Amazing Journey In The Desert

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We arrived to Ica by 4 hour bus from Lima after a flight from Iquitos. I immediatly contacted our desert guide Roberto Penny Cabrera. Well, as luck would have it, he and his story and trip very similiar to ours, was picked up by the New York Times the day before, so we got to hear all about it for the days we were with him. (Just in case you all think we are copying the NYT, let me assure you I planned this trip last year. )

Roberto is an enigma, on one hand he seems to enjoy attention and on the other he shuns it. He calls himself The Ghost and will not allow Peruvian papers to use his name. His family was one of the families who founded the city of Ica. He comes right out to meet us, gives us half an hour to pack (it was almost like a chinese fire drill in our room) and asks us some basic health questions before deciding we need to go and see his home and eat at the Ica Social Club (a private club, very similiar to a very high end, exclusive invitation only, country club). When we arrive our food has been already ordered and is served. It is a beef steak with vegetables and tacu tacu (beans and rice mixed together and fried). We are having a pleasant conversation when one of Roberto's first eccentricities manifest. Here we are eating with silverwere, when out of nowhere, Roberto whips out a knife a'la Crocadile Dundee. Once we are out in the desert, I learn he uses this knife for a whole host of interesting things from checking pressure on tires to opening cans of evaporated milk for the seriously industrial cofee that seems to be his favorite. O.K, I am thinking, this is going to get a little interesting, boy was that an understatement!

We drove through the desert at night until we reached his typical campsite. There really are no roads and the site he has is in the middle of nowhere, he says 40 kms. from anyone else. He calls in regularly as a back up system to friends who know his location. He tells us that the the part of the desert we are in is one of the most dangerous, as it is very remote. We set up out tent, which is more like a cave, start a fire, which is more like a bonfire (my stuff all smells like BBQ) and proceed to talk around the campfire and join in some wine, incidentally from Chile at a vineyard we visited!

Now would be a great time to bring up Ermalinda, his truck. It's a late 1980's tricked out Datson. He has equipped it with all sorts of alterations to make it the perfect vehicle for our expedition. It even has a hot and cold shower, not that we were going to use it.....it was brrrrr....freezing at night. He has specific adaptions to the motor for cooling and two spare tires. He has spare transmissions and can do almost any repair himself. A series of gauges keep him apprised of everything Ermalinda is doing. This guy seriously knows this truck, probably because our lives depend on it.

Fast forward to sunrise on day one. As we woke up, the enormaty of where we were hit. There is not a sound other than the occassional crackle from the campfire. There is nothing as far as the eye can see and the landscape is unreal. We are on a mesa overlooking a Valley. It is beautiful. Roberto declares today will be the first day of our hunt for a megladon shark tooth. We spent the better part of the day exploring different areas and looking for a tooth in the sand, which ultimately proved to be too elusive for us. Roberto calls himself a finder and that he is. The man could find a sharks tooth in the sand 100 feet away with just a small amount protruding up. Apparently Eric and I , while improving are not quite at his level of skill, but either way we found many sharks teeth, learned about sedimentology of the area and what happened in the history of Occucaje. It was a fascinating day.

Day two blew day one out of the water, and day three was nothing short of indescribable. We saw a Paracas burial site as well another burial site, most likely Nacza. We also saw several intact fossils of marine mammals that romed the world 12 million years ago! We saw incredible landscapes and continued our hunting on new hunting grounds for our friend the megaladon. Here is where we really started to have interesting discussions. The problem that exists here in Peru is that entire areas are forgotten. You see it time and time again. As we drive through the desert there are plaster casts used for removing bones of the animals on the floor, presumably to sell to private investors. Roberto calls these rapers. After seeing what they did tho the Paracas burial site, I am inclined to agree. Burials, recently excavated (actually I wouldn't call it that, as that implies something scientific, Roberto's term is more fitting), lay open on the desert floor, bones scattered about remind me of Cambodia, where after the Khemer Rouge was deposed bones were just picked up off the ground. There are bones and pieces of pottery strewn about everywhere. All grave goods have been removed that had any value, this includes any painted pottery and amazing textiles. In one burial ground, skeletons were clearly smashed by jagged edges, remaining. Apparently, the bodies have no monetary value and the goal is to get the textiles. On our last day, we visited a site in the town of Occucaje where the locals who are living in poverty do the work themselves as a means to suppliment their income. It is clear the police are in on the deal because the particular cemetary we say is litterally a foot from the road and overlooked by a rock painted archeological zone. We had elected to stay another day with Roberto as both of us felt like big human sponges. I think for both of us, it was the right decision. Eric saw numerous large marine mammals, similiar to whales just out in the open laying on the desert floor. These were things you would see at the Museum of Natural History!

In the end, I can truely say that this trip changed me. I personally have been looking for a windmill for some time. I think I may have found it. I have been vague at the request of Roberto, who has had bad experiences with things being disturbed and removed after discussing it with authorities. This was demonstrated in our routine traffic stop by police on the return journey. Police pulled him over looking for "papers". If I had not got out immediatly, walked up and looked authorative, I think we would have had a worse time.

The bottom line is that there is an amazing history here in South America that we know very little about. There are incredable things that deserve study and conservation, but in the end, they belong to the people who live here, something Roberto is fighting to protect. I hope he sees his dreams made reality

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Photos

What Roberto refers to as raping the desert
All grave goods,textiles and ceramics removed, human lives apparently had little meaning to those who desecrated these graves

Camping desert style
I call your attention to our tent perched on a cliff to the right and Ermalinda to the left

Marine life in the desert
A complete whale skeleton resting in what once was a bay in the ocean.

Roberto overlooking another whale
This whale was unique in that the soft tissues around the mouth were well preserved; a rarity for fossils

One of my most haunting memories of Peru
Many of the tombs contain young children just a few days to a few years. Most were lost to treatable disease. Why?

Comments

[Tanya]

WOW
This is my favorite write up so far! GOSH, I LOVE fossils (not many people know that about me), this is just amazing. If you find something are you allowed to bring it back? (shark tooth?) Love the photos---So educational and informative. SO glad your sharing your thoughts.

[Bill F]

I am slowly starting to think Indian Jones was nothing more that a glorified Boy Scout. Amazing write up Lisa. I am following you guys on this trip and I am following 2 friends on a 10,000 mile motorcycle trip up to the Arctic Ocean and back to the valley via Alaska. I am having one hack of a 2008 Staycation! Thanks!