“A glass of milk,” I said eagerly
to the waitress. I ordered the scrambled eggs and toast as an afterthought.
What I really craved was the milk. I had been deprived of its sustenance for a
week. My brain could only focus on the cold, white, liquid that had been
unavailable and unsafe to drink for seven entire days.
It was 1984, and my friend
Gail and I had gone to Peru because she had broken up with her boyfriend. Gail
was determined to do something different and wonderful for herself, like visit
the Amazon. When she first asked me to go with her, I actually said, “Are you
out of your cotton pickin’ mind?” In the 1980’s, it sounded like an awfully
dangerous place to go. There had been a cholera epidemic, rampant poverty,
terrorist activity by The Shining Path, and a despotic dictatorship. My father,
sister and even my 6 year old nephew thought it was a bad idea. My nephew had
seen a picture in the travel brochure of a native with a blow gun and feared
that I might be killed in the jungle. In addition, as a Type I
insulin-dependent diabetic, I was fearful of possible medical emergencies in a
third world country. On the other hand, Gail was a hospital dietician, spoke
fluent Spanish, and was someone I felt entirely safe with. Here was an
opportunity that might never come my way again. I shocked her and myself when a
few days later I told her I was going.
It was a wonderful trip.
We travelled by plane, train and bus, through Peru’s three climates, from the
temperate but congested streets of Lima, up to the cool, cloud-filled heights
of Machu Picchu, and then down to the steamy, abundant Amazon. There were
surprises everywhere.
Lima was a city of
contrasts. The main part of the city was busy, crowded and loud. The wealthy Miraflores section was quiet,
tree-lined, and manicured. In the
distance was a huge mountain, not covered in beautiful trees, but in a thick
miasma of refuse, poverty, disease, and unrest, housed in lean-to’s and tin
huts. In 1984, unemployment was at 60%. The cronyism and corruption of the
autocratic Peruvian government served the rich and the connected; the poor
seemed expendable and not worth supporting. The poor rummaged through the
garbage heap and pilfered from the tourists. We were warned to cover our wrists with long
sleeved shirts if we wanted to keep our watches and to remove our earrings if
we wanted to keep our earlobes intact. We were considered a “natural resource”
to be mined by the poor of the city.
Beginning in the early to
mid- 1500’s, the Spanish invaded Peru
to mine the country for gold and land, in the name of God and country. As much
gold as possible was transported back to Spain. Lima became a Spanish city. The
churches were built from local stone scavenged from Incan structures. The
altars, encrusted in gold, were almost blinding and caused this viewer to gasp
in awe at the beauty and the power they represented.
In the museum, my eyes
were drawn to the golden, oversized Incan death masks, golden jewelry, and
clothing that accessorized the dried-out, semi-mummified remains of the
powerful from hundreds of years ago. The deceased’s legs were broken to attain
the traditional cross-legged, seated position for those elevated enough to have
an honored burial. This was horrifying to my sensibilities, but clearly
honorable for the ancient Inca. Square incisions in some of the skulls were
evidence of Inca brain surgery, perhaps letting out bad spirits, perhaps alleviating
brain pressure. The survival rate was unknown, but the wound had healed over on
many skulls.
In 1980’s Peru, the
survival and longevity rate in the country side and in the
poverty stricken
areas was about 40 years. The lives of the poor, marked by disease, joblessness,
and violence seemed to be an expendable commodity for those in positions of
power. Services for the poor were non-existent, which is why the violent,
communist group, The Shining Path had a following. Freedom and survival
contrasted greatly with the privilege of the United States
The main streets of Lima,
lined with shops and restaurants, were bustling with shoppers, workers, and
school children in uniform. Cars, busses and taxis crisscrossed the city. During
our day of leisure, Gail and I walked through a festive, busy outdoor market.
People milled around the stalls where foodstuffs, souvenirs, and clothing were
sold. Cute little puppies were hawked on the street as if they were pieces of
meat. I found the market dizzying and a little frightening.
A neatly-dressed young man
separated himself from the crowd, approached us politely, and in excellent
English asked, “Are you Americans?”
