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Published: September 18th 2006
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Choquequirau
Only the Incans were crazy enough to build this beautiful city in the most remote corner of the Peruvian mountains My recent silence can be attributed to my location in a land completely neglected by time.
Oh, it's modern enough... but good luck finding someone with a watch. Montanita is a hippy town deserving of the highest regard in hippy circles. Giant bongs walk down the beach, cradled casually in their barefoot carriers suntanned arms. People wake at noon and ask what time it is when they get to the breakfast restaurant. I, too, was guilty of this.
See, my small backpack was robbed on the overnight bus from Trujillo to Tumbes, Peru. My clock was in the bag. I never had to worry about the time until I left magical Montanita.
I spent my first two days there waking late and taking surf lessons. I rode a bike down the road with my friend and surf instructor, Carlos, to a neighboring town where a man weaves the misnamed Panama Hat from Toquilla.
On those days I partied hard and started to find it difficult to fend off all the guitres (a type of bird that circles, waiting for prey to arrive and then swoops in to pluck them up). That's what the men in Montanita affectionately
call themselves. There's even a local theme song detailing an exchange between a guitre and a foreigner.
"What's your name?"
"Keri"
"How old are you?"
"25."
"Where are you from?"
"The United States of America."
"Ohhhh. The United States of America. Do you like to party?"
"Yeah. Where is the party? Donde esta?"
"Oh. I'll take you. What's the name of your hotel? Beer is very expensive for foreigners. If you give me the money, I buy it for you."
The theme song is perfect. The scene is intense. I eventually fled four kilometers down the road to Kalama, where I had my own cabana on the beach for a few bucks a night. And where I took scuba classes. I'm now a certified diver.
Wow. What an experience that was. It's another world under water. I've heard that. I've read that, but now I know it's true. Even though I've seen pictures and movies of life under water, I'd never felt it. It's so amazing to move through the water the way an astronaut moves through space, weightless. Awesome. Where I dived in the ocean, the conditions are rough. There were a lot of surges and
Chan Chan
This amazing detail still remains on the inner walls of the massive 40-square-kilometer Chimu city. currents pushing me back and forth like a baby in a cradle. I loved it.
My only real disappointment in Montanita was the weather. I was on the coast and practically straddling the equator, but it was cloudy and cold most of the time. I'm amazed by the chilly weather here. I guess you can't run away from winter.
In my last entry, I said I planned to climb to Choquequirau, Machu Picchu's sacred sister. Well, I did, and it couldn't have been better. I went with Climan, a 40-year-old Argentinean and our guide, Simon. Climan and I were a perfect hiking match, both slow and steady and out to enjoy ourselves. The hike was long... four days. But it didn't hurt at all and I never felt unfit as we were just taking our time. It was no marathon like the hike with the French girls in Culca Canyon.
Choquequirau was impressive. But the most striking thing about it is its location. The Incas were nuts. They put cities in the farthest corners of their empires in places so hard to reach and so hard to find that you'd think they were playing a funny game
reed boats
These reed boats have been used for centuries by fishermen in Huanchaco. They paddle out and surf back in on the waves with their catches. of imperial hide and seek. The most remote city wins.
The city itself was not a sacred center. The steps are regular sizes and the only work involved in reaching the city is the work it takes to get there. No added challenge with steps as big as Incans.
The architecture and the mountainside agricultural terraces are amazing, aesthetic works of Incan genius. But it hasn't withstood the years the way the superiorly constructed Machu Picchu and Cusco temples have. It's mostly reconstructed. Simon said he doesn't much like talking about Choquequirau because he has to qualify every comment on its architecture by reminding guests that it's not exactly original.
One of the very interesting customs still observed today is a special bridge-building ceremony every July. The people from both sides of the Rio Apurimac, which divides Choquequirau from other villages, come together with 37 reeds each to build a bridge, which only stays in place for one day.
Choquequirau is said to have been a decoy, to throw the Spanish off the trail to Machu Picchu, though you can reach sacred MP from Choquequirau. It's a nine-day trip.
Simon and I enjoyed a lovely
Life in the fartherst corners of the Incan empire
Very few people live on the trail to Choquequirau. Those who do, face a two-day travel to the nearest city and live hard lives in little bamboo huts, welcoming the few who travel to the forgotten Incan city. Chinese dinner when we returned to Cusco. We started reading Catcher In the Rey on the trail. I brought it because it was a small light book, and required classical reading that I never did. Simon fell in love with the book and read it aloud to Climan and I, asking for clarification from me as he read. I left the book with him. I'm not sure if I'll ever read it now.
The whole tour was in Spanish and I understood just about everything. Simon would try to clear things up for me in English as needed. It was an excellent four days of practice and almost like another language class.
I left on a plane to Lima the day after the hike. I took a cab through the city center, which is filled with awesome colonial architecture, on my way to the bus station. I thought I would arrive in Trujillo at 11 p.m. but didn't get there until 2.30 a.m. I told the people on the bus that I was meeting my boyfriend in Huanchaco because something about the situation made me a little uneasy.
In the end, I sat across from a woman who was bringing her 9-year-old son home from chemotherapy. She lived in Huanchaco and offered me a ride. I was grateful as the madrugada hour was a little scary and the place a little uncomfortable.
The next day, I visited all of the pre-Inca ruins. Wow. These palaces were built with sand mud bricks between 900 and 1200 ad and their intricate designs still survive today. The Chimu people built sophisticated irrigation systems and used ramps instead of stairs. They used ramps instead of stairs, according to one guide, because every step indicated a step in status and elevation toward god. Ramps kept people on an even playing field with each other… and on earth, where they belonged. Of course, only the nobility was allowed in the palaces to begin with--not everyone. Another guide said they used ramps instead of stairs because they were short.
At any rate, the designs and the architecture and especially the fact that it has survived to today, wowed me beyond believe. These people used a building material that you simply wouldn't expect to find in tact 1200 years later. It's not like the Incan's careful rock work. And today, Incan sculptures have lost their forms while you can still see the fish net design on a palace wall in Chan Chan.
The Chimu people worshiped the moon. They believed they were created by the moon god and that the moon god required light for his people and thus created the sun. The Incan people worshiped the sun. In the war between the Chimu and the Inca, there was, in a sense, a war in the sky between the sun and the moon. The sun rose and the moon set.
But the Incas left all the riches and the culture of the Chimu people relatively in tact until the Spanish came.
While my journey to Ecuador was a long and arduous one, wrought with set-backs and major pains in the ass, I wouldn't trade it for my visit to Chan Chan, (which, oddly enough, means Sun Sun in the Chimu language).
It took me about 24 hours of travel to get to Montanita from Trujillo. I was robed on the bus and scammed by a guy who helped me across the (notoriously dangerous) border between Peru and Ecuador.
After another extraordinarily long bus ride, I am in Quito. I meet my friend, Katie at the airport tonight and really, really look forward to finishing out this journey with a friend.
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Ryan
non-member comment
Loss
What did you lose in the bag? Anything I can have waiting for you when you come up for a visit?