copious amounts of Inca Cola and kept leaning over to
shoot pictures with his toy camera through the scratched oval
window. In ninety minutes we were at Cuzco. From the air, the town
appeared cozy and inviting – orange-brown shingled rooftops
snuggled up close in this once remote high valley of the Andes.
Outside the airport I hopped on a cab and left for the city center,
the Plaza de Armas. Along Avenida del Sol, the chief artery of the
city, the driver picked up a friend, a travel agent of sorts. ‘Ah,
de la India,’ he said, praising my meager Spanish language skills.
Getting quickly to the point, he pulled out a crinkled brochure
and, pointing to several pictures, offered to set up a day-long
tour of the Urubamba valley departing an hour later. I decided to
go for it.
I found a cheap hotel on the main plaza opposite the sixteenth
century cathedral. The Sunday morning sun still cast long shadows
through the vanishing fog. A handful of elderly Indian men
occupied the benches, elderly women with importunate eyes sat
behind heaps of alpaca-wool sweaters, and boys and girls tried to
sell trinkets to any tourist they could find. Spanish style
balconies, built upon Inca stone foundations, peered over
cobblestone streets. Cuzco’s high altitude made me mildly dizzy
and my nose began to trickle blood.
The tour van left Cuzco with ten people on board. It paused often
on the narrow mountainous route to peer at Inca terrace farms or
some other vista of the valleys, and all tourist cameras would
swing into action. Our first destination, an Indian crafts market
in the village of Pisac and a prominent stop on the local tourist
circuit, was a small conglomeration of orange-pink adobe huts
nestled in the valley of a minor tributary of the Urubamba River.
The Indians of this area depend on outsiders for much of their
income. Many still shield their children, turgid bellies and runny
noses, from cameras believed to strip them of their soul.
The village center was awash with color – multi-layered,
multi-patterned Indian ponchos, panpipes, gaudy quilts, and
countless trinkets. It was Sunday and an evening of ritual
celebration lay ahead for the Indians. After spending an hour
wandering through the narrow alleys and the local vegetable and
meat markets, we returned to the van. We stopped for lunch at an
open air restaurant where I started talking to a Spanish woman,
perhaps in her late-thirties who, with her high energy, outrageous
humor, and joie de vivre, reminded me of the women in Almodovar
movies. She had worked for two years at a construction site in
Colombia and was soon leaving for Ecuador to begin work on an
offshore oilrig. After a bit of small talk she began
philosophizing about men in her deep husky voice. She told me of
her father’s curious advice to her – date a Latino but marry an
American. She had modified that a bit and was now dating two men,
she said with a wink: a Colombian and an American. But she still
liked to travel alone.
 Our
next stop was Ollantaytambo – the ruins of an Inca temple on top
of a hill, presumed a fortress by the Conquistadores. Pizzaro and
his men lost a major battle here but returned later with
reinforcements for a decisive victory. The steep terraces below
the fortress are both spectacular and act as a natural defense. As
the guide began his canned speech on the glories of its past
inhabitants, their myths and legends, I slipped out to explore on
my own.
On the way back, an unusually reticent German, Klaus, sat next to
me. He appeared to be in his early thirties but beneath a bushy
black beard he had the grave expression of a defeated old man: not
placid, not quite disturbed either, almost numb. He was traveling
through Peru on his way to meet his ten-year-old foster child in a
small Bolivian town. A bit of small talk revealed that four years
ago he had crossed the Sahara in a jeep. I inquired if he’d made
plans for dinner. Getting off on the main plaza in Cuzco, we
walked along a side-street looking for a restaurant.
It was soon apparent that Klaus was nursing emotional wounds, the
kind afflicted by relationships gone sour. A couple of beers and
he let go of his emotions like a fragile embankment in a flood.
Mucho pain y remorse. His girlfriend of nine years had left him
for one of his friends. It was partly his fault; he should have
seen it coming; he could have prepared himself. He loved her
dearly and planned to marry her. It was hard to find someone like
her again. Even his work had suffered since. I listened, feeling
like an ambler who suddenly finds himself in a No Trespassing
zone. It is perhaps easier to offload such matters on total
strangers far from home. He became mellow many beers later and
before parting even gave me a warm hug on the main square. I
hurried back to my hotel and slipped into bed. A light outside the
frosted glass window kept me awake until I covered the window with
a towel. Soon, I passed into deep untroubled sleep.
~~~
The Machu Picchu train
was scheduled to leave Cuzco at 6:20 a.m. I got up at five and was
in a window seat at six in the second-class compartment. The
station was crowded with travelers and vendors selling coffee,
omelets, sugar coated nuts, meat pies, and warm soda. The train
began rather reluctantly and rattled through several
poverty-ridden Indian settlements of greater Cuzco. The Indians
here depend largely on subsistence farming and small crafts and
lead cramped lives, neglected and persecuted for centuries by
“upper-class” Peruvians of coastal cities, closer in blood and
culture to Madrid. Their gods slowly faded from memory as the
bony, bloodied, and benevolent savior-on-the-cross acquired new
followers. Their dwellings were stark: tin roofs held in place by
stones and metallic waste. Across from me sat a local woman
dressed in rags, an infant in her lap suckling milk from a
yellow-green stained bottle.
