G2 REAL LIVES 5 February 2004
LOOKING FOR PADDINTON BEAR
A two-month search for Paddington Bear in Darkest Peru, adventure enough for an OAP with a dodgy knee and an equally ancient wife with a pair of artificial ones. Posing as cool, grey haired, gap year students with rucksack, return tickets to fly, Lonely Planet and an email hotel booking, we set off for a couple of nights in Lima. But think of us not as backpackers, rather as Michael Palin without a time limit or a film crew, part adventure, part discovery and a lot of curiosity. Time is one luxury most pensioners have. It gives us time to look, to meet, to sit and stare, and to absorb something of completely different ways of life. Leisurely travelling suits us and doesn’t break the bank.
Where to Start?
Even I know bears are far more likely to be found in the mountains than in the Amazon basin or the coastal desert. But we escaped from Lima via the Pan American highway, having all but run into an armed street robbery of tourists whilst searching for the bus station. Who said bears are frightening!
In The Desert!
First stop a luxury bus ride away was Trujillo where the imposing monument at the centre of the Plaza de Armas celebrates the day they threw the Spanish out in 1820. We had only intended to take a couple of days to relax before heading for the Andes, but we stayed for six. In so doing we discovered a whole new history of Peru, not the militant Incas, who only ruled a hundred years before the Spanish, but the really refined Moche who date back to the first centuries AD. We didn’t know that they had built pyramids in the desert and preserved their story for posterity in the form of wonderful pottery, textiles, gold, shell, stone, silver and copper (electroplated with gold before the days of electricity – only chemists can work that one out).
Already determinedly off track we took the advice of ‘A German from Edinburgh’ who advised us that the next city north, Chiclayo, had even greater treasures. It had, so we stayed another six nights and discovered Museo Tumbas Realas de Sipan. Opened in Nov 2002, this world-class museum is entered by ramp to the top floor so retracing the path of the archaeologists as they dug down through the levels of time. They opened the graves of the Lords Sipan to discover remarkable funeral masks and jewellery in fine metal, as featured in the National Geographic Magazines of October1998 and June 1990. Not content with this we visited the sites of Sipan and the huge ruined city of Tucume. (Think of the earthquake city of Bam, Iran, and you’ll be on the right track.) This ruined city had 28 pyramids, long ago robbed by the Spanish Conquistadors. Not far away Thor Heyerdahl researched the migration theories that led to his Kon Tiki expedition proving that reed rafts could cross to the Pacific islands.
Bears we did not find, but there were little horses, caballitos, the reed boards on which solo fishermen have for centuries crossed the heavy surf to fish in the calm waters beyond; and smooth skinned dogs with tiny tufts of ginger hair on their heads and the tip of their tail.
In the ‘Land of the Clouds’?
Chachapoyas is reached by overnight bus without a toilet stop, unless you count a couple of chances to pee in unison over the precipice of a deserted mountain road. It used to be the capital of Amazonas when it stretched to the Amazon. Now with no such delusions it’s delightfully laid back. Except that the country people always seem to be busy. Walking idly along the road is out, so women spin thread, or knit, as they walk. What could be cooler than that!
Not too far away was the ruined mountain top city of Kuelap, where we laid claim to being the oldest visitors in 2003. Can you imagine what Machu Picchu must have been like before the property developers moved in? Yes you have it, a wonderful mountain top vista with the remains of round decorated stone houses, giving in gracefully to the cloud forest and its orchids. Just one house was restored with its tall conical thatched roof.
Buried with the Mummies?
Only a few tens of kilometres away, but many hours by taxi, were the sarcophagi, red and white burial houses set high into sheer towering cliffs at Revash and Laguna de la Condores, near Leymebamba. Revash was robbed long ago, but a recent expedition rescued 200 un-embalmed mummies from the mountain lake site. They were preserved in the foetal position and sewn into many layers of textile giving a shape reminiscent of Russian dolls. Now they reside in an air-conditioned research centre where they are tracing the ancestry of the Chachapoyas at yet another fine new museum. Paddington Bear’s DNA would be safe with them.
Land of Milk and Marmalade?
