No matter which way you cut it, Saturday is not a work day. I mean, you can make a good go of trying, but it never works out. Don’t tell Professor Rick, though – to all appearances, Saturday was a work-day, indeed.
We’d taken Friday for our own, and had been glad to do so, but the price had to be paid. I mean, in the end, we’re basically on vacation with one stipulation: give John a solid five-and-a-half days of work per week. And Festivál week, with its noteworthy (ha! a pun!) paintings, parties, and general antics, hadn’t been very kind to our work ethic. And so it came as little surprise when, after an early breakfast on Saturday morning, Dr. Rick broke the Sabbath for a day of work.

The cagey reader is probably thinking two things. Number one, “hasn’t all the working material been cleaned out of the lab?” and, perhaps, number two: “isn’t that excavation permission still held up in Lima? How could they possibly do any work?” Well, as for number two, reader, we were actually granted permission on Friday in a late-night call. I just didn’t tell you. That’s what you get for assuming; it makes an ASS out of U and ME.

And as for number one, that’s pretty much what we spent the day fixing.

*

“I would like to announce,” Dr. Rick said, almost too perkily for his own good, “that because of our excavation grant late last night, we can expect to be digging as early as Monday, but as late as Wednesday, at the outside. Another benefit,” he continued, “is that we can pull the lithic material back from the site, and get started again clearing those babies outta here.” The lithics crew rolled their eyes.

“Right,” John said, decisively, “we’re going to have several crews going about getting us ready today. Rocas,” and he looked at Cesar and the Rocas crew, “you guys can continue if you feel comfortable, now that we have our compass in for you from Lima. Y el equipo de conservación,” he added, addressing the conservation-happy Peruvians, “Alicho will be waiting for you guys up at the site, starting at eight-thirty. The rest of you guys,” and he cast about, looking for free faces, “we’ll be riding up to the site to get back our boxes of lithics.” He clapped his hands – our cue to disappear.

As per usual, Robert and I brushed our teeth and were loitering in the courtyard at eight – ready for the rough ride to the site’s dank storeroom. Rosa, who was patrolling the gate out of breakfast, noticed our toe-tapping, and told us she’d already told others to go back to their room. “I just told Megan,” she said, though the “t” and “d” went unpronounced, “that John is running a late, so to go back to her room and reading a book.” She blinked at us through her rose-colored glasses, and waited until we’d turned tail to slink back to our room to wait for the day to begin.

*

Eventually, close to nine, one of us put down our books and looked around. The courtyard was empty, except for the cat, which was alternating between sunning itself next to the cactus and watching the parrot with an unerring stare. The Señora tottered out of the kitchen, towards he favorite chair in the sun, and I asked, “¿ha ud. visto Senor John?” – “have you seen John?” She shook her head slowly, then sank into the wicker chair, her sigh nearly covered by its creak. I turned to shuffle towards the lab in my socks and sandals (standard gringo relaxation gear), and was mildly surprised to see John, in that one outfit he owns – khaki everything with a floppy Indiana Jones hat, striding toward me. “Ready?” he asked, almost bursting with verve. “Er, yeah, sure…!” I said, a bit taken aback at the enthusiasm. The man really wanted his stones back.

I fetched Robert, and by the time we’d gotten back to the courtyard, John and Megan we clambering into the Land Cruiser. With a coughing rumble and a sound like an anvil being dragged on stone, the engine turned over, turning the headlights a pale gold in the sun. Robert and I mounted our own seats, picking ourselves a good well between packs of the strangest supplies – typewriter erasers, watch batteries, and an emergency blanket. With his customary narration, Dr. Rick jawed the gearshift into place, swung his arm around the passenger seat, and muttered in my direction as he fixed on the gate behind him. The Señor rushed to open it, and we were soon chuttering out onto the street, gunning the gas furiously to keep from stalling.

John toned down his narration this time – perhaps because word has gotten around about his traffic play-by-play. In any case, there were a few choice mumbles, though nothing to prove to Robert that I hadn’t just made the entire stream-of-driving business up. We sat in attentive silence on the way to the site, but Megan fixed on a point outside the window, refusing to answer the rhetorical questions Dr. Rick would pose to her side of the car about parking possibilities.

With an iron hand on the wheel, John cajoled the truck into the site, cutting the engine just as it took a fancy to the steep hill, and began drifting away. The Monster shuddered to a halt, chocked and braked for the moment. We hopped out, and John freed a small cloud of dust as he swung down the rusty tailgate. The site crew spared us from venturing into the moldy room by piling up our boxes near the site scale-model, and it was relatively easy work to transfer them back to the wildly creaking truck bed. With our five-minute task over, we sat on the path’s rocks, waiting for Dr. Rick to come back.

The word from Martín was that Dr. Rick had gone to look over the excavation site, and would be back in a moment. In the meantime, we gave our utmost attention to Shadow, Martín’s awesome dog. His squat, barrel-chested stance and tufted tail (not to mention honey-brown eyes) reminded me pressingly of my dog. We ruffled his stomach and talked about the possibility of going into Huaráz, which was looking dimmer and dimmer as talk of the national holiday – La Día de Patrias, on Monday – and its effect on lodging became more pessimistic. “Ready?” said John, suddenly leaning over us. “Yeah,” we said, and hopped in the Monster, leaving Shadow with two paws scratching absently at the air.

With the lithics back in the lab, sinister in their thousands, we were free to analyze again. Because so many people had escaped to Rocas or conservation, Robert and I drafted two new people to help out – Beth, the new arrival from Mexico (originally Seattle) and Bodie, the Goliath of fainting fame. Over tea and laughter, we gradually got them used to calling pebbles data, slowly stirring jargon into the conversation. Though Dr. Rick flew in and out, we were basically alone, so we conducted scathing reviews of whoever’s music was on – demanding justification of excessive Michael Jackson (14 songs, Beth?), Death Cab for Cutie (I will follow… them with a pickaxe), and Jimmy Buffett (because everyone knows there’s only one song he can sing).

The hurly-burly came to a head when Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” came on. If you don’t know, and there’s no reason you would, I ended up memorizing the entire song for the AP U.S. History test – it saved my bacon on the essays. It’s a chronological run-down of the last forty years; really just a trivia chant you can memorize if you have a spare month or two. Anyway, with calipers clipping away at bits of quartzite, I mumbled the opening words under my breath: “Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray…” and was shocked to hear an identical murmur bubbling up to my right.

Robert and I locked eyes. “South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe Di-mag-i-ooo.” His eyes narrowed, and I widened mine – no one knew this song like I did. Soon the calipers slid to a stop in both our grips – “Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television, North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe.” Oh ho – a worthy adversary. We kept it up, mouths in perfect unison, never blinking, never flinching, breathing only during the chorus. Beth sighed in exasperation, and picked up the rock I’d long since dropped:

“Rosenbergs, H Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye. Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new queen, Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye [breath] Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc, Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dancron Dien Bien Phu Falls, Rock Around the Clock, Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team, Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland, Bob Dole, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev, Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez [breath] Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge On The River Kwai Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball, Starkwether, Homicide, Children of Thalidomide, Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia, Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go, U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy, Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo [long, long breath] Hemingway, Eichman, Stranger in a Strange Land, Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion, Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatle mania, Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson, Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex, J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say [breath / desperate gasp] Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again, Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock, Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline, Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan, Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide, Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz, Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law, Rock and Roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore

We broke eye contact, satisfied that we were equally large nerds, and huffed quiety as we picked up our bags again. After they were done laughing, Bodie and Beth made us promise never to do that again. I couldn’t agree more.

*

Again, we gathered in Megan’s room for the next Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back. Robert and I made our now customary chocolate bombing run, and came back with enough for a couple cavities apiece. We winced through the painfully bad graphics and awkward storyline (when was this a blockbuster!?) jawing on decadent sweets. When the speakers started to go towards the end, frustrating Luke into a mute bombing run, we each took on a character, and used ridiculous voices to read their subtitled lines. By far the best, however, was Bodie, who’s bleep-bloop dubbing of R2-D2 was good enough to fool Lucas. I just gave Luke an effeminate British accent. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but it made the Rebellion’s victory that much sweeter.

(Day 18) – Death and Dollars in Chavín

Every good zombie movie plays on one scene: the usually-bustling street, ghostly and vacant in the sunshine. “Where is everyone?” you think. Oh, right – they’ve all been turned into slobbery, skull-munching, dead things. That was about the general sense of things Friday morning.

Handicapped for the umpteenth time by the lack of permission to excavate, John gave up the ghost and gave us Friday to do with as we would. No catches, no caveats, just do as we would. Given the chance, then, most of the group skipped breakfast, and slept like the dead.

This made breakfast something like a treasure trove – twenty empty seats, with fresh orange juice, toast, butter, jam, cheese… and all of it useless to the zombies. I couldn’t really sleep in, so when I hit the dining room at 7:15 AM, it was cuisine cloud-nine. I gathered a cluster about me, pulling from at least four different places, and downed juice after juice, cheese after cheese, and an unholy amount of bread, smothered in globs of warm strawberry jam. Imagine my embarrassment, then, when Dr. Rick and Rosa walked me in on at 7:30, attempting an improbable confection constructed from three pieces of bread, butter, egg, cheese, and jam. Luckily, my escape was swift. I dabbed by mouth with the tissue-like napkin and broke out into the early, zombie-filled morning.

Where to?... where to?... My stomach, which was making a break for my toes, tugged me back toward bed... but frankly, it smells strangely in our room, and sleeping [zombie] Robert sometimes does a weird breathing thing where it sounds as though he needs a respirator. Having thus reasoned my way towards a morning out on the town, I struck out for the bank, ready to do some serious money changing.

I had been putting off this little dance for quite awhile. I brought about half the money I would need in cash, in case I lost it, or was accosted by a zombie horde (okay, last zombie thing, promise). The rest was to be conjured from my ATM card and PIN number from a friendly ATM. There is, thank God, an ATM in Chavín, which, as an aside, I discovered (it’s hidden behind a picket fence and a wall), but it is easily the most enigmatic of its kind. It promises, in broken English, to “fetch your monies,” but doesn’t mention what happens with “your monies” as they come through. What’s the exchange rate? Is there a surcharge? Will Visa cry foul if I suddenly appear to be withdrawing from rural Peru? Reciting the necessary vocabulary under my breath, I waited patiently in the lobby for a man in front of me, who was, apparently, cashing in on years on loose sofa change.

