Love, Battlefields, Puddles of Sunshine, Floods, and a Shit List in the Magical Midnight Streets.

Meet me for dinner at the end of the drug street where the house fell down. 

Since my last update a lot has happened, as always.  I have started and finished classes, kissed in the streets, learned how to throw a stone, danced in disguise several times, finished books, lived in an apartment in the art district, and said goodbye to a very good friend. 

Way back in the beginning of the new year, when people were still sleeping hung over and pantless on the sidewalk, I met someone in that hangout of ours, Roots, where everyone knows our names and they serve us free coca cola.  We danced and had coffee and made puppet shows in discos but he went back to Lima to dance hip-hop, which sucks.  At least now I will have someone to show me around the very big city when I am there. 

My classes started for the new semester, one about Castellano with Viviana, and another about the Andean culture with Natalie.  Both of those have ended.  But I also had and still do have a class online in which I walk around and experience life in Peru and then write a journal about it in Castellano.  That culture class almost killed me.  I would have to read entire books and scholarly articles every night in a language that I am still learning.

And then my professor took me to the ritual battle of Chiaraje.   There is a community some hours outside of the city that, every year, has a great battle.  They sling stones and hit each other with makeshift mazes made from bicycle gears, old axe heads, and any other painfully gruesome piece of scrap metal they may find.  People die.  Other people are captured as prisoners.  And everyone who fights, fights with pride and with all of the anger they have built up over the course of the year. 

We arrived at the battlefield and, like what-is-the-name-of-that-Civil-War-battle?-maybe-Bunker-Hill-or-Gettysburg, people lined up along the field in their best traditional dresses to watch the two hours’ traffic of the stage.  Women set up their little blue tarps to sell carne and corn on the cob and lots and lots of potato alcohol.  I bought myself a death sling for five soles and then went over to the battlefield, before the fighting started, to have a little boy teach me how to kill a man with my new weapon.   I couldn’t fight in the battle, though.  If you’re not from this small little village, you are not allowed.  Also, I had contracted a pretty bad fever and my head was spinning a little bit.  I am sure a smart blow to the skull with a handmade bludgeon wouldn’t have helped anything.

But then the battle started and we ran back and forth between the mountains trying to get closer to get a good photo, and then running away to avoid the terrible rain of stones that came falling on our heads.  We didn’t get hit, not even once.  But when someone is throwing a rock to kill, they don’t care that you’re not from around those parts and therefore can’t fight back.  Rocks are rocks and heads are heads. 

Here in this tiny mountain population, they believe that if any blood is shed, or if you die, it is an offering to the Pachamama (Mother Earth).  As I was riding the rickety bus to the battlefield, I talked to some warriors sitting next to me.  They told me that it was an honor to fight, and they were going to go into that battle knowing that they may die.  It is very easy for us to think that these strange traditions are savage and barbaric, and that they should not be running around killing people.  But the truth is that we will never understand fully what it is like to live there in that small part of the world, and we will never understand that sense of pride and honor gotten from fighting for seemingly no reason other than tradition.  There is something unseen about this ritual for which they are passionate enough to die.  And though I would never agree to die for some tradition, it is unbelievably beautiful. 

When the side that I was on had advanced across the battlefield and the enemy was cowering on a mountaintop, they decided that the battle had been won.  The watching women started to dance and sing with rocks in their  hands.  And one of them let out such a terrible cry of battle that people clapped when she was done.  Legend says that if the side I was on wins, then it will be a bad year.  And as soon as that crazy woman finished her battle cry, the skies turned black and a heavy, cold, sleety rain pelted down on everyone like falling stones of war. 

It rained for four years, eleven months, and two days.  Or that's what it seemed like.  The rains came down in Cusco constantly, all day, without stopping until the rivers had filled to overflowing and had wiped whole villages away in the muddy current.  Houses in the surrounding pueblos crumbled into piles of sticks and mud, the bridges in Pisaq, Sicuani, and Limatambo were washed away in the river, a road caved under a passing bus killing fifteen people, a woman and her guide were entombed by a landslide on the Inca Trail that I walked so long ago, and nearly 2,000 tourists were stranded in Machu Picchu.  Hundreds of people were left homeless in the rain that continued to fall, and the Peruvian president appeared on CNN saying "No, we're fine.  Nothing happened here."  The tourists were so desperate to get out that they were paying $500 per person to jump onto helicopters that flitted over the city with their horror-wasp chattering. 