The train plodded along for almost four hours and 110km to Puenta
Ruinas, the station nearest Machu Picchu. The landscape—gentle
rolling hills at first—became a sinuous valley along the Urubamba
river, suspended between high and vertical mountain walls.
Farmhouses would occasionally appear in small clearings, chickens
and sheep indicating habitation. The train stopped at larger
villages, locals hopping in and out with their assorted
belongings: sacks of fresh produce, oil canisters, and other
supplies.
 A
few buses waited for the tourists at Puenta Ruinas. They crawled
up an unpaved, six-kilometer path, winding along the steep
mountainside. The lost city of the Incas was slowly revealed, the
ruins spread out on the top like a decomposed carcass of a giant
guanaco. This was once the exclusive abode of the Inca nobility
and priests. The train in the valley below became smaller and
smaller, a baby serpent caught in a brief encounter with the sun.
It was hard to comprehend why such an isolated site was chosen for
this settlement – the flattish top of a steep mountain surrounded
by deep green valleys and then more mountains – a mysterious,
disquieting place. Eastwards, inside the inhospitable Amazon
rainforest, more spectacular ruins, yet unexcavated, are believed
to exist. Terrace farming supplied food to this community of one
thousand elite who lived by the solar calendar for centuries until
the Spaniards ended it all. The Inca civilization of twelve
million people, built upon formidable organizing prowess and
administrative efficiency, which extended from Colombia to
northern Chile and which achieved the rare and enviable feat of
providing sustenance to all its members, succumbed to the craft
and cunning of 180 semi-literate Spanish swordsmen with a
reputation for savagery and love of gold. Hard to comprehend? The
Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa has offered an explanation:
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Are the
conquistadores' firearms, horse, and armor enough to explain
the immediate collapse of the
Inca civilization ...? It is true that gunpowder, bullets
and the charging of beasts that were unknown to them
paralyzed the Indians with a religious terror ... Even so,
the numerical difference was such that the Quechua ocean
would [only] have had to shake in order to drown the
invader. What prevented this from happening? What is the
profound explanation for that defeat from which the Inca
population never recovered? The answer may perhaps lie
hidden in the moving account that appears in the chronicles
of what happened in the Cajamarca square the day Pizzaro
captured the Inca [emperor] ...
The vertical and totalitarian structure [of the Inca empire]
was, without doubt, more harmful to its survival than all
the conquistadores' firearms and iron weapons. As soon as
the Inca [emperor], that figure which was the vortex towards
which all wills converged searching for inspiration and
vitality, the axis around which the entire society was
organized and upon which depended the life and death of
every person – from the richest to the poorest – was
captured, no one knew how to act. So they did the only thing
they could do, with heroism, we must admit, but without
breaking the thousand and one taboos and precepts which
regulated their existence: they let themselves get killed.
And that was the fate of the dozens and perhaps hundreds of
Indians stultified by the confusion and loss of leadership
that they suffered when the Inca Emperor, the life force of
their universe, was captured right before their eyes. |
 The
first prominent European to have exposed the subsequent oppression
and enslavement of the Indian by the European in the name of God,
King, and Natural Reason was the Dominican missionary Bartolomé de
Las Casas. His lifelong activism against the injustices of his
countrymen in the “new world” is documented in his monumental
Historia de las Indias which he wanted published "only after
forty years have passed, so that, if God determines to destroy
Spain, it may be seen that it is because of the destruction that
we have wrought in the Indies and His just reason for it may be
clearly evident." Later, when he was the bishop of Chiapas in
Guatemala, he issued his famous Confesionario in which he
forbade absolution to be given to those who held Indians in
encomienda (serfdom).
I spent a couple hours wandering the sprawling ruins: the
Sacristy, ceremonial baths, bedchambers, courthouses, the
Intihuatana – “hitching of the sun” in Quechua – a carved rock
pillar used to determine time of the year, and observation decks
for the heavens above. After a quick lunch at the expensive
cafeteria onsite, I took the bus down to the train. The
compartment was packed when I got in and for the next four hours,
I hung on to the rails, fighting the urge to collapse on the
floor. Cold beer with the menu del dia in a Cuzco restaurant, and
I was dreaming of cozy beds and warm bodies.
~~~
The next day I got out
early and settled on a bench in the main plaza. Hundreds of
pigeons had descended in a feeding frenzy from the cool trappings
of the cathedral walls – one group around a baffled toddler, proud
mother in tow with breadcrumbs. Souvenir shops, provision stores,
travel agencies, and restaurants were beginning a new day. Several
kids accosted me, some threatening to burst into tears, as they
implored me to buy something from them. Luisa, a frail twelve year
old, was selling picture postcards. Visibly pleased when I bought
four postcards for two Soles, she sat next to me and started
talking. She had four brothers and two sisters. Her parents had
died when she was four – now she lived with relatives. She went to
school three days a week. While she was talking another girl
approached me. Flashing her big black eyes, she unleashed a mighty
emotional sales pitch that soon turned me into a proud owner of a
crude necklace. When she left Luisa told me that I had paid too
much, the necklace was really worth much less. I smiled and asked
her about the postcards. She insisted that two Soles was the fair
price but she couldn't hide her innocent-mischievous smile as she
began fiddling with her long braid, legs crossed and swinging.