“Yes,” we answered cautiously. “I’m a college student and would like to
talk with you for a few minutes to practice my English.” As suspicious New
Yorkers and tourists on alert, we held our bags close, but did strike up a
friendly conversation with him. In less than three minutes, we were surrounded
by a trio of armed guards who stood at ease in a circle around us. They said
nothing. They just stared blankly ahead. “We should stop talking now,” the
young man suggested. “We might be arrested if we don’t.” He turned, and walked
away. So did the guards. Gail and I
stood there aghast.
Later, when we were on our
official group tour, we passed the Government Palace, and our guide sternly
warned not to take any pictures: “They will shoot first, and then maybe, ask
questions later.” Though the city had
energy, and I was excited to be exposed to a whole new culture, it was a relief
to leave Lima.
Departing, unfortunately
was not so simple. The Shining Path had announced it was going to close all the
roads around Lima. We were awakened at 4 AM so that we could board the bus and
be in the airport before the group blockaded the city. Our guide pointed out an
area on the way to the airport where a display of a fiery hammer and sickle was
known to burn from time to time. You may have heard of The Shining Path. When
John Paul II visited Lima in May of 1988, they protested in Lima with parades,
bombs, and a city blackout.
We arrived at the airport
in time and boarded a ramshackle, retired American plane while a mechanic
examined the fuselage with what looked like a dime store flashlight. He fumbled
around the plane’s engine for a few minutes, and then we took off, headed to
the high altitude city of Cusco (11,000 feet). As we flew through the
breathtaking landscape of the Andes, the plane bounced in the shifting air
currents. Meanwhile, I busied myself by holding my finger in the air vent to
stop the unrelenting high pitched whistling noise it emitted. I couldn’t help
but think that the plane was held together with spit and sticky tape, and that
we might end up like the people in the book “Alive,” who crashed in the Andes
and had resorted to cannibalism to survive.
We landed safely and put
on the light winter jackets we had been instructed to pack. The lack of oxygen
in the thin, cool air hit Gail immediately, and she had to hold on to me as we
disembarked and crossed the tarmac. She spent a good deal of the first day of
sightseeing planted on the seat in the bus. I felt fine. I clambered all around
the ancient sites where huge stones had been fitted together to build large
structures without benefit of mortar.
The Spanish commandeered the stones to build their own buildings and
churches the European way, but the structures were not as durable as the Incan
ones. The city’s sidewalks, roads, gates, and buildings were all made of stone.
We were surrounded by the building blocks of the ancients, where Quechua Indian
and Spanish customs and artifacts were merged together.
That night we found a
great restaurant. Mostly we ate chicken or fish, although guinea pig was served
also, usually accompanied by some form of potato, which, is native and prolific
in the region. The only dish I would not try, because I was afraid it was
unsafe, was ceviche— cut-up raw fish marinated in lime juice and spices. I did
take a small taste of Inca Kola, the national soft drink, which was a sugar and
lemon verbena blend. One taste of the sugary, yellow concoction was enough for
me. A glass of milk was not available and I was told it would be dangerous to
drink. So, the
delicious coffee and tea were my drinks of choice, enjoyed without benefit of
milk.
Note to tourists: rest the
first day you are in a high altitude city. I had to hail a taxi from the
restaurant back up the three blocks to the hotel because I was so short of
breath. I had climbed and clambered much too much that first day of
sightseeing. I felt as sick that night as with any bout of stomach flu. To
fight the waves of nausea and dizziness, I drank coca tea (related to cocaine)
which was supposed to help by expanding the blood vessels in the body. (I still
have some teabags hoarded in the back of a kitchen cabinet at home.) A group of
us shared an oxygen tank in the hotel sitting area as we passed around the face
mask like a joint. We were so starved for oxygen; I don’t think any of us
thought much about the issue of questionable sanitation. Later, I ordered up
the tank from room service to take additional deep sniffs before I went to bed.
Nothing helped much but a good night’s sleep. I stumbled to the bus the next
day for our trip to Machu Picchu, which is thankfully at only 9,000 feet (1,000
feet below the cut off for oxygen deprivation).
