The Peruvians Strike Back

by Happy Husband Berger

During the summer of 2007, my wife and I went backpacking in Peru for about two and a half weeks.  It’s important to note that, unbeknownst to us, Peru was currently experiencing some of the worst workers strikes in its history.  These strikes were, so to speak, the leitmotif of our trip.

We arrived in Lima in the late afternoon and took it relatively easy our first night.  We grabbed a quick bite to eat (lomo saltado--a traditional dish) around the Plaza de Armas and enjoyed our very first pisco sours.  Pisco’s a bitter Peruvian liquor, but when mixed with a heavy dose of sour mix, makes for a pretty tasty national beverage.  The next day, we woke up early and flew to Juliaca--a small town about an hour away from Puno, the town next to Lake Titicaca.  Get your laughs out now.

Flying to Puno right away was a pretty bad call.  Lima, which is on the coast, is basically sea-level, whereas the Puno is at about 12,500 feet above sea-level.  For those of you who don’t know, that’s *high*.  Plus, when you’re going to those heights, you’re supposed to ascend slowly.  We, not being particularly well traveled, flew right there.  Pretty scared of the potential effects of altitude sickness, we wanted to take it easy to acclimatize.  We didn’t feel any of the classic side-effects (like intense headaches), but we did have terrible insomnia.  Good... second night, no sleep. 

We took a taxi to a bluff overlooking the city, which lies at the base of a mountain pass surrounding the lake.  The view was incredible, but we were definitely huffing and puffing walking up the twelve stairs of the terrace over the bluff.  Yea altitude. 

Puno’s a relatively run-down city and it took a moment to get used to the depressed economic conditions.  Most people literally live in mud huts with hay or tin roofs.  Alpacas walk around the city blocks unattended.  Little children constantly run up to you to sell you llama fur gloves and hats.  The poverty was heartrending, but we took solace in the fact that our meager tourist dollars might do some good.

We walked around the modest city sights, including a quaint Coca and Culture Museum.  The museum amounted to a few poster boards of information, but we did get to wear traditional Peruvian dance costumes.  We also visited the Inca burial sites of Silustani, which were absolutely beautiful and eerie. 

WARNING: educational note.  I now cringe at using the term ‘Inca’ to describe the ancient people of Peru.  The term Inca referred simply to the leaders of the great empire (much like the Pharaohs of Egypt).  The people were the Quechua, which is the name for the language that many people in southern Peru still speak.  I’ll still use ‘Inca’ in this for ease.

The next day, we took a seemingly interminable boat tour of Lake Titicaca.  The islands might have been about ten feet from the port, but our boat moved at about a foot an hour (what’s that in knots?).  Anyhow, we traveled to two of the mysterious Uros Islands, which are made entirely of reeds.  So are the huts on the islands.  So are the boats that the Uros people use to navigate the lake.  Seriously… reeds.  Everything was reeds. 

Next, we sailed to the island of Taquile and had a wild walk up the island and then down about 500 stairs.  Interestingly, and a bit sadly, many of these people only speak either Quechua or Aymara (another indigenous language in southern Peru).  As a result, the people aren’t able to leave the islands because they can’t speak Spanish and so can’t get jobs or even communicate with people in Puno or elsewhere.  These people have lived on these islands for centuries, and it doesn’t look like they’re leaving anytime soon.

Our first taste of the strikes was when our hotel manager in Puno told us that it was "possible" that we could catch the train the next day to Cuzco.  In a panic, we scheduled an expensive bus tour that made several stops.  The bus was comfortable, but our tour guide spoke at length about literally everything in sight.  Oh, that’s a gas station?  Most of our stops were geared very much towards tourists (read: lots of booths of older women in traditional garb selling little wooden carvings of llamas and llama fur hats or gloves).  We did see some beautiful Inca ruins along the way, though.

Cuzco is the ancient capital of the Inca Empire.  When the Inca king planned Cuzco (which means the belly button of the world in Quechua), he modeled the city limits in the shape of a puma.  Sweet.  Nowadays, the city is incredibly touristy, as it’s the hub from which most people go to visit that little place called Macchu Picchu.  There’s a nice square and a lot of museums.  But we were mostly interested in getting prepared for the centerpiece of our trip: our four-day hike on the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu.

