Peru Stories Week 5

July 8th, 2012 (Friday)

We took the overnight bus from Trujillo to Huamachuco, Peru.

July 9th, 2012 (Saturday)

Arriving in the cold dark morning of 3am, we hired the local transport of Toyota Hilux to get us to the gold mine near Chuquitambo, our destination.

Just to recap, the purpose of our trip is to install concrete foundations at the village, for a future wind turbine. We brought welded re-bar cages for the foundation from the WindAid workshop in Trujillo.

Each valley on the way to Chuquitambo is sort of a micro environment. The first one we drove through (had paved roads!) had a nice town and a big lake.

Then there's the plateau that looked like Scotland, where there was a small rest stop where we had soup for breakfast, in this valley the road is still nice gravel. Fluffy grazing sheep dotted the rolling green hills. There are also ponds and rocky outcrops.

The next valley had a large river on the bottom, with mountainsides covered with fairly respectable vegetation. We crossed the river on wheels as it is the dry season.

The final valley where our village is located in is extremely hot, with a deserted landscape and cacti covering the bottom, where sharp cliffs dropped into the raging river. Before reaching the gold mine, small villages adorned the side of the road, some are only a few houses while others have their own central plaza and school. Chuquitambo is on the far side of the valley and it took us about 5 hours of driving to get there from first entering the valley from the top.

Of course, with all this driving we actually have to climb winding roads to top of the valley, then descend to the bottom and ascend over the ridge again. Most of the roads are bumpy gravel and at places wooden planks bridged gaping chasms. Including volunteers, there are 6 people from WindAid, a driver, and another local passenger. At first, we experimented with squeezing 7 people in the cab, with one person sitting on the CD box. Finally we ended with 6 in the cab and 2 in the back of the truck along with all the luggage.

The road is wide at places, just enough for 2 vehicles to pass, and narrower at others. If 2 vehicles came head to head, one of them must back up to a wider stretch. I saw 2 trucks behind us try to pass one another and some pebbles slid down the cliff because one of the wheels was so close to the edge. The roadside do occasionally have grave markers. At one point, there were more than 8 wooden crosses. The driver told us it was a bus driver who went out to relieve himself and left the bus in neutral.

We crossed a bridge over the river at bottom of the valley, and ate rice and fried chicken at a local restaurant. There we switched to fully kitted trucks from the gold mine - they had air conditioning, roll cage, lights and fire extinguisher, and picked up our cement. Of course the best part is having proper space to sit.

Driving up the mountain we passed security checkpoints for the gold mine, one of which featured a guy with an AK47 rifle.

Finally we arrived in Chuquitambo, which was a very nice village with a brand new school. The main road is above the village and we drove down to a grassy lot to unload our gear. Over 200 people live in the village and most of the houses are made out of adobe, a fairly solid dried mud - straw mixture compacted through sheer will and labour. The activities here involve raising chicken, lamb, donkeys mostly, and occasionally horses and oxen. Eucalyptus trees are planted on the slopes to prevent erosion.

Our host was Abraham. He is a carpenter, and owns the only grocery store in town.

We were treated to a nice warm dinner before sleeping as the sun went down at 6pm. The temperature plummeted from almost 30C during the day to merely 3C at night. At this village, there is running water coming from the mountain springs, but it is cold. Abraham's house has a shower which we never used (because of cold) and a working toilet (which is a rarity in the region). At night, we use thick blankets to keep warm. There is a diesel generator for the village, and existing grid. However the generator has some problems and use expensive fuel, so most of the time people sleep early, and use flashlights and candles.

At night, the stars can be seen in their full glory.

July 10th, 2012 (Sunday)

The day started with breakfast at around 9, also a formidable meal. Then going and looking at the village generator, which has some vibration problems. There was an older generator which broke, probably from another problem, but end result being the piston smashing through the engine housing, which is not a normal failure mode. After that we went to a village meeting, held at their school. The WindAid employee, Fernando, also a mechanical engineer, explained some stuff about the turbine. Other topics of the meeting include raising funds for buying books and stationary for the school and how much people owe the teacher, as well as whether or not people that doesn't have a kid in the school should pay their contribution to the community education fund.

After this was lunch, then we headed back up to the school where we selected a spot for the turbine to dig our first hole. It was about a cubic meter and took us all afternoon as we're unused to the labour and altitude.