Additional advice to
tourists who drink: alcohol and altitude don’t mix. The Army Corps of Engineer
fellows who had enjoyed a few too many Pisco Sours were too sick to go to Machu
Picchu, the highlight of our entire trip. The rest of us took the long train
ride on the highest track railroad in the world. We passed indigenous potato
farmers chewing their coca leaves and working their fields. It was the first
time I had seen blue skinned potatoes. We saw small groups of women and
children, all dressed in bright woven blankets, wool hats and sweaters, who
were minding the sheep and alpaca. Except for the very young, people looked old
and weathered. It was a hard life in the mountains.
From the train, we took a
bus way up onto the mountain, so high, that when we glanced back we saw what
appeared to be a line of toy train cars in the middle of the most minuscule
train set in the world.
On this mountaintop,
sometime in the late 1400’s the Inca established a city, possibly as a
religious or royal retreat. The mystery of Machu Picchu is that it appears to
have been completely abandoned with no trace or explanation.
The guide spoke
reverentially about the Quechan religion and people, about the Inca
civilization. His voice was soft and hypnotizing. One could almost feel the
spirits of the lost civilization hiding on the edges of the wind, behind the
stone walls, in the recesses of the mountain. The clouds and light rain
obscured the peaks and added to the mystical atmosphere and then cleared away
to allow pristine views of the terraced landscape inhabited hundreds of years
ago and then deserted.
Empirically speaking, only
our tourist group, a guide, and an overfed alpaca named Poncho, stood on the
ancient configured stones at Machu Picchu. I cannot describe the strong sense
of another presence. Maybe the lack of oxygen was still affecting my
brain. In high altitudes, where oxygen
is thin, like the Andes or the Himalayas, spiritual people with paranormal
senses seem to gather. Perhaps the lack of oxygen strips the strictures of
civilization or the rigidity of our thinking, to open us to other
possibilities. Perhaps the lack of oxygen simply disseminates our rational
brains. I cannot answer for sure. I just know I felt a very strong energy up
there and a sense of awe that I have rarely experienced elsewhere. The
surrounding mountains were so dramatically high, that it was impossible not to
feel infinitesimally small, and yet, spiritually by the abandoned ruins. No
camera lens could capture the grandeur, the mystery, or the sensation of the
place.
We went down the
mountainside to return to reality. On the way to the train I wanted to buy a
necklace from one of the vendors. This required mostly nonverbal, but tough
negotiations. She wanted my ski jacket in payment, plus 10 American dollars. I
paid her in cash. We bargained for so long she had to jump off the moving train
as we pulled out of the station. I regret I didn’t give her the jacket. I would
have left a piece of myself in a foreign land and made a big difference in
someone’s life. On the other hand, it was almost December, and who knew what
the New York weather was going to be when my plane landed.
The next day we flew from the thin air and awesome height of the
Andes to arrive in the low jungle where the air hit us like a thick balm, heavy
with oxygen. We navigated the muddy brown currents of the Amazon on a flat
bottomed, thatched-roofed wooden boat, which protected us from the strong sun
and the recurring tropical rain bursts. Our lungs luxuriated in the ever
more oxygenated air and our mountain- dry skin drank in the tropical
moisture. Our eyes sucked in the verdure
of the place:
dull dark greens to bright bottle greens, malachite to peridot,
emerald to pea green. Trees grew out of the water with their trunks and leaves
half submerged in the rising waterway, adding to the unruly, thick shoreline on
either side of the river. Our cameras clickety-clacked in an effort to capture
the texture and scale of the Amazon, to entrap on film the flamboyant birdlife, the giant wasp nest, the
depth of the jungle.
“Stop. Put your cameras
out of sight. Now.” warned our boat captain. “We are about to pass a naval
installation. They have big guns whose bullets could reach us easily from
shore.” We did as we were told.
We arrived at the dock at
the Amazon Camp where there were wooden paths, a main meeting area, and dorms
with palm thatched roofs. It was a sleep
away camp for tourists.
We went on nature walks,
tramped through the jungle, tasted fresh guava, viewed the flora and fauna, and
stayed on the path so that we would not walk into any fire ants. We had
swimming privileges off the dock, but were warned there were piranha in the
waters. Perfectly safe, they said, unless there was blood. I was a skittish
swimmer and was sure I’d scrape an ankle diving in, so I demurred.
At the camp, we played
with the pet parrots, exchanged stories, relaxed on the hammocks.