I accosted the man behind the counter full-force, accusing him of obscuring Bank of America’s Peruvian policies (should they have any). Understandably taken aback, he responded in rapid Spanish (don’t they all…?), and managed to convey a few things. First, the ATM is owned and operated by the National Bank of Peru, which is international; thus, “my monies” will flow freely. Second, of course there’s a surcharge – I shouldn’t be silly; I’m in Chavín, not Geneva. Third, he has no idea what the “American Bank” is, or what it charges for Peruvian withdrawals. The American Bank, by the way, is what I had to call Bank of America – it’s remarkably difficult to convey that name in Spanish without sounding like you’re talking about the Fed.

Thoroughly stymied, I had a think for a bit, then decided that as long as I was in the bank, I might as well do money-ish things. So, rather pompously, and as if it was what I came to do all along, I changed my last American $20 bill. Satisfying, that.

*

With soles burning a hole in my pocket, I decided to hit the market again. I sloughed my Adidas sweatshirt for a grungy white tee, and popped in my contacts. If I didn’t speak first, I could be Peruvian, or at least Brazilian. Thus are the benefits of being tan in a tan land.

I slipped back under the tarps of the bazaar, treading lightly around the edges of rugs and mats. The press of people swirled in eddies at the junctures, clustering and breaking from rows of shiny new pots, woven rugs, and bizarrely, a portly man evangelizing from a TV. The black set-top box was so small we don’t sell them in America anymore, but you could still make out the cream-suited preacher, who was working himself into apoplexy over the coming Rapture (which is, I learned, El Rapto). As much as I felt comfortable marauding in my Peruvian suit, it was still clear that these were a different people – bargaining, dealing, and calling – always calling – in machine-gun tongues. After a good stroll down the main street, I worked my way back out, empty-handed.

When I got back, Robert was up, and ready for breakfast. Though it had been scant hours since my obscene feast, I agreed to go with him to Pukutay, a touristy restaurant near the site. Ordering, however, was easily the most frustrating experience I have ever had in a restaurant. While Robert was content to have the pollo saltado, I decided I could have an order of toast. When I asked the waitress, however, for pan tostado, which how I’ve always phrased “toast” in Spanish, she gave me a decidedly blank look. Eager to accommodate, I tried other phrases – “hot bread; burned bread; bread which has been warmed; bread of the fire” etc… with all of them falling short. Robert gave it a go, too, mimicking how you would make toast, if all you had were your hands and an invisible stove. The waitress shook her head slowly. No dice.

We finally called for the bill after more than a half-hour of easy discussion. The owner, who looked like an extra for Dumbledore, called the total across the room - $21 soles. Considering that a sole works like a dollar here, that was a little outrageous. When we asked to see the bill, he wrote out a note, charging us $13 for the orange juice we drank. When we asked him “why?,” he responded that he’d charged us for each kilogram of oranges squeezed. There was also a small charge for the ketchup we’d used. We left no tip.

*

The crew mobilized after lunch, and formed a Gringo Group to attack the marketplace. Generally, this is a bad idea price-wise; the paler your friends, the higher the starting price, but it was our day off, and there was little else to do. In a giant clot, we barged along the alleys, pointing and gawking at little oddities. When one of the scouts found something we liked, we debated the gift as a whole, then re-dispatched the American with a partner for bargaining – one of the Spanish-fluent dream team who would tug at their elbow, and play Bad Cop. In this way, Becca got a gorgeous blanket, in rich cream and gray, Marcus got a lime-green rug, and Bodie, on a whim, bought two Andean ponchos. We were a well-oiled machine.

I was dispatched with Marcus to the rug dealer, to bargain for a hunter green and maroon rug for my grandma, who asked for something from Peru (in exchange for the spending money she gave me). We worked him down, with synchronized scowls and snorts, to thirty soles – the same price as my blanket – about $13 dollars. Robert and I then tried to undercut the hat vendor lady, who wanted $6 soles for a llama hat for my brother, Charlie. She would have none of it; but, because it was only really $2 dollars, I bought it at-price. Laden again with absurdly cheap llama-wares, we headed back for the hostal.

*

There are posters that hang around the town, making outlandish promises. Some forecast epic soccer games between states, some promise international singers will perform at Festivál. But by far the most alluring of the broadsides was hung rampant from city hall, a twenty-foot square with incandescent graphics that promised, in no uncertain terms, a bullfight.

We had been looking forward to the fight all week, anticipating the spectacle in a sort of queasy longing. Everyone’s heard of Pamplona; seen the over-pouffed outfits and pirate hats of the matadors. A bullfight is powerful thing in our imagination – we think of the Coliseum, of charging bulls, and the daring acrobatics of the matadores. But what weighed heavily on our minds, as the afternoon drew closer to the appointed hour, was the reality of the show. Having seen the cockfights, we were well aware the bulls wouldn’t make it out alive – as the poster promised in no uncertain terms: “Six will live. Two will die.”

Renato, the jack-off-all-trades who collected money the previous night for tickets, was supposed to meet us in the square at two. Milling around the plaza uncertainly, it was abundantly clear, by 2:20, that Renato was nowhere to be found. Still nervous about our seating, we decided to head for the ring anyway and claim a section for the Americans.

It wasn’t hard finding the place – everyone seemed to be walking away from it. It was a little strange to walk against so many people an hour before an event; this was, after all, the headlining event for Festivál – the coup de grace the mayor spent so much money on. Nevertheless, people of all ages, looking eagerly towards the plaza we’d just left, streamed past us in the afternoon sun, spangled with traditional dancers, who laughed as they swerved close to us. As we grew further and further from the town limits, however, the small trickle of fight-seekers strengthened, so that we could follow our own little crows around a building and up a hill.

The dingy alley along the building was fronted in flaking white paint, and the ground was an oddly tilled fill, spongy enough to catch the footprints of a thousand passers-by. As we climbed the hill, following the sound of a dull roar, you could see the tracks of construction engines crisscrossing in broad, uncompromising strokes. As we crested the slope, it was clear we were in the right place – in front of us, crude but standing, stood the bullfight arena of Chavín de Huantar.

The ring stood at the cap of the hill, but at the foot of the ridge outside of town, which shot up to meet the valley mountains. Small specks of color – Quechua villagers – were gathering on the high slope, so small that you’d need binoculars to see their faces. Seating seemed to be free – though Renato had certainly taken our money, everyone was squatting wherever, in folding chairs, earthen berms, and in many cases, parked cars.

Bone-white bleachers hung over one side of the arena, itself constructed of huge, curvate concrete slabs, set end-to-end. Slowly, so as not to anger anyone, we slipped down the slope above the arena to its blessedly solid steps. Filing in, we took a few pictures, but were largely content to melt in the sun, to tilt our head back and close our eyes, letting the conversation drift off…

*

A pudgy lady with sausage fingers was jabbing at us and speaking in a foreign language. We looked at each other helplessly until someone caught on – we were in the Mayor’s family seating. Apologizing profusely under the iron glare of the portly matron, we single-filed back onto the loose soil, all of us scanning for a place to fit twenty white people.

We ended up hopping on a small berm with a good overview of the fight. Becca soon named it Gringo Hill, which would probably have been the locals’ name too – people looooove calling us gringos. Perched awkwardly on the shifting clumps of grass, we readied our cameras for the ornate, official deaths of the bulls.

*

The bulls start their fighting career in the field next to the ring. Though you can barely make it out through the eucalyptus trees, they are being harassed from all sides of a corn plot. As different workers throw rocks at them, rope their legs or horns, or pull daring “I-just-touched-its-tongue” sort of stunts, the bulls whirl and stamp, frustrated by the agility of its ape tormentors. Eventually, the bull is goaded aboard a trailer, and hit from above as the truck pulls up the hill to the arena.

It is hardly a Coliseum. The concrete sides are thick enough to stop the bull’s charge, certainly, but it was built without honor of fair play. Spaced around the rim of the arena stood large wooden barricades, offering protection to anyone behind their splintery walls from the bull’s sight and charge.

It is into this hellish circle of concrete and wood that the bull is delivered. The trailer backs up to the only gap in the wall, and raises its back door. The bull comes charging out, riled by the pushing and shoving it endured in its cage. Soon, a rodeo clown or a matador flourishes their capes from behind the barricades, waving a bright “hello!” before disappearing behind plywood. The bull charges at the cape full board, then stops at the wooden bulwark, blocked. Again and again – the charge and brake; the performers grow bolder, trying to ride the bull, grab its tail, or do acrobatics ‘round its head.

These fights, largely more harassment, are called lidia, a term crudely appropriated from the word for “free.” This is to say that the point of the first rounds is entertainment only – an appetizer for the later slaughter. As the bulls huff and snort their frustration, the trailer door soon opens, and the bewildered and bellowing bull rushes back in, on its way to a long life of grazing and such. There were six of these circus acts Friday afternoon. The other two were scheduled to die.

*

The first bull to be sacrificed to our appetite was a velvet-black brute, muscled so clearly that we could see it from the hilltop. He broke the back of the trailer doors open in a toss of his head, denting the aluminum slats. With a bellow, he made immediately for the center of the ring. Behind him, the doors of the trailer clanged shut, and the men who drew the bolt huddled in a small pile under the tailgate. From one of the six safe harbors, a swarthy man in a white and yellow matador suit stepped, prancing with his hooped red cape held high.

He rippled the cape in front of him in a smooth arc, an open challenge. The bull tossed its head and kept a glare at the matador, front legs bowed. Again the matador wheeled to the crowd, arcing the cape in a whirl that flashed red, then yellow, then red. The bull scraped a hoof dangerously against the rocky soil, tail raised and flicking. Then, with a bellow and a motion like a rockslide, the bull charged.

The matador kept the fan rippling to his side, and as the bull ripped its horns at the center of the hoop, he stepped smartly around its side, whipping the cape around him like a toga so that the red disappeared against his livery. With a sprightly step, he pranced away from the bull; a black-slippered flourish, with a bow to the crowd. As the bull turned to charge again, however, he ducked behind the nearest barrier.