Regardless of these terrible events, we had to make the most of Simone’s numbered days, and we went on a short trip to Quillabamba.  This is the city where mangos ripen heavy by the hundreds and fall off of trees into trash cans.  We got some cheap bus tickets for the jungle; they were cheap because the bus left at 3:00 in the morning.  And because Simi and I have had bad experiences with going to sleep for a little bit and then waking up to catch a bus (cough cough colca canyon cough) we spent the late night hours dancing.  On this trip, we were Simone, Steffi, Daniel, Teresa, Ane, Megan, and myself.  However, we thought that Linda was going to go as well and bought an eighth ticket for her.  She didn’t go, and we were stuck with an unused ticket that was burning a hole in our pockets.  So we hopped around the dance floor asking random people if they would like to go on a 6-hour bus ride to the jungle in 30 minutes.  A lot of people said no, which is the normal thing to do, but one mad child of mother earth, Jose, said yes.  I cannot imagine the freedom that it takes to be able to do something like that.  It’s beautiful.  There were only eight seats and that bus and we had them all the world was entirely ours. 

The bus driver was trying to see if he could get it to round the curves on two wheels so it was very hard to sleep.  I would drift off a little bit and then a curve would come and I would be awoken by the sound of my head smacking against the window.  We realized after a while of looking at the landscape swirling around outside our window that this was the very same road that we had taken to get to Machu Picchu, only with more leaves and ripened fruit.  And then the car stopped behind a long line of cars and we got out to see what all the hubbub was all about. 

A truck filled with Coca Cola, Sprite, and Fanta, had actually succeeded  in rounding a curve on two wheels but then went a little too far and fell over completely.  From the toppled truck bed came an avalanche of soda and broken glass tinkling down the mountainside.  Men and women were refilling the cases with the bottles that had not broken, while little kids slithered around the corners and reached through the ferns to get a bottle for themselves. It started to rain a little and the air was thick with a sweet, sticky, heavy, tropical smell that was exhaled through the pores of so many strange and beautiful leaves. 

Jose found a round little mud puddle in the road and drew lines around it to make the rays of a sun.  He said it was to catch the sunlight so that it would stop raining.  Then we put some rocks there to make eyes, and some more to make a smile.  Pretty soon, everyone was digging around the edges of the road to find the perfect stones, and we had ourselves a smiling puddle of sunshine.  We found a candy wrapper and with it gave him a silver plated tooth.  We made a cigarette out of a banana leaf and an incense stick.  And then we put a little coca leaf on his forehead chakra.  And what luck that Simone had her little speaker and music player with her.  We all stood around the puddle shooing away the clouds and listening to “Sunshine of your love".” Soon, the truck was moved and the people cheered, and then kicked the rest of the bottles down the mountain.  Our bus continued on to a little village where the streets were littered with mango peels.  I bought a large bag of more than a dozen mangos for less than a dollar.  These people had so many mangos that the trash cans were literally filled with ripe beautiful uneaten mangos and the thick beautiful vapors of sweet decay. 

We arrived in the lazy heat of Quillabamba and took a nap in our hostel beds before going out to explore.  We plucked strange flowers and tried to catch deep blue butterflies with our cameras.  Actually, I forgot to bring my camera with me, so all of the photos here are Teresa’s.  There was a river winding through the mountains so we jumped in and swam in the current while the vultures circled overhead.  But the current got too strong after a while and we went over to the dirty pool and laid on the steps under the banana leaves. 

At night, we snuck up to the unfinished fourth floor of our hostel with candles and avocados and made ourselves a fine little meal on the floor with the cockroaches overlooking the sleepy town.  We took a taxi in the morning to some place in the forest that only locals were supposed to know about.  I wasn’t even sure what it was.  We walked through a coffee grove and I was putting something in my bag, not looking where I was going, when every one stopped. I looked up and shouted some random words into a great mighty thunderous cascade of water crashing down rocks that it had sculpted into abstraction for thousands of years.   There was a hole carved deep down into the rock that you could only detect by sitting down in the waterfall and sticking your leg down there while bracing yourself on the rock walls.  It was deep and deathly and mysterious.  We played around in the water and followed some rickety rotten system of ropes and ladders up to the top, where we let the water fall down on us heavy and stinging like stones.  I caught some strange bugs and splashed around in the cool waters like a child playing in the biggest sprinkler in the world on the hottest day ever.  After that, we went home in the bus and tried to sleep but instead just smacked our heads against the windows. 

In the final weeks of Simone’s stay here in Cusco, we lived together—Simone, Steffi, our friend Daniel, and I—in a small, one-room apartment in the art district, San Blas.  We only had two beds to share among four people, it was a mountainous climb to reach the front door and because it was so high the water never worked, rats scratched through the ceiling at night, and because of our lack of water, it was plagued with the stench of week-old lomo saltado and the cinnamon incense we used to disguise it.  And yet, this beautiful shithole was true and perfect in every way.  Here is a story of Kiskapata disconnected, because not everything has to make sense or have a reason.

