I am sure this instalment finds you all sat there in joyous disbelief, but disbelieve no longer for it is real, this is indeed part three of my Peruvian Adventures ready and waiting for your reading pleasure. Well with that said I think I should waste no more time in getting going, so here it is.
Part two (you will doubtless recall) ended with Stephan and I making a late return to 'Grandma's House' to grab a maximum of four and a half hours sleep before having to be up and ready to go. Well it would have seemed obvious to go straight to bed and take advantage of every minute of sleep I could. Obvious perhaps, but there was something else to consider. It had been a long day in hot and sometimes dusty conditions and I wasn't going to be up in time in the morning for a shower so I though I would take my chance before bed. I also think that the rum may have given me a little false bravery as there was no heating in Grandma's House and the shower was draughty and wasn't heated either. Well actually that isn't quite true, the shower did have a feeble electric heater attached which was woefully inadequate. The other problem with this heater was that it was wired to the mains and was controlled via knife switch (or at least I have always called them this but they may be called something else entirely) in a little wooden box on the wall (in easy reach of stray water spray). By the time you had turned on the taps you had wet hands and then had to take the risk of throwing the switch without touching the bare metal. And if this wasn't enough excitement you had to turn it off again when you got out. Oh well, I survived and the bed seemed so much warmer after a cold shower.
Just before morning (at exactly four fifty five) Stephan knocked on my door. I had taken the precaution of packing before I went to sleep so all I had to do was get dressed, pick up my stuff and go downstairs. When I did, perhaps due to this preparedness I was the first one down and had quite a wait before anyone else turned up bleary eyed. I have to say I felt a little sorry for the poor girl who had to get up and get our breakfast but I was glad that she had made the effort. I always find the keeping of irregular hours plays games with the appetite. Anyway, with breakfast eaten we had a high speed early morning taxi ride to a barn like building across town. This was the train station and we went in and joined the approximate queue with the locals. The train in question was the early morning express to Huancavelica, or at least that's what they call it perhaps because it is one hour faster than the standard train. My first look at this train (of which we were to travel in the first class buffet car) didn't inspire confidence. It had certainly seen better days and by the look of some of it, it may even have seen a war. I am sure it was nothing a good panel beater and painter couldn't smarten up in a month or so. Making our way up the platform to the front of the train we entered the exclusive first class carriage. I have never travelled first class before and still feel as if I haven't. The leather seats had been crudely sewn back together where they had been cut or torn or patched, it wasn't exactly spacious although we did have reserved seats and the option of buying hot food. I didn't get a look at the other classes of carriage but I rather think that quite a few people on the train would have stood all the way.
After a great deal of messing about that was going on outside my window involving various station staff and a man with an enormous spanner we very slowly started to move. Even at this slow pace we were soon out of the town and back in the rural surrounds. When the train passed close to a dwelling or small settlement there would be without fail at least one dog who would upon noticing the train leap up and chase along side barking menacingly for as long as it could keep up. The highland plains turned back into steep mountains around which we wound and when we went through the tunnels it all went pitch black as neither train nor tunnel had lights. The scenery was again stunning and again changed constantly. We made a couple of stops in small towns which gave some of the industrious locals the chance to jump on the train bearing baskets of bread and other things for sale. This practice wasn't confined to trains, it happened on busses too and was clearly perfectly normal.
Five hours after setting off we pulled into the station at Huancavelica. Huancavelica is the capital of the Department of Huancavelica and lies at an altitude of 3680m encircled by high rocky mountains that seem to be very close by - looming. The town was founded in the 16'th century by the Spanish in order to exploit the regions rich mineral deposits of silver and mercury. Almost all the mines are now closed and memories of the Spanish live on only in the architecture as it is (as we were about to find out) almost entirely populated with indigenous folk. We got taxis to the Hotel Presidente which was situated at one side of the Plaza de Armas (town square). After Lucho's place it was quite a change. This place was three whole stars and had hot showers and everything, although as you might expect what it had in luxury it lacked in character. We had arrived before midday and a very fine day it was too. After settling into our rooms we all met up downstairs to explore the town as a group. All of us except Stephan that is, who had important tour leader business to attend to which considering he knew no more about these places than we did was certainly something we couldn't afford for him to shirk. As is always the case in Peru there were plenty of people milling about the streets and squares of town and as we walked up one of the main streets we encountered a tide of school children on their way home for lunch. This was quite funny as we (the Gringo's) were attracting even more attention than before. Whilst I am sure they had seen tall funnily dressed white people before we were still something to notice and being children they hid their interest poorly. There were a lot of giggles, whispering and grinning faces staring at us. The boys seemed rather warier of us but many of the girls would say 'Hola' when they saw us. The word Gringo could also be heard from time to time as passed the group.