One of the
guests brought out an anaconda snakeskin, which she had bought as a souvenir. She took pictures so that she’d have a record
of the magnificently patterned black, brown, and green snake, in case U.S.
customs confiscated it on her return home. She wrapped me in it, and although I
smiled for the picture, I felt uncomfortable as she arranged this “trophy” around
me. Even though anaconda prefer caiman or antelope to human flesh, this 9-10
foot long animal, when alive, could easily have hugged me to death, broken my
bones, and eaten me whole for dinner--- a shiver-inducing thought.
At our own dinner, our
host provided us with another off-putting thought. He suggested cheerfully that
monkey meat was on the menu for our evening meal. I hoped he was jesting. After
dinner, we sang around the campfire and listened to the jungle sounds. It was
turning out to be an ideal nature camp experience.
When we retired to our
dorms, the sounds of the jungle engulfed us, simultaneously loud and also soft,
with unknown animals calling and rustling. The thatched roofs proved not to be
reliably water-tight and I had to move my bed to a less drippy spot. When I
went to prepare for sleep, there was a large beetle covering most of my
toothpaste tube. I told him to take his time; I would wait. Meanwhile, by the
light of the kerosene lamp, I checked the toilet seat before I sat down in case
a snake or a tarantula had gotten there before me. I experienced no such
intruders. The next morning Gail, however, had the honor of sharing her outdoor
shower with Kermit the Frog.
We visited a jungle family
home and a fishing village, saw the sparse homes and lives the Amazon people
lived in. We witnessed the blown up bellies of little children who had
parasites. No one wore much in the way of clothing—after all it was the
tropics. I wanted to believe that the home on stilts was just a prop, and that
the family owned a modern home somewhere else, where they laughed at the
gullible tourists. Unfortunately, I think that was only in my imagination. I hoped they could be happy and satisfied,
even though they were not living what I could call a life.
The father demonstrated
the use of a blow gun. It was my opportunity to buy a child-sized one for my
nephew Ira who had expressed fear that I’d be a victim of a poison dart
attack. At the Iquitos International
Airport the “weapon” was confiscated, to be stowed safely away in the luggage
compartment. I gave the official a doubtful, dismissive look. He said, “Ma’am,
I tried it. It works. I suggest you stuff the blow gun so you nephew doesn’t
harm himself or anyone else.” Ira loved the gift and kept it up on his bedroom
wall for years.
Souvenirs bought, pictures
taken, experiences lived, we made our way from Iquitos to Lima to Miami to New
York. Despite sleeping in leaky, thatched dorms on the Amazon and suffering
oxygen deprivation in the Andes, there was really only one thing I really
missed: milk. It was 2600 miles between Lima
and my first glass of milk in Miami.
When the glass with the
familiar Howard Johnson’s blue and orange logo arrived at the table, my mouth
stretched into an eager smile and then a big, expectant “o” as my lips latched
on to the cold glass. The liquid splashed and played against my palette and
tongue. It hit my taste buds with a sweet, sliding delight. No sipping. No
savoring. A good gulp, an appreciative inhale, followed by the loud exultation
of a sigh.
The waitress gawked at me
and then started to laugh. She had witnessed her husband react with the same
gusto to an ice-cold draft. But milk? She shook her head and walked away to get
the rest of my breakfast order while I enjoyed my lip-smacking milk delight . .
. so American, so safe, and so delicious. Only 1,092 miles more to my own
apartment, my own bed, and a container of milk in the freezer, waiting for my
safe return home.
Afterword
Sometimes one person’s carpe diem, can become your own seize the day moment. If Gail had not
invited me on this trip to Peru, I would never have taken this amazing trip or
the one I embarked on two years later to Kenya.
The
corrupt and authoritarian government in Peru made me very sensitive to any
hints of the same here in the States. Conditions in Peru have changed for the
better over the decades, but still are not ideal. Covid 19 hit Peru hard in
2020, according to newspaper reports, and has sent the country’s healthcare and
financial systems into a downward spiral. I hope that Peru recovers and that
you can visit there sometime in the future. After almost 40 years, my memories
of Peru are still vivid, and I can visit them any time I wish.
Marsha H.
July 2020