 The day ended with us watching a game of soccer at the field behind the school. An awesome amount of earth must have been removed to make the field and we never found out what did it, but most likely machinery was brought in from industry. During part of the game, a horse ran onto the field and had to be led away.

July 11th, 2012 (Monday)

On this day the villagers and volunteers dug the other 4 holes for the turbine foundation, and poured concrete all before lunch. Of course the villagers worked efficiently and we just stood by and watched. At first there was some disagreement about the mixture of concrete - the locals thought there should be way more gravel in the mixture than we did. As the bags of cement were giant and holes doesn't seem so big, we thought they wanted to save some extra cement out of this. However it turns out us mechanical engineers have no idea what we were talking about (Fernando didn't pay attention to this detail during previous turbine works), and had to actually find random rocks to throw into the foundation to make up the volume.

After the works, we all joked about leaving signatures in the wet concrete. Finally one of the volunteers caved and left the impression of his naked butt in concrete.

After lunch, we hiked up to an ancient Incan lookout. Some of the mountain slopes do not have clear paths, and since my boots didn't fit perfectly walking up the incline and climbing some of the rocks were awkward. The view up top was great, and I brought a water bottle and my sketch book by clipping them to my belt with carabiners. We made our way back "home" at about the same time the sun is setting and the sheep are going home, it was a beautiful scene.

July 12th, 2012 (Tuesday)

We arranged for transportation to get back to Trujillo after our work is done, however the arrangement depended on availability of vehicle so we had to stay one more day. Which means one more day of not showering, but one more day of amazing hospitality and exploring the locale.

We started the day with visiting the secondary and primary schools again, saying hi to everyone and taking group photos. The kids here are much shyer than those at Playa Blanca. As it is in less industrial lifestyles, most of the secondary school students are also parents. 

In the privileged world, we balk at the idea that "children" should be warriors or parents. But childhood today is an invented concept made possible by the dominance of machine. When the earliest humanity carved out their living against the forces of nature, those in mid-teens would be respected as adults, and in their thirties old and wise grandparents. The way people live their lives are intimately linked to the condition they live in.

For this day's exploration we took the shepard's path to try and walk along the ridge top behind Chuquitambo. The shepard's path is definitely difficult, sometimes we wonder if we were on the sheep's path - having 4 legs is an advantage climbing. However there are some thorny plants and I did not dare go on all fours. Before getting to the top, we tried this path that had collapsed and had to turn back. While on this path, a startled bird squaked and shot out into the canyon from some bushes. Everyone almost lost their balance, and my friend said the bird hit him in the head.

 

  

We walked along the ridge, which was fairly wide and flat, a leisure stroll. It was a half-day walk and we descended along a dried stream bed. Made our way back to the village along the main road.

I also got to have some time to show some kids how to draw. At night we played an evil game of Parcheesi. The rules were so cryptic that the volunteers argued at length about the interpretation. Finally Fernando said, "I don't understand" due to our heated debate in English, to which we replied, "It's okay, neither do we."

July 13th, 2012 (Wednesday)

This day we said goodbye to our friends in Chuquitambo and started on the long journey back to Trujillo. This time we had a large passenger van that could seat up to 14, which was comfy and roomy compared to the pick-up ride. At one point we had to pass a crazy bus driver by backing into the corner of a cliff. I told my friend who was freaking out to "scream in a high pitch if you see that rock beside our wheel fall into the cliff" which he did not take amusement of.

July 14th, 2012 (Thursday)

After arriving in Trujillo at about 4 in the morning I showered and slept, while all the others did the reverse order. We met an old volunteer who took some time away to see South America and played soccer in the afternoon.

July 15, 2012 (Friday)

On this day we packed, exchanged photos and data, and bid farewell to everyone. My friend and I took the La Linea overnight bus from Trujillo to Lima, which had luxurious fully reclining seats and individual entertainment screens.

July 16th - 17

On the 16th, we arrived early in the morning and made our way to Miraflores district, after depositing our bags at Hotel Kanama which we stayed at a month ago. We walked around for the stores to open and shopped around for souvenirs and gifts. We retrieved our bags and took a taxi to the airport at night and after another long journey arrived in Toronto at 1pm on the 17th.