And so it went – frilled men would pop in and out of the ring, bluff at the bull, then disappear behind the wood. They worked together to distract the bull when one was in real danger, calling out or making exaggerated moves toward the rodeo clown, who was more than happy to dash between safe havens, drinking and weaving all the while.

Soon, however, it became bloodsport. The matadors stepped from behind their bases with short spears, wrapped in frills and ribbons. Concealed in the handles of their capes, they were invisible to the bull. After a flourish and a taunt, the bull avalanched forward, and in his spin toward the bull’s back quarter, the matador triumphantly pulled the pink-frilled spear from the cloth and plunged it deep into the bull’s shoulder.




The bull roared its displeasure, and stopped short of charging the matador back to his base. He made snapping motions at the stake, which was no longer than a forearm, and sunk deep into his joint. Soon the next matador stepped from the shadows, this time concealing a blue-beribboned harpoon. In another pass, it waved gaily from the bull’s back, bobbing a bit with every surging stride.

As more and more spears we were stuck into the bull’s back and body, the blood began to flow freely. Thick and hot, it coursed in little trails down the bull’s side, dark red on dark black, really only visible when the bull would corner, and spray the ground pink. Its great lungs began to work heavily, sucking in more air with a sound like a leaky bellows. It moved slower, and attacked less often, taking longer pauses to list, slightly, in the center of the ring.

Seen him unsteady, the matadores moved for the glorious finale, abandoning the frilly stakes in favor of silver, slender rapiers. With every pass, and an “¡Olé!,” the steel would slice in and out, cardinal where it had been wet only seconds before. Each stroke was aimed for the heart, but the bull, from determination or genes or simple strength, did not falter from each blow. And again, and again, the matadores whirled around him together, a closing circle, each with a blade behind the cloak, each sinking it to the hilt when the bull turned its heaving back.

A drunk jumped into the ring – apparently one does every year. As the matadores waltzed around the bull, calling out as they stabbed away, the drunk, holding a beer bottle and a short, brutish dagger, huddled behind the nearest barricade.

The bull began to flail wildly, bucking so that its horns grew dangerously close to the pink-stained embroidery of the matadores. One by one, they slipped behind the barricade, until the bull was left alone, heaving and butting at the wooden face. Two of the matadores reached their arms out over the barricade and stabbed mercilessly, the rapiers robbed of all glamour. From above, too, the rodeo clown mocked the bull, pulling faces and shooting foaming beer at its bloody head.
The blades stuck, but did not kill. The bull bucked on, each thrust with the strength of its desperation, of a cornered wild thing, of an animal that sees its death. It was pinioned with three spears, two swords, sunk to the hilt through its ribs, and still it charged the barrier, rose-colored foam leaking from its mouth.
In the end, it was the drunk who killed it. After ten long minutes of hacking, he kneeled unsteadily on the wooden fence, dropped his bottle, and began digging at its head with his dagger. Each short chop seemed to do nothing, maybe only anger it more, until one chop, served as the drunk leaned dangerously over the cornice, felled the bull. The dagger fell, the light went out of its eyes, and it crumpled to the ground, as cleanly as if a cord had been cut.

I made my apologies and left.

*

Back in Chavín, it was the last night of Festivál. Three towers, the most yet, were taking shape in the town center, and the most eager drunks were clutching happily at the free beers. Street vendor lit their lamps and clogged the streets, calling out their wares: salted, sweetened, or fried. One of the promised famous people was wailing into a microphone as trumpets rang out, brassily; in the square, villagers kicked their feet in and out in an Andean jig. Unenthused, and a little tired off all-night parties, I went to the room to wait for dinner.

*

After dinner, Dr. Rick gave a blow-by-blow of his day. He’d had no part in the bullfight, instead, he’d taken the Rick clan to see the official opening of the Chavín museum, which was dedicated by the President. Though we’d seen the helicopter earlier, we hadn’t seen the man himself, though Dr. Rick described his figure as one of “substantial character” – a euphemism, if ever there was one.

“You all know I have my misgivings with the current administration,” he said, looking pensive, “especially because our family knows the former President. But I have to be honest,” he said, nodding his head ruefully, “that guy gave an impressive speech. I mean, he had notecards, but I didn’t see him use them, not once! ... and… that was an impeccable talk on the importance and history of the Chavín center. I mean,” and he hesitated before continuing, “it could have easily served as an introductory lecture to a class on Peruvian archaeology.” With his eyebrows permanently raised in shock, Prof. Rick took a seat, our cue to leave.

*

We began our movie series again that night, comfortable snuggled under our new llama blankets. By popular demand, we watched Chocolat, the story of a French woman who changes her town with cocoa. We were forewarned by people who’d seen it before that to watch it without chocolate at hand was not only a sin; it was torture. Obediently, Robert and I slipped out to the corner store, to buy twenty soles worth of chocolate to distribute to the impromptu theatre. Nibbling on our snacks, we made it through before midnight, and I must say: excellent movie. Also, excellent call on the chocolate-run – I might have died otherwise.

We split up for the night, tucking the projector and blankets away, retiring to our separate rooms. I fell asleep to confused thoughts of hairy blankets, beer-soaked bulls, and death by chocolate.

(Day 17) Keeping It Real (Clean)

It is wonderful to wake up to a weekend, especially if that weekend is on a Thursday. I’m pretty sure everyone enjoys the sensation of rolling themselves tighter in their sheets and drifting back to sleep, sure there is nothing to do. It was this light, untroubled sleep, which our group stole Thursday morning.

At dinner the previous night, the refrain had been sounded again: The INC has not approved our proposal; we are trying what we can; we remain optimistic… and so on, and so on. Our mad dash to hide all of our material at the site proved incredibly successful – the lab lay barren of things to do. Forbidden from digging, and barred from analyzing, we had very little to do, other than twiddle our thumbs. Dr. Rick made a last ditch effort to salvage some productivity after Wednesday’s dinner, asking that we help out the conservation workers at the site in any way we can.

Okay. Plausible. Conservation sounds tough – like “how do we stop the site from falling into the river?” or, perhaps, “can we re-support the galleries?” We’d certainly seen the workers at it; they performed heroic buttressing, fortification, and re-building around the site, staving off thousands of years of decay. We anticipated methodologies, tools, and well-reasoned strategies. What we did not anticipate was a proffered set of dusty paintbrushes.

*

I mentioned a lovely sleep: indeed, we slept an extra hour, untroubled by our impending lack of work. Talk over our morning eggs was light and easy, the banter of people about to go on vacation. Dr. Rick rather gamely clutched at the table and stood, clearing his throat slightly as the conversation subsided. “Right,” he said, looking as though he was bracing for something, “we’ve gotten word from Cristián that the permission is still tied up at the I.N.C.” He shuffled a bit. “Now, while this doesn’t really differ from what we knew last night, we do know that it will be approved as soon as the commission meets, which…” and he turned to look at Cesar, “should be today, if not tomorrow. That probably means,” he said, running a quick finger-count, “that we definitely won’t be digging by Sunday, but it’s definitely possible the beginning of next week, and I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see picks in the ground on Wednesday. That said,” he continued, “we do ask that the group members help out where they can today, especially with conservation, as I mentioned last night. And,” he said, looking pensive, “seeing as that’s really a one-day thing, we’re going to give you Friday completely off.”

As he turned to repeat the lot in Spanish, Robert and I made eye contact. This was an escape hatch from lithics. Careful observation of the crews that came in from helping conservation crews yesterday had shown a small dirt-to-smile ratio, a sure sign of a desirable job. When Dr. Rick turned again, this time brandishing English, we were among the first hands go up, volunteering ourselves for a day outdoors (finally!).

*

It had been over a week since we walked to the site. Honestly, I forgot that you can get out of breath if you do the thing at a good clip – it’s a bit of a hill. The Peruvian students were old hands at conservation; they’d discovered it the day before, so we followed them around the back of Building A. After rounding the corner, they jumped down into a small gulley and sat, chatting contentedly in Spanish. Nervously, we followed suit, sitting and laying on rocks in the morning sun. The workers were nowhere to be seen.

We began a game of Contact – that ultimate time-waster – and were soon happily counting, shouting clues, and booing poor answers. I can only imagine what it would’ve sounded like in a foreign language; we certainly got a few askance looks from the puzzled Peruvians. After a good half-hour we were going strong; I’d gotten most of the way through “F-R-I-A-R,” with a confused Robert yelling at me – “There is no goddamn word… in the English language… that starts F-R-I-A! I know you picked some ridiculous word… like ‘stygian!’ Goddamnit I hate you!” Et cetera.

In his defense, I did once play “stygian,” and that’s a hard one to guess (let alone remember). In my defense, however, “friar” is a rather simple word. Eventually, as he ran through the alphabet, his face cleared, and he guessed it. Veni, vidi, vici, as it were.

The workers were announced by their wheelbarrow, which squeaked ominously from around the corner. Without speaking, they stopped the rusted barrow by the corner of the building, and erected a ladder to the top. One worker, in a hard-hat and white smock, yelled something to the Peruvian students, who nodded and headed for a set of buckets hidden in clumps in the gulley. We sat up from our naps and games, and watched, carefully. The worker turned, without waiting, or saying anything in English, and walked back up the slope to the wheelbarrow, where he began scooping small balls of mortar from its gullet and tossing them to the man on the ladder.

Caro was among the Peruvian students, and is blessedly bilingual, so we asked her what to do. With a smile, she told us we were to clean off the excess mortar. With cepillos – brushes. She held in her hand a small bathroom brush, the sort with hard bristles that make great suds. To demonstrate, she scratched at the stone half-heartedly. A small cloud of dust was liberated, and hung happily in the morning light.

*

Perhaps I have been lacking in my description of Chavín. The monument is measured on the scale of a thousand meters – which something like 5/8 of a mile to a side. The stones that comprise the buildings have moved something like five inches over the two thousand years they have stood, largely because the average stone is the approximate size and shape of a large pick-up truck. The mortar that seals the ancient bastion in thicker than a human hand, and the impassable face is chinked so meticulously that the indoor galleries are near-waterproof. This is all to say that ten or so Americans, dabbling as its skin with paintbrushes, had about as much a chance removing mortar as the fart of a passing fly.