The walls were blue and we had a “shit list” ripped from a box of corn flakes and nailed to the wall because it was not normal for our little home on Kiskapata to have enough running water to flush the toilet.  We lit up the night with candles taken from discotecas and the steps of cathedrals.  Our landlady Julia would give us buckets of rainwater but we also tried and failed to collect our own by tying a cut water bottle to the window frame with some green string Simone had used to make a necklace or something.  The lomo saltado was living in a pot on the stove for a while but as it grew and got a little more bold and daring, it made its way into the shower that never works.  Once, I squatted down Thailand style in that shower with a bucket of water and splashed myself like an elephant taking a mud bath.  I have no idea what that lomo is doing in there now but you can be sure that it is still there. 

In the beginning, my professor Natalie would have me read entire books in Spanish on some festivals up in the mountains.  I would try to read them at night but that VIEW!  Damn, that view would suck me in and dance with me a beautiful timeless dance of love—bodies pressed so close together that nothing else existed or mattered—and it would not let go.  And so,  in the morning I would wake up at 7:00, go down to  have a donut (or as they call it, a “dona”) in the Buen Pastor and read a little before going to class.  The Buen Pastor ranked a 3 on the Shit List out of a possible 5 because it was close and always had toilet paper, but did not have a mirror and you always had to buy something afterward so as not to feel bad for having entered a bread shop run by nuns just to use the bathroom.  Kilometro 0 scored a 5 because of its awesome graffiti and also because our friend Miguel worked there and knew of our dilemma. 

I once went to a parade to celebrate the Virgen de la Candelaria with my professor. People danced through the streets in brightly colored dresses and threw flower petals at that wobbly virgin.  Whenever there is a celebration for a virgin or a saint, they take the figure of that holy person out of the church and carry it around the town followed by a band or three, several groups of dancers, and all of the spectators. This virgin was held up by nearly twenty men and followed by a crowd of happy people drinking bottles and bottles of cerveza.  They danced and followed with the incredible and indescribable energy of Cusco. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was a tumba fruit vine growing on the roof of our neighbor’s house and when I walked down those steps filled with morning sparkle, I would watch that tumba and wait for it to be ripe and perfect.  Our neighbor is an Alaskan mask-maker with a pony tail, and I got one of his masks and wore it to Simone’s going away party.  His name is Ben.  

We would walk out of our rooms, stepping over the sleeping dogs, and go down to the center singing, or holding candles like monks of some midnight order of the moon cooing “Charlieeee…Charlieeee…” like that internet cartoon.  I think it was on this night of candlelight vigils that Simone and I won a Pulp Fiction “twist” contest in Bullfrog’s.  It must have been a Friday. 

We would share our beds and in the morning Daniel would—without fail—rip off the blankets or try to push you off the bed or bother you in some other way.  In Simone’s goodbye party, we had planned to make all sorts of havoc in the streets.  We were going to paint ourselves and dance an interpretive dance in the fountain of San Blas.  We were going to walk around the plaza with a potato and ask random people “¿Te gustaría comerme la papita?” which, just trust me, is Peruvian slang for something gross and sexual. We were also going to go to McDonalds in prom dresses and tuxedos.  But all of this had a sentiment to it that said “I am never ever coming back to Peru so I’m just going to be crazy because I’ll never see these people again in my life.”  But that is just not true.  We will come back.  In the end, her party was not a “goodbye” party, but instead an “hasta pronto – see you soon” party.

Steffi, Roy, and Megan played music that night in The Muse while Daniel tried to work and make a gift for Simone at the same time.  We sang “Tu no estas solo” loud and hard and screamed in the chorus “WHOOOOOOOOO!” and made the rest of the people in the restaurant look at us like we were insane.  Simone went to Bullfrogs to make sure that everything was set up for the party and we went up to the apartment to get dressed all sexy.  In the street, with two guitars, a jambe, and all of the love in the world, we sang out “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”  They played again in the party when everyone arrived and Kati sang her beautiful bolero song.  And then we danced like locos.  We ended the night all sitting in Willy’s apartment making a terrible cacophonous chorus of fake snoring and farting noises. 

The next morning, we walked around the city like the minutes were sweet and few, and ate chocolate coca leaves in the pretty little plaza.  Simone, Steffi, and I bought a candle from the little shop on Choquechaka and went up to the rock on Tanda Pata to look out over the city.  We made a pact with wax in our hands to come back here together.  And then she left.  We went to the airport with tears in our eyes and as she walked down the ramp to get on the plane, we shouted “Hasta pronto!” and it echoed through the air.