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Published: October 15th 2008
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Chachas hotel yields a rustic night’s sleep under woolen blankets but with clothes on at the now low height of 10,500 feet. There’s a breakfast of lentils and beef waiting for us at the same tienda we ate at last night. The father and son from the night before are present, and they have a day of visiting the old man’s cousin in the hills above Chanchas. The old man has the lentils, and his boy munches on a large wedge of farmer’s cheese and rolls. A woman in her 40s stops in to place a call. She’s bright and cheery and wants to talk English. She’s a primary school teacher in Mexico on vacation and visiting friends her.
Edison arranges shipment of our cooking gear to Andagua, some 15 miles across the southwestern edge of the Valle de los Volcanes. It’s time to walk. Today we follow the road. We skirt the Chachas lagoon, and one hour out cross the Andagua River with water a foot deep. I leave the boots on. We leave the river behind. Edison looks back, “Chachas no existe,” he says. Out of sight and out of my mind.
As we climb gently, the
Back toward Chachas
The Chachas lake and above Cirani, where we were. landscape becomes more forbidding. Large chunks of jagged lava lie piled by violent eruptions and collected by the giant forces of erosion. Gray volcanic ash has settled along the steeper hillsides. There’s no sign of the river; it must be underground or hidden behind some lower hill I can’t make out in this strange place.
The dark cone, the one we could see yesterday, leaves our view as we round one of these volcanic hills. After an hour or more we come to an area of slightly more hospitable land, and there are signs that those angry looking cattle graze here on the Icha grass. Two llama stand in silhouette in the middle distance, but they are out of their typical highland element.
A motorcycle coming from Andagua passes us. This is the one vehicle we see all morning.
We’ve left the road behind as it swings wide to the west, taking advantage of the easier sections of the shortcuts. We come upon Andagua after one last sharp ascent over the saddle of rocky outcrop. Lest I have any doubt, Edison has provided a kilometer by kilometer tally of the distance remaining, and now we are at 500
Leaving Chachas View
Rounding the bend and into the lava fields meters he says. I’d say it’s closer to 1000. Covering this last section, I make a decision that I don’t need to climb the volcano on the far side of Andagua. My toes and I have had enough walking for a while, and time will be tight as it’s well after noon as we canter into town and our Arequipa bus leaves at four.
Public school goes for half a day in most of Peru, and children in Catholic school uniforms are walking in the square. The girls are carrying books; the boys are being boys. A woman with two kid goats walks slowly through the diagonal path of the square. Topiary of all shapes and sizes populate the square. There’s a fountain in the center, but no water.
We scout a place for lunch. It’s at the Virgen de la Asunta restaurant store, and you guessed it, the meal consists of soup, in this case fortified by a chunk of alpaca, followed by a heaping plate of rice and vegetables. This is washed down by purple corn juice. My appetite has returned, This soup tastes better than that offered up in Chachas.
Afterward I walk gingerly
Rugged land
No foot paths through here. Valle de los Volcanes to the edge of town, leaving Edison to relax. Up at the end of the paved street, near the bull ring and, I survey another small volcano, one of the 70 in this valley. It’ll have to be another time to see them all, either from the vantage point of this extinct volcano now before me, or through the lens of other travelers.
Imagining what life would be like in a town such as Andagua, I take some sweet time shuffling back to the place on the square where we ate lunch, and it’s already time for the bus. Edison has been wondering where I’ve been. No time to talk, and there’s a short walk past the hotel and the city hall and west off the square, where we arrive at a store after a block.
Here we are reunited with our gear, and just in time to see the bus rumbling through the narrow dusty street to the square and returns in the other direction trailing dust back to the store. It’s a silver warhorse of a bus. Silver skin is scratched and dented by contact with the rocks along the narrow hairpins. We have nine hours
Looking east
blue sky but no point of repose for the eyes in the dusty cramped seats, but I'm happy to be done with the trek. My tired feet, still wet from river crossing, are also glad to be free of a load for a while.
Here's someone else's take on the Valle of the Volcanes:
Shippee Johnson in Valle de los Volcanes
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