After looking round the town we got on with our second objective. Food. We felt that beer and chips was in order and so seeing a busy looking little café place we decided to be brave and headed on in. This as it turned out was to be a slightly amusing incident. The much older locals that populated the downstairs of the establishment did a far better job of not being seen to notice us as we made our way up the steep narrow spiral iron staircase to the smaller low ceilinged top section. Here there was a spare table big enough for us and here we sat awaiting a waiter. The first waiter to try to take our order, as you would reasonably expect, only spoke Spanish. Well we did our best to do the same but despite our efforts it seemed we had an almost complete communication failure. Occasional words were recognised but even things as basic as quantities got confused and eventually (with us believing we had at least ordered something) he made a hasty retreat. Well we chat for a while but after a little longer than we expected it to take another man with a note pad turns up. It would seem that our previous order had vanished. Perhaps lost, perhaps forgotten or more likely the guy who took it got it too confused and didn't dare come back for a second try. Anyway this guy seemed better able to understand our bad Spanish and pointing and wrote something down and went off. This time some food turned up but it wasn't exactly what we expected. Sandy and I had ordered the same sandwich and when two small sandwiches turned up on one small plate we wrongly assumed that this was only one sandwich (so I ate them both). Simon got what he expected and due to the quantity Sandy had some of that. Helen had seen something on another table that she liked the look of. However the dish in question was apparently part of a three course meal and so she encouraged Per to eat all the bits she couldn't. Per (like the rest of us when we started) had only wanted beer and chips. Well he got the beer but the chips never came. When the waiter returned later he reordered them but still they didn't arrive. It became a running joke that whatever Per ordered would never turn up as this was the first occurrence of several where this seemed to happen. It was rather unfair really because he went to much more effort to be understood than I ever did.
After lunch we wandered about town a bit more before deciding to turn the tables on the curious locals. We took up position sitting on the steps in front on the church on the edge of the Plaza. From here we watched the people watching us watching them. Every now and again one of the battier locals would pass by and start talking to us. They didn't seem to mind that we couldn't understand them and vice versa as they spoke to us anyway and we spoke back although neither had a clue what the other was saying.
That night we ate in the hotel where it was Chinese night in the restaurant. All very nice but not in the least Peruvian so to add a necessary taste of Peru I tried a drink that is famous throughout the country and has surely been tried by everyone who has travelled there. The drink in question is a sweet fizzy lurid (tartrazine) yellow coloured stuff called 'Inka Cola'. It smelled like bubble gum and tasted a bit like (and yet not like) a cross between Crème Soda and Irn Bru. It was very artificial tasting but I did quite like it. Anyway, having had insufficient sleep the night before I was quite happy to get an early night in order to be refreshed for the next days exertions.
Once we were all assembled in the morning we went outside where we met our tour guide for the day. He didn't speak English so Stephan came along with us which meant that there were six of us to fit into four spare seats in the guides car. Well overfilling vehicles as I mentioned before is commonplace and so with one in the front, four squeezed in the back and Stephan in the boot we set off out of town, up a steep hill on narrow unsurfaced roads through stunning mountains. After some time we arrived at a roughly level grassy field around which were some low buildings. Parking in front of a dilapidated church we unpacked ourselves from the car and took several thin breaths of the rarefied air. Our guide was living in the area for a year or so as part of his studies of the countries mining history and practice. Our destination was a disused mercury mine high up on the mountain side. We set off and soon discovered that our test run walking to the Torre-Torre had been a fairly gentle introduction to the difficulties of exertion at altitude. It seems, perhaps unsurprisingly, that as you get higher the effects of altitude increase. Even being accustomed to say 3200m you may notice the difference having ascended only one or two hundred meters further. Our walk to the Torre-Torre had been in the region of 3300m and today we would be walking at a little under 4000m. To make things harder our guide favoured the direct route from bottom to top. None of those long winding mountain tracks for us, oh no we just went straight up the steepest slope around passing unsuspecting llama's and alpaca's on the way.
