My Travels In Peru

Introduction

What sets Peru apart from other South American countries is its rich history of pre-Columbian sites: anthropogenic wonders such as Machupicchu and the Nasca Lines. They evoke images of a people with a glorious past, steeped in culture and tradition, and a country rich in gold and silver – the two things that attracted the Spanish conquistadors like a magnet.

Peru is also rich in natural wonders, such as the Colca Canyon, Lake Titicaca, and the Ballestas Islands wildlife sanctuary. Colca is the deepest canyon in the world, lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world, and the Ballestas Islands have the highest density of birds anywhere in the world. There are so many of them that their droppings are regularly scraped off the rocks and sold as rich, organic fertilizer – the most sought in the world.

It's also a country of contrasts: one with a long dry coast that sees very little rain, high mountain peaks with glaciers, lush river valleys, and jungle. The Amazon River, the longest and mightiest in the world, starts in the mountains of southern Peru, not far from the Pacific Ocean, and winds its way for thousands of miles northward and then eastward to the Atlantic Ocean. Traveling eastwards from the coast, one experiences both changes in terrain and climate. When it's a comfortable 25C in Lima, it is a cool 15 in Huancayo, and a steamy 35 in La Merced, the gateway to the upper jungle. We experienced these changes in a single day. When we reached Ticlio, a mountain pass at 4800 metres above sea level, it was downright cold. Not only that, when we left the car to climb to the lookout point we felt a shortness of breath.

The contrasts don't stop in geography and climate: they continue to demographics. Lima, or at least the colonial and commercial parts, is a European city. The features of Limeños are predominantly Caucasian. However, in the sierras the people have mostly Andean features. Moreover, the gap in standard of living between Limeños and Serranos is very large. Nowhere is it more visible than in the isolated mountain communities, where people are downright destitute.

We traveled extensively in Peru to admire its natural and man-made wonders, and to learn about a civilization that was one of the oldest in the world. We visited many museums overflowing with objects that speak volumes about the people who made them, ranging from the earliest times (5000 years ago) to the arrival of the Spaniards. Every one of them has a tale to tell.

One of the reasons we know very little about ancient Peruvians is the lack of recorded history. The Sumerians had their clay tablets in which they recorded events, like the Epic of Gilgamesh; the ancient Greeks had Homer's Iliad that recounted the Trojan War, and the Odyssey that recounted Ulysses' wanderings after the Trojan War; and the ancient Romans had Livy, Pliny, and many others that recorded their history. The ancient Peruvians had not invented a system of writing, as we know it, and so their fabulous stories that would have captured the interest and imagination of historians have not been told.

No great empire like that of the Inca, which dominated western South America, could have been possible without a recording system. The same would have been true for the Huari Empire that preceded it by many centuries. There is evidence that even as far back as 5000 years ago, ancient Peruvians used a recording system known as quipu – a system based on strings of different colours and different types of knots. However, when the Spaniards arrived, they systematically burned the quipus, and very few have survived. Although scientists are cataloguing and studying the surviving quipus, they are still waiting to find the equivalent to the Rosetta stone that allowed Egyptian hieroglyphics to be deciphered. Until then we rely solely on the ceramic vases in the museums to tell us their stories.

I remember in high school being impressed by John Keats' Ode to a Grecian Urn. One single vase had filled pages with words, some of which I can still remember. Imagine how many books the tens of thousands of urns stockpiled in Peruvian museums can fill! 

Join me, as I take you on a tour of this mystical and mystifying country.