*

“I mean,” Caro said, shrugging, “I think it’s because yesterday they added a bunch of mortar, and we’re supposed to clean off the excess.” She went back to brushing aimlessly, turning again to the Peruvian students in time to catch a joke. We looked at each other, then at the brushes. “Really?” we’re thinking – “is this a pull-one-on-the-gringos chore?”

It certainly didn’t take much effort, so we were soon brushing away, firing clues back and forth in a great game of Contact. In large part, we had no effect on the stone – for the most part we were just dusting the toes of the giant. The picture below is a perfect characterization, both of Juliet (the capricious Palo Alto high-school girl) and the extent of our important work.




When the Peruvian students suddenly sat down, we looked around nervously, checking to see if some milestone had been achieved. Nope: still the same monoliths, although arguably dustier. The mortar was still a dark, grainy band, solidly sandwiching each level, and no worker had popped his head ‘round the corner to declare a siesta.

Well, weren’t going to pass up a perfectly good opportunity to do nothing… so we sat too, with an eye peeled for any marauding supervisors. (As an aside, the director of the INC actually was on the grounds at that point, though we would have no idea until lunch.) We had a few more choice rounds of contact, though we made the wonderful mistake of giving over control to Juliet. This soon led to her calling out semi-words in a vain attempt to keep us from guessing her secret word – a screech that was often like, “no it’s not ‘ceredellium’!” or, “no, it’s not ‘ducky tape’!”

Eventually, as the clock neared noon, we started eyeing the road to lunch. With no one to stop us, we left our (oh-so-effective) brushes, and trooped off around the mounds. As we climbed the first hill, Juliet cried out and fell to the ground, clutching at her ankle. As she gingerly rolled her pant-leg up, it was clear that a cactus spine was deeply lodged in her leg.

I told her it wasn’t in far, and grasped it tightly between thumb and forefinger, ready to pull. For her benefit, I counted it down – “Ready? One… two…” and on two, I jerked, viciously, hoping to pull it out before she tensed. The spine twirled in my finger, and came out most of the way, leaving only the tip in a small red globe of blood.

Everyone, including Juliet, laughed; it was pretty obvious I’d failed to pull off the old doctor’s trick. Robert and Beth were both in stitches, and Robert couldn’t resist – “Dude, you totally blew that one – it wasn’t even that far in.” Mindless of her leg, Juliet, too, was laughing at the failed plot. Scowling darkly, I jerked the spine out the last few millimeters, ending her laugh and giving myself some small satisfaction.

*

The work of the conservator is never done. Thus, we trooped back out to the field for the sequel to our gloriously productive version, most of us well-equipped with iPods. To our extreme shock, the workers took notice of us as we came in, and moved our operation some twenty meters down the wall, to a new section of as-yet un-caressed stone. Dutifully, we dusted away, keeping up the same game to while away the hours.

I confess our ulterior motive: John was going to give a lecture in Spanish about the Chavín chronology (one we’d already… enjoyed… at Stanford) at four in the afternoon. Though we had no intention of attending the talk with the Peruvians – once was quite enough – we would help them find their way home at 3:30, or whenever they were going to head out. Imagine our shock, then, when, after a good six hours of practiced ignorance, a gravy train of workers appeared from the west, pulling back at heavy wheelbarrows full of gray, gloopy sludge.

I can’t ever remember professing an interest in how buildings used to be made. If you can’t, either, here is the basic formula: 1) Lay a large stone; 2) Smear some gloopy mortar on it; 3) Rinse and repeat. That formula works well for building, and even better for conservation. In rapid-fire, indecipherable Spanish, the workers managed to communication how much it would mean to them if we joined them in the impossible quest to re-mortar Chavín.

It seemed, at first, to make sense – like re-gluing a broken mask, or something. However, there is something about catching a tossed glob of mortar, which has the consistency and texture of horse poo, and having it splatter all over your face, that makes you wish you were somewhere else. Even more fun is the application – basically just throwing it really hard at an old bit of a wall, and hoping you hit a stick bit, or a hole. Turns out, they are equally unlikely. We were far more likely to re-shower ourself in the fermented mixture of ancient clay and cactus glue. Pleasant.

At three, there was a surge in the Force. Caro and her crew were popping off their gloves and tossing their brushes and mortar down. “Caro,” I asked, as they filed past, “isn’t your talk at four?” Caro smiled mischievously over her shoulder at the other Peruvians. “Well,” she said, rolling the ‘l’ in an Ecuadorian trill, “we have to take showers, and get ready… you know… we should really get going…” I made my upset face, and we watched, blinking at flung mortar, as they slipped away two hours early.

*

Because Friday is to be a free day, that made Thursday an honorary weekend night. In celebration of the calendar’s sudden reversal, we all went to Renato’s Café that night, heavy with good food. Renato brought out case after case of Festivál beer as the party raged in the main square, punctuated by the popping and snapping of a thousand fireworks. Soon, we were heavily embroiled in Peruvian drinking games, which are a sight stranger that American games. For a start, they nearly always involved a die, and a strict set of counting rules. Two glasses orbited, and now and again, Spanish calls would shake the dining room – “Sirvele!” – serve them more!

Ricardo, one of the Spanish students, took in more alcohol than I have ever seen a human take standing. A good three bottles of beer were gone on his account, and that was before we started into the vodka. As Robert and I watched, sober, Ricardo took six shots of vodka at a time from a tall glass, chased by a swig of beer. The bantam, five-five latino swore heavily after each blow, and I stayed in the room only because I had never seen anyone projectile-vomit in public (and I had my camera ready). Three times he repeated his feat, before he waved the bottle off, weakly. In all honesty, I thought he was going to die, but my awkward inquiries in Spanish were rebuffed by the Peruvians, who offered only confused looks, and reassurances that Ricardo had been through much worse. If so, someone from Guinness Records should hop the next flight to Lima, and get this on video; it just can’t be real.

(Day 16) The Painted Lady

“I know I sound like a broken record,” Dr. Rick said, after the last of us quieted down at breakfast, “but it’s going to be tough going finding work this week, at least until the permission comes through from Lima.” Some not-so-unhappy smiles flitted around the room. “We do,” said John, rocking on his heels a bit, “have an optional activity for the day. As you are no doubt too-aware,” and here he looked ruefully out at the street, “Festivál has been upon us. Every year, today, the Virgin of Carmen, which is to say a statue, is brought about the square after Mass. The procession will take the afternoon, and will cut through several carpets.”

As we looked about, puzzled, Dr. Rick continued. “The carpets are made of dyed sawdust, and are made, each year, by town… oh, I don’t know… entities. This year,” and he gave us a fake perky look, “we’ve been invited to share the honor with the INC and the team up at the monument… and make one of our own. So,” he said, rubbing his hands together with a dry sound, “if you are artistically inclined, or otherwise bored, Ivan asks that you meet outside at eight-thirty. Otherwise,” he said, popping up on his heels, “the day is yours.”

A murmur ran through the room as we discussed what we should do. No doubt, without work, the day would be a little boring. It would be better, we decided, to help out where we could. At the very least we’d get some great pictures of the procession.

We spilled out into the plaza after breakfast, chatting in a huge clot. Slowly, we moved towards a crew of workers, surrounded by white buckets and a pile of sage-green pine needles. As we arrived, piecemeal, Ivan and the others put us to work. Peruvian students stretched string tight in a rectangle as Ronald dashed down the line, chalk rasping at the stone. Annika and Ivan sketched a dove in his notebook, embellishing with a Chavín symbol, the initials “I.N.C,” and a great Stanford ‘S.’ The rest of us rolled up our sleeves, and under rapid-fire Spanish instruction, mixed clay pigments into buckets of wet sawdust. Gloved in latex, we were soon stained a rainbow, and had pails and pails of richly colored scarlets, turquoises, and yellows. Slowly, as Chino and Alicho filled in the dove and letters, a form began to take shape on the plaza floor. The rising sun sliced the forming dove’s head in half as the too-ready dusters looked on.

As soon as the last artists cleared the chalk square, we dove on it, sawdust clenched in our hands. With careful bordering and gloved tending, we tossed pile after pile of sawdust between white dividers, smoothing ruffles in slow, even sweeps. As the sun strengthened, the colors really began to pop, too-bright against the dull gray flagstone. As people grew tired or hungry, they spun in and out, snapping off gloves with loud kapops.

As we crouched and cast, the plaza was by no means quiet. Native dancers in heavy headdresses and mirror-spangled outfits whirled in the plaza’s center, dervishing to the heavy rattling beat of two drums. A crowd began to gather between them and us, and it was not unusual for one of us to skive off for a bit to watch a dance or two, or for a dancer, panting underneath his upturned mask, to watch us work from the plaza steps.



The last color to be added was the white, a gypsum powder that had to be sprinkled by the last crouching dusters through a small plastic funnel. Lovingly, they filled in the dove, casting more handfuls over the full chest to complete the shape. As the last crew drew away, the frame was complete – a portrait of a rising sun behind a pinioned dove, high above the symbols of all three teams. Dutifully, we filed in behind our creation, ready for a group photo just as the square was fully lit.

Finished, we were free to watch Chavín shake itself into a tizzy. Bewitched by the spectacle of the dancers and the building parade, scores of Chavinos stood on benches and fenceposts to watch, agape. Clergy in immaculate white and red began chanting at the stoop of the church, while solemn, basset-faced men in black frocks filed into the nave. By lunchtime, a press of people, visible only as tan faces in white colored and floral hats, surged at the doors of the church.

With a cheer like a roar, the crowd suddenly backed up, forming a respectful semi-circle at the church steps. Out of the shadows, bumping slightly on the shoulders of the gloomy-faced men, came the litter of the Virgen del Carmen, a white-gowned figure of plaster. A pudgy man in a black tuxedo, backpedaling in front of the pallbearers, wheezed to a stop, and rang a small silver bell on the Virgin’s litter. The bearers shuffled to a stop, and the crowd fell silent. A very wrinkled bishop stood in front of her, genuflected, blessed the crowd, and then, in Spanish rich with rolling “rrrrrrs,” embarked on a passage of Scripture. After quite a bit, more men in funny clerical hat came forth, and repeating things that Jesus said, and the crowd cheered for that, too.