Wandering around, I noticed a restaurant – Govinda. Run by ISKCON,
it appeared rather incongruous with its brand of austere, Eastern
vegetarianism in this former Inca capital. Boys and girls in tidy
uniforms – blue pants and skirts, white shirts and blouses –
walked to the local school. Within minutes the school bells broke
into a resonant chime. Taxis – yellow Volkswagen Beetles – moved
around with a muffled hum. A staccato of pleas arose from the
busier pavements littered with handicrafts. Expressions of
changing needs – home appliances, electronic gadgets, and
cosmetics – were visible in many stores. A rusty metal board,
nailed into a crack in the Inca stone wall outside a dark
cavernous doorway, displayed this announcement:
ê
Aqui
è
Nintendo
ç
Aqui
ê.
The main cathedral attracted a steady stream of visitors all day.
Built by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, it had since
acquired significant Inca influences – Jesus on the cross,
bleeding profusely, looked like a benevolent, troubled Indian; the
fairies were Indian, the wood carvings had serpents and pumas.
There was also an Inca version of The Last Supper: an
Indian-looking Jesus with disciples drank Chicha, a local corn
brew, with Cuy – roast guinea pig, feet, snout and tail attached,
tummy side up – an Inca delicacy.
 It
was mid-afternoon by now. A watchful nanny led school children
across the streets in single file. I decided to hop on a tour to a
few archaeological sites around Cuzco. One of these was
Sacsayhuaman – “satisfied falcon” in Quechua – on a hill
overlooking the valley of Cuzco. The scale of this site, made of
large stone blocks, each cut with precision to closely fit other
curves and edges, was astonishing. The guide, a short, elderly,
bespectacled man who spoke little English, bashfully referred to
it as Sexy Woman and appeared extremely tickled by it. What amused
me more was the thought that tour guides here probably cracked
this joke all the time trying to sound spontaneous and original.
With some help from the guide and a generous stretch of the
imagination, piecing together avenues and plazas, I could discern
the outline of a puma in the Inca plan of the city. Nearby, a
giant majestic condor with claws tightly clasped in metal wires
flapped its wide wings helplessly in an effort to fly, a gleeful
family of four posing beside it, many others waiting their turn.
On the way back I ran into Lisa, a thirty-something from Laredo,
Texas. She was plump, lively, and loquacious, given to raucous
bursts of laughter, often at her own jokes. She was traveling with
another woman, taken ill that morning in her hotel, from Quito to
Cuzco. Lisa was going to an Indian dance that evening and invited
me to come along. I had time to kill so I decided to go. It turned
out to be a show for tourists but nevertheless an energetic fusion
of flamenco and Inca traditions.
I suggested a restaurant for dinner. Earlier that day I had
noticed Cuy on its menu. We ordered a round of beer and started
talking about her life and work in Laredo. She worked in the state
department of health care for migrant workers. She was surprised
that I had been to Laredo, a nondescript border town with an
unfinished, unsettled look, not the clichéd melting pot where
people acquired new identities but rather reinforced their own.
She told me about her family in Wisconsin and her difficult father
who wanted her to forget about college and refused to pay for it.
She took a loan, went to college and on an exchange program
visited Mexico, where she fell in love with a local restaurateur.
When they considered marriage, her father, devastated by the
prospect, disowned her. Finally, the thought of living in Mexico
didn’t appeal to her and she came back. That was eight years ago
but still seemed fresh: a vivid recurring dream, perhaps because
she was still looking for Mr. Right. Her body clock was ticking
and it worried her. She was pensive now, troubled by those years
of loneliness. The Lisa Theory maybe true after all, she said,
forcing a laugh. Over the years, her father had mellowed a bit but
still thought it was she who brought him his gray hair.
My main course looked exactly like what I had seen on the plate
before Jesus that morning. Lisa turned queasy, and when she
realized what it was, became agitated. Had I absolutely no
regard for animal rights? Had I not gone beyond the furthest
limits of gustatory adventure? I weakly protested that if it was
okay for Jesus it sure was okay for me, but to no avail. I
succeeded in changing the topic only after she’d completed her
diatribe and taken a picture of me dissecting my food. I wondered
what she’d do with it and politely laid claim to a portion of the
royalties. By then she’d lost all appetite for her broiled trout.
Overcome by a vague sense of guilt and a nameless discontent with
the texture of my meal, I made synthetic conversation for the rest
of the evening. I was flying to Arequipa the next morning and it
was soon time to return to the hotel.
© Namit Arora 2005
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