The End (or at least the Intermission)

Hello friends,

We've made it through the trip, and it's my last day here in Peru. Yesterday was a blur of goodbyes and shopping and preparations for the return. My bags are packed and are crammed full of goodies and momentos and hopefully not too much mud from the camping trip! We are hoping to visit a museum this morning (P, Roc, and I, that is) and then we'll join up with Andreas for a meeting with Sonia Guillen to share notes from the expedition and talk about future plans. The flight tonight is at 1am, so we'll have time for a nice dinner too.

I've promised you some final highlights from the cave, so here goes...

• Cooking meals together - we had a great time collaborating, and Flor, Rosio, Rocio, and Luisa are all great cooks! Roc, Steve, Scott, P, and Andreas all took their turns at prepping veggies and cleaning up, and we all agreed that we've never eaten better on an expedition. Not bad for a 15 day trip in the middle of the Andes!!!
• New sites - the area is just full of caves, and every one we saw had cultural remains in it. The local people were anxious to tell us about nearby sites, and there was far more work to do than we could have possibly accomplished in 15 days. Andreas in particular, was great at networking with the local folks, and together they identified many places of interest for future expeditions.
• Meetings with local officials - towards the end of the trip, a group of folks from the town of San Carlos hiked up to greet us and to collaborate on plans to protect the sites and simultaneously encourage tourism. It was an honor that they would come so far to talk to us. Later, when we returned to San Carlos after our trip, the mayor's family prepared a fabulous lunch for us. We were invited to a special city council meeting, where we discussed plans to help the community, to promote local education about the value of archaeological context (versus looting or bringing 'cool' objects to archaeologists) and help the community attract tourists (and the associated income). It was an excellent discussion, and many of us made commitments to continue to work with the community long term.
• Visit from the History Channel - one of the funding sources for the expedition was an agreement with folks from the show 'Digging for the Truth' to film a segment on the Chachapoya culture, including a visit to our site. When we left for the site, however, we had no excavation permits, and we weren't sure how this might change the HC's decision to film. With no communication on the mountain, we really had no way to know what to expect, except that the original plan was that some number of folks would be there on
  Sunday the 24th. On Saturday night we all went to bed fairly early. Having been camping for a week and a half already, we'd moved into going to bed at dark and getting up when the sun came up. At 9pm there were shouts that gringos were arriving, and five exhausted, wet and muddy men arrived in camp. They had expected a two hour hike to the site, and were totally unprepared for the six hours of steep and muddy trails that they had encountered. A few of our group got up to help them set up, dry off, and warm up. I went up to the kitchen and made a pot of soup. We got to know each other a bit that night, and then the next day was filming day. The decided to focus the segment by having one person guide them in the cave (Steve - el jefe!) and another person talk to them about the archaeology and the bones. Because they (unfortunately) only work with English speakers, they chose me to be the archaeological personality. It felt awkward to me to be the 'authority' on such things since there were more experienced Peruvian archaeologists there and also my professor, P, who could have better addressed the osteology. But, that's how it went down, and I did my best to be accurate and personable, and you may just see me on TV in October. I'll let you know when the segment is scheduled to air. By the next morning, the guys were on their way back down the morning, and our camp was restored to some semblance of its former self. We ran into the History Channel guys again in Leymebamba. It sounds like they'll have a great segment - they have gorgeous footage of several sites and are even talking about the possibility of a 'making of' segment about filming here.

All in all, it's been a truly fabulous, full, and extraordinary trip. I've met so many great people. I'm so grateful to have had this experience, and also so grateful for all of the support from home that allows me to have this amazing life.

See you in the States!

Karen

It's Thursday....it must be Lima

Hello friends,

Wow, this trip is really moving along. Here I am in Lima, and the last place I wrote to you was Leymebamba. We took the combi to Chachapoyas that day, and then the night bus to Trujillo. A taxi brought us to the hotel that I'd reserved near the town center, and the rooms were ready for us when we got there (at 9am - fabulous). We went up and showered, and then came down for breakfast and planned the day.

We started by visiting the site of Chan Chan, a giant adobe city which was the principle site of the Chimu culture (800-1400ad or so). I visited the site in 2004 and it was great to be back. It's really an impressive area - walls which were originally 14 meters tall covered in sculpted clay figures and designs, giant courtyards, administrative areas, a huge central water pool, tombs of kings and unfortunate concubines, and much more yet to be found. We had a guide who spoke English, which is actually more of a problem than a help for me, because the English is often very difficult to understand and you don't get nearly as much detail that way. Andreas and I asked her questions in Spanish and got a bit more of the story. It was strange to hear that some of the interpretations that I had read about in the past have been revised - for instance, the cute little stylized sculpted critters which ring the main plaza are now supposedly squirrels instead of sea otters. Everything else there is about the sea, but now this amazing kingdom is worshiping squirrels??? I'm just not convinced. But such is the 'science' of archaeology... Stories change and evolve and it's difficult to ever really know what people intended.