With another ring of the silver bell, the bearers shuffled on to the next corner, sweat beading furiously on their foreheads. A circle of police kept the villagers at bay as they reached, faces enraptured, towards the Virgin. The procession was a powerful current, sweeping clounter-clockwise around the square in slow, powerful steps. At every corner, the crowd obliterated a sawdust carpet, starting first with the clergy, followed by the Virgin’s village-wide entourage. After we watched the slow march through the Stanford ‘S,’ we left the hubbub for the hostal’s courtyard, content to watch the crucifix pass through the windows.

*

By the afternoon, the crowds had dispersed, well-satisfied as to the Virgin’s renewed favor. We made ready to enjoy that perennial pleasure of the overseas American – cheap shopping. Armed with our favorite Spanish bargaining phrases, we changed our money into small bills (the better to seem poor) and hit the bazaar that had burst into being down the main street into town. For my part, I put in my contacts, took off any brand-name clothes, and tried to walk alone. I found out some while ago that if I do this, I’m addressed first as a Peruvian. Also, the prices are lower.

The market was a narrow alley of tarp-shaded carpets, over which, in folding chairs, wizened Peruvians fanned themselves and watched the crowd hawkishly. When we walked together, we must have looked so helpless. In any case, the calls came thick and fast. “Blanketes! Chollos! Miren, gringos! Amigo!...” The calls came thick and fast. Music, pumped over cheap radios, filled the space between the entreaties, and men with boomboxes often lunged out of the shifting light to twirl necklaces, watches, rings... anything that could be a reasonable copy of more luxe items.

Eager to begin the gift-buying run, I kept a weather eye peeled for things for the family (and, I suppose, friends.) Still, the market was mostly for the Chavinos, and featured less authentic alpaca wall-hangings than absurdly cheap kitchen knives (One sole!? $.40 cents!?). I eventually ended up circling a plump man perched on the back of his truck, in which were piles and piles of blankets. Double-wide and llama-fied, they looked perfect for a dorm room. After some protracted arguments about what would be a proper blanket price, we agreed on thirty-five soles… or, maybe, thirteen dollars. Considering I could have hid my hometown in its wooly folds, I’m rather sure I made out like a bandit.

*

After our first market expedition (we agree there will be more before the Festivál is out), we wended our way lazily to our rooms, content, mostly, to sponge up the flavor of excited Chavín. In place of the sleepy square of most Wednesdays, the plaza was filled with hill people, milling with the vendors of far-off Huaráz. A few sights: a man with a monkey on a chain, clapping a singing to its poor dance; a parade of men in sheep suits; a dog licking at the underside of a porta-potti; fireworks making their own clouds in the azure sky; and, quite literally, the oldest woman I have ever seen, who needed three men to help her crutch to the steps of the church. From the balcony of the hotel, Señora leaned on the railing, tapping her feet lightly to the drumbeats.

(Day 15) Cocaine and Rum (Before 9AM)

A sense of eager anticipation hung over the crowd at breakfast. We still (still) haven’t gotten our permission yet, so it seemed inevitable that we had forced another day off from whatever tedium. Done with his bread and juice, Professor Rick rose and coughed to get everyone’s attention. “This morning,” he said “as you may or may not all be aware, we’re still waiting on word from Lima as to the status of our permission request. That means,” and he shuffled and looked up again, “we’ve got a big group and not a lot to do.” The Stanford table looked around at each other, counting people and wondering just how many people could do lithics.

“What we can do,” he said, with a sudden smile, “is a little ceremony we do every year before we start the dig. Now, usually,” he added, “we do it the day of the groundbreaking, but I think in this case its safe to get this out of the way, so to speak. The ceremony to which I’m referring is something you may have heard Alicho talking about,” he said, referring to a site director, “called el pago or, in it’s full form, pago a la tierra. You’ll see what all it entails, but it’s mainly something we do to…” and here he shrugged dramatically, “appease the ‘gods’ of the site, if you believe in that sort of thing. If not,” he added, “and we’re not asking you to, it does keep a tradition, and it is something that the locals at the site like to see us do.”

Pago, and stop me if you’ve heard this one before, turned out to be a bit of a material devotional to the earth gods. After our long walk to the site, we huddled in the circular plaza, which, depending on whom you ask, is the oldest part of the site. The sunk circle is lined by a ring of lintel stone, which are (or used to be) carved with fantastical half-human, half-jaguar shapes. The sun had just reached the sandy floor and stretched our shadows to a murky chain yards long. We stood in a circle, waiting for…. well, we didn’t know what.

Dr. Rick appeared on the ridge above the plaza, announcing, as he walked down, “you’ll soon see what this is all about, but I think we’re going to wait for Alicho… before we begin the ceremony proper.” And here he stepped down to the floor with a oomph and a rakish smile. Soon Alicho, Dr. Rick’s… well, there’s no word for it in English… compadre, meaning John is his god-parent, huffed up to the circular plaza. In his hands were two bags of dubious looking leaves, many bags of white powder, and a small glass flask of Ron Captivano rum.

Eyebrows went up all around. We were supposed to drink to Chavín… on a Stanford trip… at nine in the morning? “Hola,” Alicho said, as a quiet descended over the crowd. “Hablen uds. Castellano?” he asked, seeing if it was okay to proceed in Spanish. Enough nods came through that he kept on in Spanish. As a courtesy, and because, largely, I can’t remember Spanish verbatim, I’ll recount in English.

“We are here this morning,” Alicho said (loosely), “because of the Chavín. They who were here before us knew this earth, and today we pay a debt to our ancestors to remove their knowledge,” he said, miming a trade with his hands. “For this, we bring them our gifts,” and he raised the leaves, rum, and a pack of cigarettes flourished from a pocket. “And ask that the earth and the four cardinal directions,” he said, naming each of the four in Quechua, “accept our gifts and our work.”

His small speech done, the tenuous Spanish-speakers looked around at each other nervously. “Okay,” we thought, “we just leave these and go?” Dr. Rick, standing across the circle, cleared things up in English. “So,” he said, “here comes the participatory part. And remember,” he said, leveling some seriously bushy eyebrows at us, “this is voluntary. Alicho is holding two bags of the leaves of the coca plant,” he said, stepping across the circle to stand at my left, “and you may either partake or not, but the thing is to put them in the orifice,” and here he gestured to an as-yet unnoticed hole in the ground maybe five feet in front of my end of the circle. Explanation done for the moment, John accepted two cigarettes from Alicho’s outstretched box, giving one to Rosa. With a small flick, he lit up.

Alicho walked around the circle, holding out the small pink plastic bags of coca leaves, the plastic packets of white powder, the rum, and the cigarettes. Pick your poison, if there ever was one. A few students I wouldn’t have expected, and especially the Peruvians, took a cigarette. Most took a capful of rum, and poured a second down the earth’s gullet. Most also took the coca leaves, and, under Alicho’s murmured instruction, constructed a small fan of seven perfect leaves. When it came to me, I sprinkled rum and took the leaves. I wasn’t sure yet what this business was about, but I admit my curiosity.




Dr. Rick, to my left, had long since stopped puffing on his cigarette, and held it up like a miniature totem-pole. “The locals believed,” he said, balancing the growing column of ash carefully, “that you can tell a lot about our project by the way the ash grows. Past, present, future – apparently it’s all here,” and he gave us a shrugging sort of look, as if to say, “and what could it hurt?” I stood for a long bit with my wad of coca leaves, not precisely sure what to do with them. John tapped the ashes into the hole with his wife, and sprayed more rum at the hole from pursed lips.

“Um, Dr. Rick,” I said, as he began to do something with his wad. “What are we, uh…” I trailed off… not sure how to ask what to do without looking either like a gringo or eccentric. “Ah,” he said, looking up from his now folded pile of leaves, “well, you fold them, like this,” he demonstrated, doubling the leaves. “And you lick them,” he did so, pulling a face, “and sprinkle some of the bicarbonate on,” (my powder confusion cleared), “double them again, and that goes, as they say, ‘between the teeth and gums.’” I put on my best incredulous face. Granted, our high school (being in the country) had more than its fair share of chewing tobacco users, but if you’d asked me this morning, I would not have told you I expected emeriti Stanford professors to smack contently on cocaine leaves.

We followed suit. Now, before you judge, do remember that this is a local tradition, and, strictly speaking, was the oral equivalent of our breakfast mate de coca tea. “While technically,” John said, sounding like he was at the dentist’s office, “this is a pleasure more properly enjoyed after a long day’s work, I can explain the mechanism. The bicarbonate,” he said, shaking the small white packet of powder, “helps release the alkaloid from the coca leaf. The only effect that you’ll probably feel,” he said, wiggling his hand like a see-saw, “is a slight numbing of your cheek, and a mood elevation.” Dutifully, a good dozen people licked, sprinkled, and tucked, giving us strange chubby bunny cheeks.

Alicho and Rosa continued to talk about pre-Columbian Peruvian deities, and the roles that they may have played at ceremonial centers like Chavín. The sun began to beat down on the plaza, and my cheek, at least, was decidedly numb. There was also a small but marked bit of happiness, rather as though you were looking forward to a hot shower. There, but probably only because I was looking for it. We were all pondering either the strangeness of the entire ceremony, with the alcohol spraying and… I suppose… drugs… when Bodie, the 6’4” Goliath, rolled his eyes back in his head and crumpled unceremoniously to the ground.

He took forever to fall. Granted, he’s a whole lot of human, but there were whole seconds packed in there. In a classic faint, he went all floppy and slumped to the ground. I don’t remember how I got over there, but I do remember that his teeth started to chatter and eyes moved around violently. I figured he might be having a seizure – cocaine induced? – and held his jaw closed to stop him from biting his tongue off, and banging his head against the ground more. His jaw tensed, then grew slack. I asked Robert, who was kneeling at his feet, to raise his trunk, so he’d avoid shock. Slowly, his eyes came around, and met mine, then rested, unfocused, in the middle distance.