Our second taste of the strikes was when our tour company called us to let us know that we had to leave early for the hike.  Instead of sleeping in our hotel, we had to drive out to a camp ground (dodging stones thrown onto the roads by strikers to prevent tourists from getting to the trail) and sleep in tents.   OK, fun so far.  Our tour group consisted of the two of us, and two couples.  The other foursome were friends and in their early sixties.  Really cool, really funny people.  Our tour leader was a fun guy in his late 20’s.  We had heard that the hike was “moderate to difficult” hiking, but they seemed up for it.   Also, almost everyone who hikes the trail uses porters.  How bad can the trail be when you have people carrying your bags, setting up your tents, and cooking your meals for you?  This is all not to mention that, even though Cuzco is really high (about 10,000 feet above sea-level) and so the altitude usually crushes most trekkers, we had spent the last few days at an even higher altitude, so we thought we’d be good to go. 

The Inca trail is actually a complex web of paths emanating from Cuzco and circling out to all Inca locations of note.   The so-called classic Inca trail, which many tourists hike everyday, is a tenuous hike from a few miles outside of Cuzco to Macchu Picchu.  The Peruvian government has, in order to cut down on the devastation, greatly limited the number of folks that can hike the trail at any given time--usually about 200 tourists and 300 porters.   You have to book your Inca trek several months in advance if you want to do it. 

The first day of hiking wasn’t *too* bad, though it was a lot of up and down.   Also, the trail itself is mostly stone stairs, which ain’t too great on the knees/quads/calves/err… body.  But the views of the Andes are magical.   The most incredible thing, which to be honest I never got over, was watching the porters work.  These guys (who barely speak any Spanish, mostly only Quechua) are constantly smiling while they lug something like 100 pounds on their backs.   This is all not to mention that they practically run along the trail.  Seriously, while you’re huffing and puffing carrying your little daypack, the porters are jogging by with your body weight on their backs, smiling all the way.  Don’t worry, we tipped them mightily.

One of the couples was in great shape, so they did the trail like champs.  But, between the altitude and the exertion, the first day was so tough on the other couple that they had to go back after spending the second night in the tents.  The second day was the "challenge day"--which meant over four hours uphill.  All uphill.  Ow.  One companion, a distance runner, was so beat after the day, that she had to be (*wait for this*) carried on one of the porter’s backs during the third day.   The third day, mind you, included something called the "bloody steps"--2000 steps all downhill.  My knees still hurt. 

The fourth day involved waking up at 4 am to make it to the Sun Gate overlooking Macchu Picchu by sunrise.   I can’t explain to you how majestic it was.  The pictures don’t do it justice.  And since the citadel was just named one of the new Seven Wonders of the World, there was a certain giddiness in the air.  Our legs were basically jelly at that point, so we didn’t have the energy to climb Wanu Picchu, the mountain overlooking Macchu Picchu that tons of tourists who take the bus to the site as opposed to hiking to it love to climb.   Ah well, can’t do everything. 

We made a bad call after getting back to Cuzco that night.  In our exhaustion, we bought Peruvian fast food.   Enter the traveler’s sickness.  The next two days in Cuzco were spent touring the Sacred Valley, and touring the inside of our hotel room.

Feeling a bit tired, but otherwise better, we set off for Puerto Maldanado on the Amazon River Basin in the Peruvian rainforest.   We stayed in a beautiful bungalow called Posadas Amazonas, where we day-tripped out to lakes/forests to view giant otters, macaws, caymans, and varieties of insect life.   It was gorgeous.  I got bit to the high heavens by mosquitoes, but none of them were malarial. 

And then our last run in with the strikes.  Strikers managed to sneak onto the tarmac of the airport in Cuzco and light the fields on fire (no joke), so our plane couldn’t depart.  So we stayed an extra day in the town of Puerto Maldanado and sampled the local pisco.   Luckily, the strikes subsided the next day and we caught our plane to Lima.  We spent our last night enjoying a terrific dinner at the venerable restaurant La Rosa Nautica to celebrate our trip. 

I’m not sure how the strikes were resolved, though I hope they were settled safely and justly.  I should make clear that we feel terribly lucky and privileged to have been able to enjoy the luxuries of Peru.  I hope the government has and will continue to work to make the Peruvian experience as wonderful for its own people as it is for the tourists.