‘That was the greatest day ever in the Andes’ eulogised the young woman who had just jumped off the top of a cattle truck. Hitchhiking workers pay to ride on the top storey, with fantastic thrills and views, whilst the cattle huddle below. We knew then there was no going back. We just had to experience the hairiest East-West switchback in Peru to Cajamarca. There for the first time we would meet women in tall sombreros, compensating for their tiny stature. Trilbies followed as we travelled further south, giving way to bowlers as we neared Bolivia.
But, with a sense of decorum appropriate to our advanced ages, instead of a roller coaster ride on a cattle truck, or a bone shattering ride in a minibus, or a cramped one in the small daily bus, we decided to spend £50, ten times more, with a restaurant owner and travel all day in the comfort of his four-wheel drive. Up through the clouds, over the top and down again to Rio Maranon, then up and over the drier western Andes to a multi-coloured patchwork of fertile fields separated by cactus hedges. Cajamarca exports 300,000 litres of milk a day to Lima, whenever the Pan American highway is not blockaded, and keeps the rest to make the only decent cheese in Peru.
Thinking we had missed the bear and his marmalade we decided to retrace our steps by taxi along that same bumpy hardcore road and to search as we walked slowly back to town. We met and chatted to Indian farmers, who knew how to thresh corn by hand, how to tend sheep, and, how to winkle a favourite 10p floppy sunhat from Joan, a relic from a camel trek in India. But they didn’t get mine because they couldn’t understand my mission, or my Spanish, so the day was but a glorious failure.
In 1532 the Spaniard Pizarro, with only 160 cavalry troops, defeated Atahualpa the Inca leader of 6,000 men armed with slings and axes. The bloody battle at Cajamarca essentially completed their conquest of Peru. Atahualpa was imprisoned and held in El Quarto del Rescate. He negotiated his release for a room full of gold and two of silver. It took his followers six months to collect 6000kg of gold and 12,000kg of silver ornaments from across the country. But they killed him all the same.
Cordillera Blanca
In despair by now we at least hoped to find a polar bear or a yeti in this magical wilderness. Fifty of the highest peaks outside the Himalaya, minibuses drivers and conductors competing loudly, like old fashioned market traders, for the pleasure of taking customers to the snow line at over 5000 metres. It’s no wonder the holiday climbers love this area, for they can get straight out of a colectivo, for that’s what they call these minibuses, and onto the snow. Another 2000 metres and they’ve climbed the highest mountains in South America. Sounds easy if you forget about ‘Touching the Void’.
Even we broke our altitude record from Nepal, at 5200 metres on the glacier of Pasto Ruri, more if you believe the signpost. Mind you we did have a little help from horses. Just to support the local traders you understand! We looked in hope down into the tiny deepest blue crevasses, before stepping gingerly across.
Indian Treasure
One chance remained, a sneaky peak at the Indian’s possessions. So we were delighted when group after group, they paraded into town from their mountain farmsteads, beating home made drums, playing home made flutes and carrying sedan chairs.
Before daybreak that morning students had arrived, school by school, on their buses to disturb our night’s sleep. But we warmed to them when we realised they were intent on decorating the tarmac streets of the Plaza de Armas, chalking designs and then filling them in with flower petals and coloured wood chippings. The images were Christian, from the floor to the sedan chairs.
In the church it was standing room only, as the very Spanish looking clergy and the townie congregation in the pews were overwhelmed with Indian colour from the hills. This was their day out and they celebrated Corpus Christi in some style.
Been there, done that!
Well over half way through we had discovered an unknown northern Peru. We had seen no gap students or package tours and few other travellers, though what they lacked in numbers they made up as characters, full of enthusiasm for their surroundings.
Hope and time disappearing we did the regular circuit of the whistle stop tours. Like Stephen Fry, but with SRL rather than film crew, we looked for Paddington Bear at Machu Picchu. Next we travelled by Michael Palin’s train to Lake Titicaca, and then south to Colca Canyon, where the Condors soar to entertain the gallery of hardy tourists waiting on high at dawn.
For 50 days Joan exercised her duty of care, not on Paddington Bear but on a Spanish dancing doll. She carried her lovingly in a small plastic bag, whilst I struggled manfully with our rucksack. A little travel worn and now with only one leg, she was a present from our favourite hotel recepcionista in Chiclayo. If only Viany had known what we were really looking for!