There was a hush, as the ripples of his fall spread to the other side of the plaza. People formed a circle a few paces back, and I let my grip slacken off his jaw. He lay for a few seconds, then someone, maybe John, asked the question on everyone’s mind. “Are you alright?” Body looked around in a lazy, unfocussed pass, then sat up and hugged his knees. “Yeah, I think I just fainted,” he said, muffled by his jeans. Eventually, Robert or I helped him to his feet, and at John’s behest, he stumbled over to a shady patch of plaza wall. He sat alone for a few seconds, and Robert and I, feeling responsible, wavered on going over to sit with him. Rosa gestured and we followed him into the shade, each taking seats on carved antiquities.

The group soon broke apart, following Alicho over the hill. Those with a lit cigarette or a mouth of coca slipped it from their lips in small, sticky trails of saliva, and committed them to the gods with a small toss into the hole. We watched the procession file out silently, leaving only John, Rosa, Robert, Bodie and I, though John and Rosa remained by the hole, nodding to team members as they left. John gave his cigarette one last pensive look, then tapped it into the earth. He considered Bodie, who kept his head between his knees in the shade of the plaza. “When you’re ready,” he said, “and take your time… we’ll be back in the lab.” He then looked at Rosa and ambled up out of the sunken circle. Rosa paused for a second, looking at Bodie, then followed Dr. Rick in short, hurried strides.

We whiled away the time for a bit, basically making fun of Bodie’s height and sudden love of the ground. Eventually, with a few sips of water and a moment’s rest, we followed the Ricks down the cobbled road to the hotel.

*

After lunch, the lab was in an uproar. Apparently, word came through that the Director of the INC (something like our Secretary of the Interior) was visiting the site in anticipation of our pending application approval. Accordingly, the site staff went into a tizzy, tightening ties and taking out the trash, so to speak. “Now, the question is,” Dr. Rick said in the lab as he swept a bag of lithics material into an empty box, “does a foreign archaeologist always have a right to his excavated material?” He slid the box onto a table and continued, “And the answer, probably,” and here he made his favorite see-saw gesture, “is yes. However,” he said, raising his eyebrows, “in the spirit of toeing the line, this all has got to go.” He made an expansive gesture around the lab, roughly capturing the lithics, ceramics, bones, and excavation material of years of Peruvian digging. “If this stuff is found here,” he said, taping a box shut, “it could be interpreted as a violation of our resolution. Not that it really is,” he said, looking up, smiling, “but we’re not going to take that chance.”

The lab became a beehive as all hands on deck ruthlessly shoved bags into bags into bags into boxes, compiling inventories for later resuscitation and inspection. Amusing discoveries were made; obsidian flakes long since thought lost, half of an ancient finger, and what appeared to be some antique piping. I myself have an excellent picture of a bemused Rob holding, tagging, and bagging some unfortunate Chavino’s femur.

As the Festivál bands began their afternoon racket, we boxed and sealed thousands of flakes, shards, and tools into cardboard boxes, supervised by a fluttering Rosa, who called out rollcalls of material. “The lithics, P.D.A, analyzed?” she said, in a thick Peruvian accent, gesturing at a vacant spot on a table. In due course, those boxes and others were lined up and made ready to transfer to the car.

The Ricks apparently own a car in Peru. Perhaps “car” is generous – they own what must be one of the first Land Cruisers ever produced. Sky blue and dirty cream, the monster barely made it out of the seventies with the grill intact. Its cargo hold (well, it sure as hell wasn’t a trunk) fit the entire lab with space for the rearview, and clunked shut with a worrying series of tinkling sounds. Dr. Rick climbed aboard, and Megan and I hoisted ourselves in after him, wrinkling our noses at the smell of urethane, rust, and sweat.

Two things became immediately clear: Number one – you cannot drive the Land Cruiser. The closest word we have for it is ‘navigate’ – rather than actual control, the steering wheel and gearshift are more… avenues of negotiation. If you play nice, the Land Cruiser might change gears and turn right. Or, just as likely, it could cut the engine and roll downhill, a smile plastered across its grill.

Number two: John is a narrative driver. This is to say that, for the benefit of all involved, Dr. Rick will consult the cabin at large about all of his decisions. And I mean all of them. Granted, opening the hotel double doors and strong-arming the Land Cruiser into reverse were dramatic scenes, and anyone would be forgiven for muttering to the rearview, but John (as he insists we call him) treated us to his thought process on every pedestrian, badly parked car, and errant old woman. The scarce five minutes to the site was a cornucopia of such muttered updates as, “would be able to get through there if this guy hadn’t insisted on parking here,” and “man, just a little slower, pal, there we go…”

At the site, it was a short ballet of box-heaving before all of our illicit academia was back in its proper place – a damp backroom just across from the bathrooms. John shook Ivan’s hand, thanking him for the advance warning, and hopped back into the Monster to see about convincing it to take us back.

*

The funny thing about storing all of your lab material is… it’s all stored. That is to say that we’d very thoroughly scrubbed the lab of things to do. We called it an early evening, and were free to see Festivál kick itself off again before dinner.

A word about Peruvians: they really, really enjoy their fireworks. Really, I know there are boom-happy parts of the States, but this section of the Andes has a real thing for explosives. They show their endless love of all things blasty by setting off a firecracker every ten minutes during Festivál. Two dangerous-looking men wander the plaza by day, each with a handful of thin poles in a hand. On the end, attached loosely with tape and best wishes, sit small cherry bombs. Now and again, or when an unsuspecting gringo is near, they’ll bend down to touch the end of their lit cigarette to the tail of the cherry bomb. As they glance away, the stick will suddenly rocket out of their hands into the clear, blue sky.

If you’re foolish enough to follow it into the sky, you’ll see a small, bright flash, followed by a completely new cloud that drifts away on the valley breeze. Hot on the tails of this little miracle, a sharp report, like a firing squad or an entire forest snapping at once, hits your ears. Really hits them; the business is not pleasant. It was mainly for this last treasure that I glowered at the dangerous men with boom-sticks.

Anyway, while these men were patrolling their square foot, a hired band from Huaráz, in slacks, oxfords, and wingtips, brassily blared something people recognized enough to mouth along to (in Spanish). A ballet folklorico – traditional Amerind dancers, shook their bells and coup sticks in front of the civic hall, and at the corners of it all, small mountain women bound with their colorful slings looked on wonderingly.

After a good twenty minutes, I tired of the banging – both of the drum and the rockets – and retreated to the hostal courtyard, to help out with a developing game of either “poke-the-parrot” or “catch-and-pet-the-cat.”

*

Both Bodie and Robert felt markedly sick at dinner. Robert still seemed to be holding his own, but Bodie looked like a zombie. Tara, too, was staring at the wall morosely, and Dr. Rick favored them with a sad glance before his dinner announcements started. “So,” he said, slowly, “we’ve begun to pick up our first few sicknesses. I think,” and here he furrowed his brows and cast about the room, “we have a good four people sick, which is about normal for the second week in Peru. Just a reminder, then” he said, carefully, “to take some extra caution when brushing your teeth, eating out, et cetera… that your water isn’t local. Because if it is,” and he gestured at Bodie, who was no doubt pondering his imminent bowel movement, “well…” Nothing really needed to be said.

“I would like to remind everyone” John continued, “that tonight Cristián is going to throw the doors open of the museum one last time before it opens. And,” he said, eyes twinkling, “he’s just recently returned from Lima with… the Tello Obelisk.” The reason he was rocking on his heels so excitedly is because, next to the Lanzón, this native Chavín pole is a favorite of the Peruvian museum-goer. It would be rather like if Mount Rushmore were moved to the same site as the Statue of Liberty. So much heritage!

“To that effect” he said, glancing first at Rosa, then at his watch, “we’ll be meeting at eight-thirty…” he trailed off, scanning the room, “…if you’re well enough, in the courtyard, to head over to the museum.”

To be quite honest, the museum was a little underwhelming a second time around. Okay, to be fair, marble floors were kind of nice – they made you think you’d warped to a first-world country – and a few more exhibits were installed, but poor Cristián had to repeat what we already knew in two languages. Same tour, different languages.

The Tello Obelisk wasn’t the only new addition. In the room about the circular plaza, decorated appropriately with imaginative paintings of ceremonies, a recording was tripped as we came in, playing a sound a bit like Niagara Falls. Cristián explained it was a dramatization of what happens when rain is roaring through Rocas Canal. Dr. Rick and his peers think, he said, that novitiates of the cult probably took the local hallucinogenic cactus and freeeeeaked out at the sound. I almost freaked out, too – it makes you want to go to the bathroom really badly.

I wandered away from the group towards the end – I mean, why stick around for the rerun? – and went in search of the Tello Obelisk. The replica from before was still there, chunky and plastic-looking, in one of the atria. Then, as I stood next to Sara during a mini-lecture on the lapidas stones, I realized the entire wall behind me was cloth. Not just that, but if you focused through it, rather like a microwave cover, there was a tallish thing beyond it. Sara winked, and drew me over to the cloth, separating two bands enough for me to peek through. Sure enough, the obelisk was there, swaddled in cloth, tape, and concrete. Dr. Rick laid a hand on Sara’s shoulder, and quietly shook his head, to indicate we weren’t supposed to eat from that tree, so to speak. I got the feeling that even though he was looking at Sara, he was actually looking at me.

After the tour ended, and Cristián officially led us behind the cloth to the Obelisk (which he referred to by ‘she’), five of us hopped into the back of Cesar’s truck for a ride back to the hostal. By the time we reached the square, the streets were gorged with people. Mountain villagers had come down from the hills, probably on account of the free beer, and stayed to see the fireworks. Calls from street vendors flew thick and fast as the crowd surged back and forth across the square. The car stalled in the midst of the crowd, and we hopped out, striking across the melee for the doors of the hotel.

As we were making it across, one of the huge nightly firework confections exploded in a shower of white sparks, twirling bands, and whizzing fire. We stayed to watch for a bit, but the crowd wore thin – at least for me. I mean, after all, I had technically been drinking since nine that morning.

(Day 14) Let the Festivus Begin!

Marginally less achy. “Yes,” I thought, as I rolled over in bed, “I’m not as bad as I could be.” I rolled over as Robert turned off the alarm, which was whining in the dark. In silence, we dressed and stumbled to breakfast, sleep still heavy in our eyes.