Having made numerous short stops to catch what little breath there was available we arrived puffing and panting at the top. The mine had been worked on and off over a very long time but had not been in operation for a number of decades now. Passing the wooden sheds (well preserved by the dry air) that housed the cable system that hauled massive buckets of ore over the top of the hill we reached the original opening into the tunnel that led to the shaft. Anywhere else in the world this would have been concreted over, but not here. I wandered in for a few tens of meters by which time it was almost pitch black, the ground under foot had deep grooves where rail sleepers had been dug out making tripping up probable. I made my way back to the light. Sheep scattered before us as we walked down a short street of decaying roofless mud brick houses to an open square. Around the edges of the square were more mud brick remains but dominating the whole place was the church. At the time the mine was in operation the workers would have lived here, unfortunately more recent inhabitants had left political graffiti about the place. The area had been used by members of a group known as the 'Shining Path'. The Shining Path were (and still are) a militant Maoist communist movement who were fighting to install a peasant revolutionary authority in Peru. During its peak it was thought the there were thousands of members but after a crack down in the 90's many of them were caught and imprisoned for life, including the founder Abimael Guzman. After this the terrorist activity stopped, but they were known to sill be active in the jungles and the cocaine trade, until recently when it is thought that numbers have been increasing and a number of incidents have occurred that resemble those of the past. Anyway, they weren't here anymore and the church was locked up.
Having been there for a while looking around, we walked to a corner of the square where via a gap in the wall we started on the path back down. As we did so we met a short old local woman in traditional dress coming up the hill. She, with gap toothed smiles, came over to talk to us and with her came her two shaggy white dogs. Incidentally it was the only time whilst in Peru that I encountered a dog that clearly belonged to someone, as dogs tend to roam about of their own accord and I didn't see a single one on a lead. So she starts talking to us in what I assumed was Spanish and so looked to Stephan to give me some idea what was going on. Apparently some of it was Spanish but not as much of it as was Quechua and so we asked our guide if he could help. Well it turned out that although he did know some Quechua as he had been in the area for a year or so but was originally from further north where they speak something else so he translated what he could into Spanish which Stephan translated into English (which made it a bit like Chinese whispers) and at last we got the message. It transpired that she had walked up to meet us in the hope that we had some aspirin we would be willing to part with. Initially we said we hadn't but after she explained that in this remote crevice of the mountains it was hard to come by (she wouldn't have had a car and walking to town would have been a days march at least) Helen gave her a few and in exchange took her picture.
Once we got back to the car the plan was to drive to the nearest village where we would find a place to have lunch. Well we got there and all got out and waved goodbye to our guide only to discover the place to be almost a ghost town. There certainly weren't any open restaurants about and so we set off on a rather nice new stone path down the mountain back to Huancavelica. Here we found some lunch and frittered away the rest of the day. It was early nights all round again that night as we had to get a taxi at 4am to get the local bus.
