Peru's Great Divide
/Note: It's been a while. The warnings we received regarding internet speed and availability in Peru were not exaggerated. It simply does not exist in many places. Large chunks of time pass without connecting. Unsettling, yet liberating. When nighttime temps are too frigid to write, the blog takes a backseat to hot liquid consumption, stargazing and sleeping bag cinching. You know it's cold when the only thing sticking out of Aidan's bag is a beautifully frosted beard.
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I was curled up on a lumpy potato sack of dried cow dung inside a shepherdess's countryside adobe abode when I realized that the trip was becoming everything I'd always envisioned. We'd pitched our tent upstream—on the campesina's property—and the encroaching dusk and smoke billowing from the hut signaled it was time for an obligatory drop by. The usual, "Hey how's it going? Cute sheep. Can we sleep here?" These interactions are typically warm, but indifferent. Campesinos living and working three miles above sea level don't view camping as recreational. There's confusion as to why we're asking permission to sleep outside, but they humor us.
We've been chugging along on Peru's Great Divide, a notoriously tough dirt route fluctuating between high and really high. 16,000 foot passes have become the usge and previously held beliefs of what constitutes progress, revised. At times, our efforts feel futile. A blue GPS dot frozen in time. Often literally frozen as we wait for the morning sun to do away with the thick layer of frost blanketing everything. Note: We are no longer referring to the sun as the hell ball. It was really hot when we wrote that. Remote mountainous travel is cold and tedious. We set a "record" crossing Pumacocha Pass—at 16,371 feet—when it took us nearly four hours to cover four miles. There's an equation involving that speed, multiplied by miles remaining, equaling an arrival date to penguins years down the road. For however unfathomable the scale of the Peruvian Andes seems, traversing the country's obscure high-mountain roads feels conversely intimate. All who live, work (or cycle) in similarly severe conditions are bound together by a shared sense of vulnerability. We're all just out here, at the mercy of Mother Nature. There's a sense of camaraderie between cyclists and campesinos with [human] interactions boasting more value than actual currency. Not much for sale out there anyway. Even if we wanted to—which I did—we weren't able to buy our way out of uncomfortable situations. It's this reality that often makes Peru feel incredibly far from home. Which, ultimately is the point. Food availability, medical assistance, accommodation, transportation, etc, is what it is. When there are "no services for four days," there's nothing written between the lines. No food translates to no food. The American Dollar will not make a tienda or steaming bowl of soup appear on the side of the road. The campesinos with makeshift shelters and hearty supplies of dung pucks and boiled potatoes are the richest in our eyes. I've gazed longily at many smoking mud huts and thought, "Sure looks cozy."
The countryside abode's conical straw ceiling hung like a crawl space's and the square footage equaled that of a queen-sized mattress. Not built to entertain. The shepherdess and I sat facing one another—engulfed in smoke—on separate Andean "beanbag chairs." My right side thawed on the crackling dung fire in the corner. Our hostel room stove-priming bum fires don't hold a candle to this campesina's living room rager. When asked about a chimney, she chuckled and gestured toward the aftermarket hole punched through the straw roof, seemingly by way of bare hands. I laughed to the point of tears. The smoke stung, and the woman's laugh, effectively contagious. Clunky conversation has its side-splitting moments. She howled from under a bowler hat whose brim concealed all her features except her gold-plated grin. We giggled like a couple girls. She humored basic questions about her animals, rattling off the names of all five dogs and the age of her youngest lamb—five days! When the dialogue dwindled, we simply passed my mug of tea back and forth and stared at the mesmerizing fecal-powered flames. It felt natural, comfortable even.
The interactions in this country, however bizarre, have felt increasingly more genuine. Salt of the earth country folk are enthusiastic and unpredictable beings. Wacky, but welcoming. They'll offer you a thick glass of milk on a hot climb. Or an entire chicken before 9:00AM. Or heaping portions of dusty jello. Or, at the very least, disorienting conversation. Peruvians are eager to share and we are, in turn, energized by the unpredictable nature of it all. Although more than a year into the trip, we remain clueless on any given day as to what will happen next. Relinquish control.
"Es costumbre!" proudly exclaimed the man holding the knife high above his head. Blood dripped from the blade, beading down his forearm. He'd just snuck up behind me and smeared sheep blood all over my face. Gotcha! Overheated and buzzed from the insistent rounds of Inca Kola and rum, the blood was enough to make my stomach turn. Buhhhht in the spirit of cultural exploration, I reminded myself to smile and keep an open mind.
A few hours earlier we'd tried to ride past the festivities discreetly, enroute to a (desperate) resupply point. We were head-down pedaling towards the next town's tienda with purpose when enthusiastic arms flagged us into the field. With only cracker crumbs and a rejected can of tuna left in our bags, I wasn't really in the mood to party. Unless that party was a private party with just me and a chocolate bar. Our "never say no" pact forced a sharp, left-handed detour directly into the action.
The food fantasies would have to wait because we were now official guests at a farmer's annual ear-tagging fiesta. Tasked with piercing hundreds of sheep and alpaca, the excessive alcohol intake made more sense as the afternoon unfolded. And when instructed that it was a woman's duty to do the piercing, I knocked back a few cocktails myself. Gender roles are nonnegotiable. The men wrestle the sheep to the ground, and once in a vulnerable position, on their backs, hooves hovering, the women drill through their adorable, velvety ears. I stared at the huge needle in my hand, glancing up at hundreds of woolen eyes silently pleading, and then back down at my weapon. Might as well have been a shotgun. Asking the rhetorical question aloud, "Soooo, I stick this in there?" Aidan commented on the lack of color in my face as I fought off a strong desire to collapse onto the ground below. Blood sugar and panic are a powerful combo.
"Fun party."
Although generous, we established that it was time to go after being handed a heaping serving of LAMB for lunch. Surrounded by little lambs, Aidan snuck both our portions of meat into his pocket, intended for a lucky dog down the road. We backed away, expressing a million thanks, praying for a clean exit. If the intoxicated man with the shears had discovered the shanks in Aidan's shorts, well I just don't know.
We pedaled frantically down the road and laughed at the absurdity of the afternoon. Sun blasted and uncomfortably buzzed. Aidan to me, "Your face is covered in blood." My comeback, "Yeah well the meat juice is sweating through your shorts."
Aidan made the heat of the moment observation that "Peru is one sick joke after another." The country has been our favorite in many ways, but there are countless moments substantiating that statement. Peru is a land of extremes—topography, poverty, climate, culture, music volume, etc. And nowhere do these highs and lows feel more extreme and the cultural differences more exaggerated than in the middle of high-mountain nowhere.
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Currently: We are rolling out of Cusco in the morning, bound for the Bolivian border. Thanks to Aidan's dad, Philip, and the most extensive tourist infrastructure of the trip, Cusco was a treat. The anonymity granted by touristy towns is a breather we've grown to really appreciate from time to time. We'll miss the impressive selection of vegan food and espresso joints, but not the inflated prices or massage hawkers.