There were a few new faces in the dining room. We stole glances at them over our bread and tea, talking in hushed voices about who they might be. With a great clap of his hands and a meaningful glance around the room, Dr. Rick stood up. “You might have noticed a few new people on the team today,” he began, looking mostly at us. “They’re the students from Peru and the last couple people from Stanford. Yeah, actually, if we could have everyone just go around and say their names, we can get started.”

The Peruvians rattled off names too quick for me to catch, though I did count – there were five of them. As the Stanford contingent rehashed its names, a few new ones slipped in – Megan and Stephanie (who is, actually, Jessie Liu in disguise), both graduate students, and one more undergraduate – Beth.

Dr. Rick continued, “and, as we’re about split half-and-half on the project language-wise, we’re going to be doing announcements in both Spanish and English, or alternating.” He turned to the Peruvians and translated quickly, head cocked as he wiggled into Spanish, “Porque nuestro proyecto está mezclado con respeta a las idiomas, vamos a dirigir en ingles y el castellano. ¿Vale?” The Peruvians nodded, and he turned to us. “Alright?” he said, cheerily.

We became temporary experts in everything. Our fortnight here has actually packed in a lot of knowledge about the site, lithics, and theodoliting, so the Peruvian crew needed to be brought up to speed, and fast. Dr. Rick held a Spanish lecture in the lab on lithics, and it was really amusing to watch the Peruvian students scrutinize us as we sipped our tea and tossed stone flakes onto scales.

It was, to say the least, a day of extreme slackery. We couldn’t move forward without Dr. Rick, and he couldn’t go anywhere until the Peruvians got the gist of transverse ridges and bulbs of percussion. Bodie, Aimee, and I basically ate crackers and critically listened to Bodie’s carefully crafted playlist, humming through our tea when we finally heard one we liked.

After lunch, we pretty much did nothing again. Dr. Rick continued to pontificate on how to catalogue pebbles, and we continued to almost work. As the day wound to a close, firecrackers began going off with regularity and the street began to hum with the steps of thousands of people. Festivál was beginning in earnest, and by the time we broke for dinner, the air was thick with the clinking of thousands of beer crates being heaved out of the magical municipal beer truck.

Robert and I resolved to test the waters, and so strode forth after dinner, ready for a good time. The plaza was packed with thousands of shadowy tan people, who stood and shifted, looking up at several bombs. Bombs is a pretty accurate characterization – Chavinos had built a gargantuan wooden structure, not unlike a church steeple, out of bamboo, and festooned it with rockets, firecrackers, fireworks, and explosives on strings and sticks. At the stroke of midnight, to honor Jesus’s mother’s reincarnation’s canonization (or something like that) it was all going to go up in light and smoke and lost fingers.

With an eye to joining the hundreds of stumbling revelers, Robert and I sought out one of those clinking red crate stands. A gap-toothed lady promised us a Cristal cerveza for a sole, and we bit. Bad choice. For reasons I will never understand, in Peru, during a Festivál, the vendor has jurisdiction over the bottle. That is to say that you may have the beer, but you have to return the bottle so they can collect the recycling fee.

Accordingly, the woman screamed over the din that we had to drink the beer in front of her, and return the bottle. I turned to Robert, not sure I understood her, “did she just tell us to down the beer and give the bottle back?” I asked. “I… Yeah I think she did,” he answered. Starting to understand, we promised we would be back with her bottles, and went to join our friends in the crowd. The point wasn’t to get drunk, so we just sipped at it, pulling faces at the taste. The lady chased after us, and began to hector us in Spanish, telling us we couldn’t leave her sight with her bottles. Robert began to argue, reminding her that she sold us the beer – as we used to say in the States – part and parcel.

After more shouted promises (where would be possibly go!?), we foisted her off and turned to watch the fireworks display. At the stroke of midnight, men with glowing sticks ran around the base, poking dangling strings and setting them aflame. Soon the bamboo of the structure let out sharp reports as the fuses inside lit others of their kind. Bright showers of hot metal poured from all sides, scarring the plaza scarce feet from the crowd. Catherine wheels screamed to life on strings, and firecrackers boomed incessantly overhead.




Everything was synchronized in a marvel of rural engineering, producing a light show that ran for at least fifteen minutes. Genuine fireworks exploded overhead in scintillating eruptions of red and yellow, and the plaza was thick with the smell of cordite and smoke. Cheers ran, all around, as people clapped for the climax, an unfurled banner of the Virgin of Carmen. Backlit by the dazzling shower of sparks, the Virgin looked calmly out at her reverent revelers.

We retired to the room to await another fireworks display, gathering our cameras and laughing. Suddenly, before we could return, a knock sounded insistently at the door. The crazy lady from the plaza was there at the doorstep, demanding her bottle back. We still hadn’t finished it – I mentioned we aren’t really drinkers – but were actually shocked she had the nerve to walk into our hotel and knock until she found us. “Look,” Robert told her “no hemos acabado su cerveza, pero prometimos, como prometíamos, que vamos a regresar,” telling her off in rather stern Spanish. She kept squawking on the doorstep, so we just gave her the half beer.

Irritated, but still ready to see the fireworks, we turned out again for the show. Explosions rang out satisfyingly, but it was still bitterly cold, so we eventually gave up the ghost and headed back, this time free of quasi-obligations to crazy shopkeepers

(Day 13) – The Bowl of the World

Everything hurt. That was my first thought. My legs, back, neck, and butt were all in need of a week’s rest and a friend adept in the black art of shiatsu massage. A rock was set dead in the center of my back, uncomfortable against my spine, and judging by my sore ribs, I had snored hard enough to get a few choice elbows. All in all, it was not a good situation. I sat still and contemplated the suckiness for a few minutes before I spoke.

“Anyone up?” I said. It was, after all, six-thirty, and we’d said that we’d roll out by six for an early start. Bodie, the bundle to my right, groaned a bit, and said something that could have been “maybe,” or, just as easily, “muffin.” I wiggled so I was facing Robert to my left. He was still in complete cocoon mode, so I figured he’d still be in La-La Land. I wiggled to face Bodie again. “Not sure Robert’s up,” I said. No sooner had I said it than Robert moaned from my left. Satisfied for the moment, I settled back on my rock and resumed thinking about the suckiness.

“Are we going to get up?” I said, after awhile. Body made non-committal noises, and Robert followed by saying, “let’s just lay here for awhile and we can get up when Matt gets us…” Agreeable. I sat there for a few more minutes contemplating both the suckiness and the extreme cold.

Eventually, I succumbed to my training. In Scouts, I guess, we’re always up and about right after we get up. I mean, once you’re up, you get food, and then you get to go home. The same sort of logic seemed to follow, even if we were wedged in the armpit of one of the world’s greatest mountain ranges. Right?

Shivering like a madman, I shucked the sleeping bag and begin to stuff it into its midget sack. The fabric whined as it held the bulk down, but it was soon into a manageable bundle and in the bottom of my pack. As I rolled my sleeping pad, which was pleasingly dry, Robert said, “Dude, I’m reasonably sure no one’s up. Let’s just stay in for a bit.” I kept rolling in silence for a bit, not keen on being the Breakfast Nazi, and then said, “well, I’m sure Matt’s up – he’s probably just waiting for us to help with breakfast.” And with that, I stuffed my pad into the backpack and began the serious business of preparing to go outside.

Thoroughly swaddled, I reached across Robert to let myself out. As I touched the zipper, a strange crackling filled the tent, as though a band were outside, playing the plastic bag. I jerked the zipper open, and it came forward in halting stops. The vestibule outside the tent, a sloping triangle that sheltered our shoes, was stiff with frost, the fabric crazed into tiny white triangles. I fumbled my shoes over, which had also succumbed to the chill, and sacrificed my feet to them in the hope that they would defrost. Thoroughly bundled, and squatting awkwardly on Robert, I slid the vestibule zipper open in a chilly jangle, folded it aside, and stepped into a different world.

There aren’t words big enough to describe the Andes. They rise raw and rough from their plains, improbably dark and high. Words we use to describe our mountains at home: huge, range, massive – don’t really stick here. There is a sense of wild abandon about them, of an indifference to you, that chills you as thoroughly as an icicle running down your spine. As I stepped out of the tent and took in the summits that hemmed our hill, I just stood, dumbfounded.

The sun was just rising; it had been blocked from an earlier debut by the mountains to the east. As it slipped through the peaks, it lit their tips with pink and caught the whirling prominences of snow whipping at their summit. The clouds from last night had been cowed by the cold, and had shrunk down so far that they carpeted the valley floor below us. Our hill, invisible from below, was covered in the icy remains of the night’s rainfall, each blade of grass with a razor of ice. I stood, and stood, and stood, watching the sun burn down the range.

Eventually, I had to stomp my feet, and the spell was broken. I looked across the campsite to Matt’s tent, a small, icy, yellow lump, and set my mind on breakfast. After twitching their tent awake, I cast about for the stove. Still watching the sunrise, I pumped the bottle, clumsily slipping in my gloves. Before too long, everyone, bundled as thickly as I, had rolled from their tents and were watching a pot of water boil cheerily over our duct-taped stove.

“So, I looked at the map,” Matt said, as we poured in the oatmeal. “We’re going to need to climb some 500 meters before the pass.” Bodie looked up. “And after that,” he said, stirring the oatmeal into a wonderfully warm gloop, “it’ll be downhill all the way to Chavín.” He smiled up at us, and brought the pot to shoulder-height. “Alright,” he said, “who’s got the spoon?”

*

Packing was easy: we were five guys who had been through the drill before. By the time the sun had reached the campsite, setting the ice on the rocks twinkling, we had lined our packs up against the small stone wall near our old campsite, a stone’s throw from the trail up the mountains. We cast a quick eye over the site, and gave each other the nod. With some groaning and stretching, the packs were heaved onto our backs, and the dawn air was thick with the final clicks of straps locked into place.

If you were born in America, 500 meters is about 1650 feet. Big number, but easy to contextualize: that’s five football fields, a little over a quarter mile, or nearly the Empire State Building – straight up. Within two hours, we were going to climb to Yanoshallash Pass, at about 15,000 feet above sea level, and all before we’d even woken up the day before. Forget the StairMaster – if you want buns of steel, hike the Andes.