As we stood in the cold early morning air in front of our hotel with our bags at our feet awaiting our taxis the plaza was surprisingly busy. There was also a man stood next to his car shouting at the top of his voice "Huancayo, Huancayo" trying to round up paying passengers for his trip back the other way. He wasn't having much luck. Our taxis came and in no time at all we were hurtling down narrow unlit streets dodging pedestrians and using the magic horn technique at blind junctions. This technique is used extensively throughout Peru and is very simple to grasp. Basically, whilst driving along should you approach a junction or other tight corner, rather than slowing down or stopping to check there is nothing coming you simply beep your horn a lot and carry on safe in the knowledge that any other drivers have heard your warning and are keeping out of the way. It doesn't take much imagination to see the problem with this method, nor is it very surprising that there are a lot of car accidents in Peru. Anyway, we got to the bus stop in one piece and in good time. Here we handed our bags to a man on a ladder for him to put them on the roof rack as this bus was both small and old and didn't have the sort of storage capacity of modern types. It was a bit of a squeeze inside too and despite the early hour it was a full house. You see the bus was used by the locals to carry produce to other towns for sale at market, much of this it seemed was meat and at times the bus did smell a little like a butchers shop. Fortunately at that time in the morning out in the Andean highlands the temperature (both inside and outside the bus) is below zero - so no need for refrigeration. After a lot of shouting and stopping and starting we finally made it out of town and as soon as we reached the edge of the populated area the surfaced road stopped and we were back to bumping along on the dirt track. This also signalled the start of our long and winding ascent in the pitch black of night on roads often only just wide enough for one way traffic with sheer 1000m drops on one side and a landslide waiting to happen on the other. The darkness did have one advantage however and that was that you can see the stars. More stars than I have ever seen before in my life, even in the Australian desert at night it wasn't quite this bright and clear. Its only when you see the night sky like this that you understand why ancient cultures often described the Milky Way as a river in the heavens. It's a pity there is so much ground light in the UK although there is rarely a gap in the clouds big enough to see a star anyway.
We had been driving through the darkness for quite some time when all of a sudden the bus stops and the doors open and some more people get on. I hadn't seen a village or even a house for miles and yet here stood in the dark on a freezing winters morning were a couple more locals who wanted to go to market. It seemed amazing to me although it might explain why many of the indigenous folk wear so many layers of warm clothes all the time. These stops became more frequent as we reached the highland plains again and by this time there were signs on the horizon that dawn was getting closer. I must admit that although my resistance to the cold is far greater than most I was quietly wishing the dawn would break in the hope the sun would warm the bus up a bit. The big problem was that as we were all sandwiched in so tight we couldn't move to keep warm nor to escape the icy drafts that kept the temperature inside the bus at a paltry zero. With the increasing light the stars became invisible again and the landscape was revealed. The plains were covered in tufty pale yellow grass and there was ice in the hollows. Most of the few settlements we passed were llama and alpaca farms where large pens of animals huddled together - it was always nice to see llamas as they are rather iconic of the area.
The sun continued to rise and after a while did begin to provide some warmth. By this time we were encountering more larger settlements and at our penultimate stop most of the bus got off. We however were going to the end of the line, to a place called Rumichaca. Just before we got there the bus took a right turn across a bridge to drop its remaining passengers at the police check point. Rumichaca is a tiny place in the middle of nowhere. I don't know what the few people who live there do nor why they stay as the only real source of income is from passing trade. This tiny hamlet probably only exists because it is on the junction of two major roads. The nice surfaced road headed westwards and eventually back to Lima but the rough road we had come here on continued southwards and it was this road we wanted to continue on as fortunately our days destination wasn't Rumichaca. We had arrived at quarter to eight in the morning, unfortunately there wasn't a bus out of here until three in the afternoon, and that we were told often broke down. We didn't want to wait that long so leaving the others to warm up in the sunshine Stephan and I walked back across the bridge to the village to try to get some private transport. I have heard of places being one horse towns well this was a one car town and the owner of the car didn't seem too keen to take anyone to where we wanted to go. There was a fairly good reason for this but a little financial persuasion did the trick and we drove back to the others. There were only four spare seats in his car and as there was a good few hours of bumpy mountains to cover before our destination we decided it was best that the two couples go on ahead and Stephan and I sort out something else. We waved them off on what we discovered later was a bit of an adventure in itself and Stephan and I sat outside the police check point on a broken bench to contemplate our fate. We already knew that there weren't any more cars which didn't leave many options. So we started to make enquiries.
Anyway I shall leave it there for now and in my next instalment relate to you the tale of how we at very long last escaped from Rumicacha. Until then my readers, farewell.
David.