BRIAN CORBETT 1700 words 5 February 2004
LOOKING FOR PADDINTON BEAR
A two-month search for Paddington Bear in Darkest Peru, adventure enough for an OAP with a dodgy knee and an equally ancient wife with a pair of artificial ones. Posing as cool, grey haired, gap year students with rucksack, return tickets to fly, Lonely Planet and an email hotel booking, we set off for a couple of nights in Lima. But think of us not as backpackers, rather as Michael Palin without a time limit or a film crew, part adventure, part discovery and a lot of curiosity. Time is one luxury most pensioners have. It gives us time to look, to meet, to sit and stare, and to absorb something of completely different ways of life. Leisurely travelling suits us and doesn’t break the bank.
Where to Start?
Even I know bears are far more likely to be found in the mountains than in the Amazon basin or the coastal desert. But we escaped from Lima via the Pan American highway, having all but run into an armed street robbery of tourists whilst searching for the bus station. Who said bears are frightening!
In The Desert!
First stop a luxury bus ride away was Trujillo where the imposing monument at the centre of the Plaza de Armas celebrates the day they threw the Spanish out in 1820. We had only intended to take a couple of days to relax before heading for the Andes, but we stayed for six. In so doing we discovered a whole new history of Peru, not the militant Incas, who only ruled a hundred years before the Spanish, but the really refined Moche who date back to the first centuries AD. We didn’t know that they had built pyramids in the desert and preserved their story for posterity in the form of wonderful pottery, textiles, gold, shell, stone, silver and copper (electroplated with gold before the days of electricity – only chemists can work that one out).
Already determinedly off track we took the advice of ‘A German from Edinburgh’ who advised us that the next city north, Chiclayo, had even greater treasures. It had, so we stayed another six nights and discovered Museo Tumbas Realas de Sipan. Opened in Nov 2002, this world-class museum is entered by ramp to the top floor so retracing the path of the archaeologists as they dug down through the levels of time. They opened the graves of the Lords Sipan to discover remarkable funeral masks and jewellery in fine metal, as featured in the National Geographic Magazines of October1998 and June 1990. Not content with this we visited the sites of Sipan and the huge ruined city of Tucume. (Think of the earthquake city of Bam, Iran, and you’ll be on the right track.) This ruined city had 28 pyramids, long ago robbed by the Spanish Conquistadors. Not far away Thor Heyerdahl researched the migration theories that led to his Kon Tiki expedition proving that reed rafts could cross to the Pacific islands.
Bears we did not find, but there were little horses, caballitos, the reed boards on which solo fishermen have for centuries crossed the heavy surf to fish in the calm waters beyond; and smooth skinned dogs with tiny tufts of ginger hair on their heads and the tip of their tail.
In the ‘Land of the Clouds’?
Chachapoyas is reached by overnight bus without a toilet stop, unless you count a couple of chances to pee in unison over the precipice of a deserted mountain road. It used to be the capital of Amazonas when it stretched to the Amazon. Now with no such delusions it’s delightfully laid back. Except that the country people always seem to be busy. Walking idly along the road is out, so women spin thread, or knit, as they walk. What could be cooler than that!
Not too far away was the ruined mountain top city of Kuelap, where we laid claim to being the oldest visitors in 2003. Can you imagine what Machu Picchu must have been like before the property developers moved in? Yes you have it, a wonderful mountain top vista with the remains of round decorated stone houses, giving in gracefully to the cloud forest and its orchids. Just one house was restored with its tall conical thatched roof.
Buried with the Mummies?
Only a few tens of kilometres away, but many hours by taxi, were the sarcophagi, red and white burial houses set high into sheer towering cliffs at Revash and Laguna de la Condores, near Leymebamba. Revash was robbed long ago, but a recent expedition rescued 200 un-embalmed mummies from the mountain lake site. They were preserved in the foetal position and sewn into many layers of textile giving a shape reminiscent of Russian dolls. Now they reside in an air-conditioned research centre where they are tracing the ancestry of the Chachapoyas at yet another fine new museum. Paddington Bear’s DNA would be safe with them.
Land of Milk and Marmalade?