The trail led out of camp along the side of a foothill. Soon, it began to tack back and forth in switchbacks across the rocky face of the peaks. As we went, the altitude robbed us of our breath, so that every step was a ritual: breathe, step, hold, breathe, step, hold… it was grueling. Our breaths came in hot rasps, clouds that were sucked away in an instant by the dry gale. Because we were heading for a pass, the only break in the line of mountains, we were facing the only place the wind had to go – and its crushing velocity whipped our hair with its chill. Soon, we put on new layers at each stop, adding jackets, fleeces, hats, shells… anything to keep our heat in.

As we climbed, we took breaks more and more often. Every small rise ahead looked like the end, and we began glancing desperately at the GPS. It ticked off our small gains dispassionately, and we had to take it at its word and soldier on. Every few breaks, we did bring out the cameras and take pictures so we would believe it later. Clouds rammed mountains at the knees as snow so bright it was blinding furled in waves off the summit. Crags stood out in high relief in the sun, and small pools of meltwater collected in icy hollows. And then, unexpectedly, we came to the Bowl of the World.

The path turned a corner on a cliff face, and there it was. Each ridge before had only led to more climbs, more snow, more wind, but here… here was a valley as cleanly scooped as though by the hand of God, cresting on every side to the tallest peak. In the hollow, held tight against the ground, a last few grasses struggled in gold tufts, casting about in the wind near meltwater streams. From each peak, small rivers ran into the bowl, the coppery stones staining the mountain like dried blood. And, ahead, the last cusp meant the pass was near.

The path ran wild into the bowl. We hiked in silence still, jealously guarding our breath. Every now and again one of us would fall back with a camera, trying to catch something of the wilderness about the place – an implacable sense of majesty run by a greater clock. We were ants before gods. Often, we would shake our heads and try again and again to keep something of it… but we ended up with only pictures. Single-file and empty-handed, we climbed out the bowl into the wild summit of Yanoshallash Pass.

As the last hill neared, we began to see tiny cairns dot the landscape. Off the side of the trail, before us, behind us… small stacks of stones stood in silent tribute to those who made the pilgrimage to the top – offerings to old gods, testaments of triumph, memorials to the fallen. Each stood in spindly piles topped by one long capstone, which pointed towards open air in the morning sun.



Our last stop before the breach was at twin lakes. Though nothing could live there except moss, they still looked calm and inviting. Bordered by these strange cairns and small mossy rock formations, they lay as huge looking-glasses for the snow-capped peaks. We panted to a stop, and lay our packs down for pictures. In those waters, the sky never stopped.

The summit broke over us in a gust of wind. We came across a short rise, and there, spread before us, was half of Peru. We stood at the head of a long valley, scalloped from gentler mountains and carpeted with a quilt of grasses, farms, and the shining sliver of the Huachecsah. The wind howled at our eyes, and we took glances back over our shoulder at the craggy world of ice and sun. Before us, the path curved gently down into the valley, and as we lay our packs down one last time at altitude, someone pointed eagerly. There, at the end of the long valley, lay Chavín, visible only as a patchwork of farms and fields.

*

The descent from Yanoshallash Pass was, as the rule goes, much steeper than it looked. Every hairpin switchback was banked in gravel, and our huffed plunge was punctuated, now and again, by the scrabbling of someone who had taken a turn too hard and lost his balance. I also had a very strange sense of loss as we descended; we were trading in every inch of hard gained altitude, and were now only cruising to Chavín. It felt as though we were cheapening our victory at the top of the world.

Still, the path down had a few niceties. For starters, it evened out rather soon, and was clearly provided with some ancient support. Its wide stance cut smoothly to the valley floor, and was checked with hewn stone bridges for the small meltwater trickles that ran down this side of the peaks. As it bottomed out into the valley, the temperature was practically tropical by Andean standards; we soon shedded our shells and jackets, wondering why we ever needed them.

The path eventually crossed the headwaters of the Huachecsah, a little clearing with a small waterfall and some convienient rocks. Stretching in the noonday sun, we stopped for lunch. A great picture was taken of a few of us on the ground, in matching coats, stretching the climb off. Honestly, we could have been the Cardinal Soccer Team.

As we dug into our varied shmushed bag lunches (mine was another reincarnation of the bread and lunch meat) we kept up a good game of Contact. Just as we’d finished, and were laying in the sun lazily, a shadow appeared behind us. We swiveled, and there was a slight Quechua woman, in full dress, with a baby in her sling and her hands out. “Alooparbe?” she said, almost without moving her lips. We looked around to each other, panicked. None of us spoke a whit of Quechua, or anything close. We tried Spanish: “Podemos ayudarle?” we asked, seeing if we could help her. She searched our faces intently, eyes almost hidden in the folds of her face. She tried again, a string of syllables that swooped and pulled in a way I’ve only heard in Amerindian languages. Matt ventured a guess that she wanted money, and we made shrugging gestures and turned out our pockets to show we had none. She kept going, repeating something over and over.

Just as we were turning away, a phrase caught my attention, “para el bebe.” She was speaking Spanish, or at least some of it. As I adjusted, it was clear that Matt was right – she was using the baby to ask for money for food. We said we’d be glad to share some lunch, but she shook her head and just looked at us soulfully. She was still looking, hand out, when we shouldered our packs and set out down the grassy trail home.

The valley broadened into a wide scoop, and was flecked with far-off llamas and horses, the reason for the lady’s presence so far in the wild. The herds became more common as the valley grew broader, and the river swelled in size and began to slice a gorge through the thick loam. Soon, more natives appeared among the animals, walking in slow strides and driving the flocks forward with gnarled pine staves. No eye contact, no waves, and none on our part, either. We passed like ships in the night – too foreign to each other to make any sense of a meeting.

As the path began its slow rebirth into a road, two familiar grassy ruts appeared again. Soon, farmhouses dotted the far-off hills, sod and concrete replacing the thatched huts of the high Andes. Small boys in navy sweaters, lumpy with alpaca wool, chased us furtively from behind fenceposts; soon enough, they gathered the courage to dance in front of us and ask, “¿Me da un plata?” – another request for whatever change we may have had.

The river had swelled into a legitimate torrent by now, and we picked our way along a path some 300 feet above its frothy maw. We passed angry bulls, implacable farmers, and the occasional idol high on the hill. With the end in sight down the valley, Matt broke open his magical pouch o’ candy, and distributed Werther’s Original toffees. Apparently, they help with altitude change. They also would serve well as a victory dance.

There was a moment of confusion. We found a pair of Peruvians theodoliting (theodoliting!?) along the river where the path came down to meet it. When we asked how far to Chavín, expecting a wave and something like cinco minutos (five minutes), we got the sort of confused look you would expect from a Californian asked “how far to England?” At their perplexed urging, we crossed the bridge and started up another ridge. I got the hiking heebiejeebies. Something wasn’t right with this path… we should be across the river if my memories of the path to Chavín served.

I was right – sort of. The GPS clicked off our thirty-third kilometer, and we still weren’t in town. According to the guidebook, the trail is only 33 km. Feverish for answers, we asked the GPS how far to home. In black, blinking script, it reported we were still some 7 km., or 4 miles, out.

And so we spent the next two hours in an exhausted haze, climbing up and down the ridge, which often dipped dizzyingly to meet the Huachecsah. We passed through dozens of carbon-copy towns, which seemed to stay on the hillside by sheer will alone. Small games of soccer went on in the slanted plazas as old women stooped next to braying donkeys on the terraced field. To make matters even more dubious, thunderheads began to gather on the horizon.

Bodie and I had made each other a promise – we were going to be home by five. Come hell or high water (both looked probable) we would make it out of this Jurassic Park. I took the lead after a break, and set a reckless pace. We began to pass natives leading laden donkeys up the steep path from further on, stumbling under the weight of food and crates of beer. If Chavín’s beer was here, Chavín must be close, we thought.

We plunged onward, slipping in the gravel switchbacks and pausing only when we had to, to let the donkeys pass. Nobody talked – it was absorbing enough to make sure you didn’t tumble to your death off the narrow ledge. The valleys twisted and turned in front of us, rocky veils that promised first this end, then that. Out of water, strength, and patience, we let out a yell when we saw, huddled at the end of our ridge, the outskirts of Chavín.

The locals call it La Florida – the dirty ghost town that huddles above the site. It is a dark alley of mud and donkey poo shadowed by the scrubby rise of concrete shacks. As the clock neared five, we struggled through, avoiding the urine-slick path, nervously stamping donkeys, and the first weaving drunks of the night. The finish line was everything. Over our heads, the steely clouds began to spit hard, cold rain.
We broke out of La Florida next to the monument. Home was, literally, in sight. Robert, Bodie, and I stretched our legs as far as they would go. 4:55… 4:56… my watch counted down the pact implacably. We strode improbably quickly, faces set against the falling dark and rain. Chavinos on the street looked up, confused, as three gringos powerwalked past in the growing dusk.

With the clock at 4:58 and the Hostal in sight at the end of the road, we broke into a wild run. Packs sloshing and creaking on our backs, we dashed down the empty street, then through a pavilion of foosball players. The door hove into sight, and we skidded to a stop at the plaza to bang heartily on its brown double doors. 4:59 P.M., my watch reported, silently.

Someone, I can’t remember who, opened the door. Wild-eyed, dirt-streaked, and gasping for breath, we probably appeared crazy. Regardless, we shouldered through the portal and past the white gate of the hostal. Our packs came off with long sighs of relief, just as the rain began to beat a tattoo on the roof in earnest. Everywhere, people gawked and congratulated and poked and smiled and we collapsed into the chairs, looked at each other, and downed our victory toffee.

*

After a viciously cold shower (where was the love?) I toweled off and came out to the courtyard, nearly red with scrubbing. Professor Rick was standing at the gate, talking to Rosa. “Whoa! Well, how was it?” he asked, eyebrows nearly disappearing into his mop of gray hair. I smiled broadly, and prepared to give a little quip – my last conceit. “Victory at Marathon,” I said, cryptically. Next to me, Robert rolled his eyes and slipped into the dining room for dinner.