‘That was the greatest day ever in the Andes’ eulogised the young woman who had just jumped off the top of a cattle truck. Hitchhiking workers pay to ride on the top storey, with fantastic thrills and views, whilst the cattle huddle below. We knew then there was no going back. We just had to experience the hairiest East-West switchback in Peru to Cajamarca. There for the first time we would meet women in tall sombreros, compensating for their tiny stature. Trilbies followed as we travelled further south, giving way to bowlers as we neared Bolivia.
But, with a sense of decorum appropriate to our advanced ages, instead of a roller coaster ride on a cattle truck, or a bone shattering ride in a minibus, or a cramped one in the small daily bus, we decided to spend £50, ten times more, with a restaurant owner and travel all day in the comfort of his four-wheel drive. Up through the clouds, over the top and down again to Rio Maranon, then up and over the drier western Andes to a multi-coloured patchwork of fertile fields separated by cactus hedges. Cajamarca exports 300,000 litres of milk a day to Lima, whenever the Pan American highway is not blockaded, and keeps the rest to make the only decent cheese in Peru.
Thinking we had missed the bear and his marmalade we decided to retrace our steps by taxi along that same bumpy hardcore road and to search as we walked slowly back to town. We met and chatted to Indian farmers, who knew how to thresh corn by hand, how to tend sheep, and, how to winkle a favourite 10p floppy sunhat from Joan, a relic from a camel trek in India. But they didn’t get mine because they couldn’t understand my mission, or my Spanish, so the day was but a glorious failure.
In 1532 the Spaniard Pizarro, with only 160 cavalry troops, defeated Atahualpa the Inca leader of 6,000 men armed with slings and axes. The bloody battle at Cajamarca essentially completed their conquest of Peru. Atahualpa was imprisoned and held in El Quarto del Rescate. He negotiated his release for a room full of gold and two of silver. It took his followers six months to collect 6000kg of gold and 12,000kg of silver ornaments from across the country. But they killed him all the same.
Cordillera Blanca
In despair by now we at least hoped to find a polar bear or a yeti in this magical wilderness. Fifty of the highest peaks outside the Himalaya, minibuses drivers and conductors competing loudly, like old fashioned market traders, for the pleasure of taking customers to the snow line at over 5000 metres. It’s no wonder the holiday climbers love this area, for they can get straight out of a colectivo, for that’s what they call these minibuses, and onto the snow. Another 2000 metres and they’ve climbed the highest mountains in South America. Sounds easy if you forget about ‘Touching the Void’.
Even we broke our altitude record from Nepal, at 5200 metres on the glacier of Pasto Ruri, more if you believe the signpost. Mind you we did have a little help from horses. Just to support the local traders you understand! We looked in hope down into the tiny deepest blue crevasses, before stepping gingerly across.
Indian Treasure
One chance remained, a sneaky peak at the Indian’s possessions. So we were delighted when group after group, they paraded into town from their mountain farmsteads, beating home made drums, playing home made flutes and carrying sedan chairs.
Before daybreak that morning students had arrived, school by school, on their buses to disturb our night’s sleep. But we warmed to them when we realised they were intent on decorating the tarmac streets of the Plaza de Armas, chalking designs and then filling them in with flower petals and coloured wood chippings. The images were Christian, from the floor to the sedan chairs.
In the church it was standing room only, as the very Spanish looking clergy and the townie congregation in the pews were overwhelmed with Indian colour from the hills. This was their day out and they celebrated Corpus Christi in some style.
Been there, done that!
Well over half way through we had discovered an unknown northern Peru. We had seen no gap students or package tours and few other travellers, though what they lacked in numbers they made up as characters, full of enthusiasm for their surroundings.
Hope and time disappearing we did the regular circuit of the whistle stop tours. Like Stephen Fry, but with SRL rather than film crew, we looked for Paddington Bear at Machu Picchu. Next we travelled by Michael Palin’s train to Lake Titicaca, and then south to Colca Canyon, where the Condors soar to entertain the gallery of hardy tourists waiting on high at dawn.
For 50 days Joan exercised her duty of care, not on Paddington Bear but on a Spanish dancing doll. She carried her lovingly in a small plastic bag, whilst I struggled manfully with our rucksack. A little travel worn and now with only one leg, she was a present from our favourite hotel recepcionista in Chiclayo. If only Viany had known what we were really looking for!
BRIAN CORBETT 1700 words 5 February 2004