After Chan Chan, we went to the beach town of Huanchaco and had a delicious lunch of ceviche and seafood. Yum! (for me anyway). We walked up and down the beach a bit and perused the tourist shops. A public mini-bus (combi) took us back towards Chan Chan and we stopped by the site's museum for a bit before heading back into town for some general bopping around. Dinner later was at a place that I used to go when I was here in 2004, and the same waiter was still working there. It was nice to be somewhere familiar, and the desserts were still as gorgeous as ever!

By the next morning, it was apparent that the ceviche (or something) had not agreed with P. He had been up all night with food poisoning, and decided to just stay in for the day to recover. Andreas had to touch base with family, so I headed out to the Moche site of Huaca de la Luna by myself. It is such a cool site - earlier than Chan Chan, with two giant adobe pyramids. Polychrome friezes decorate the walls with gruesome and vivid iconography. The Moche were really bloody, and human sacrifice was routinely practiced, especially during El Niño years. Singificant new discoveries have been made since I was last at the site, and it was great to see what they've uncovered. I had another deja vu moment when the guide turned out to be someone I remembered from the site. She got a kick out of the fact that I remembered her and kept asking what I thought of the 'new' discoveries. It was fun. I took a combi back to the hotel, which took three times longer than a taxi, but cost a tenth of the price and was darn good entertainment too. It's amazing how many folks they fit into the little combi vans, and they're always happy to pick up more!

When I got home, it was apparent that P was not getting better. In fact, he was much worse and we headed out to take him to the clinic. The doctors there admitted him and got him rehydrated and stablized, which was a huge relief (especially for him). I stayed with him for a couple of hours to help with translations and logistics, and then took off for a while so he could rest. After stopping by in the afternoon to make sure he was doing alright, he encouraged me to go ahead with our plans for a night bus to Lima, so at 8:30pm Andreas and I bailed him out of the hospital and we went to the bus station for the eight hour ride to Lima. P did great - he slept through the night on the bus and today he's much better. We still don't know what it was that made him so sick. I had the same ceviche and I did fine.... One of those travel mysteries I guess.

Here in Lima, we've reconnected with Steve and Scott and Luisa and Roc. They all arrived yesterday. We arrived this morning. The first three are already at the airport and are flying back to the states tonight. P and I will fly out tomorrow. Roc and Andreas are both staying on for a while to pursue other fun things in Peru.

Today was pretty casual - mostly shopping and wandering in Lima and catching up with each other's adventures. It's so strange to see everything coming to an end, but at the same time we're all pretty ready to get back to our 'normal' lives.

I owe you more descriptions and more tales from the cave, but I'm honestly pretty fried from the last few days and the night on the bus. I'll try to write tomorrow before heading to the airport, but it looks like the telling of the tales will have to continue after I'm back in the States.

Thanks for being patient with my stilted storytelling! This travelling business is a full time gig!

I hope all is well with you at home. My time in Peru is almost done (for this year at least).

Karen

Catching up and moving on

Hello friends,

Time is flying by so fast these days and I have so much I haven't told you. We spent yesterday working in the museum again yesterday, and then met with Sonia Guillen in the afternoon to discuss the project and possible future collaborations. It was a great meeting, and I'm absolutely inspired to continue work in this region. Sonia had some ideas for stable isotope research which I might be able to turn into my thesis project, so that's very exciting as well.

We are boarding a combi at 1:00 today for the three hour trip up to Chachapoyas. From there, we're taking the overnight bus to Trujillo for a couple of days of archaeological site seeing and a bit of relaxation before the final sprint back to Lima.

I haven't told nearly enough stories about our time at the cave, and I promised to follow up on the last entry. So, here 'goes...

We camped for 15 days at 9300 feet or so, just by the entrance to Atumpampa cave. The cave was mapped as 1.4 km long (almost a mile), with cultural artifacts and burials throughout it's entire length. We worked in teams: Steve and Scott mapped the cave, Rosio (the lead archaeologist) and Rosio (the INC representative) marked the archaeological sites of interest within the cave and analyzed artifacts, P and I worked on documenting bones, Flor (the assitant archaeologist) worked first with the archaeologists and then with the 'hueseros' (bone people), Roc worked with the cave mappers and then with the hueseros, and Andreas split his time between mapping, connecting with the locals, and exploring the region for other cave sites. Luisa analyzed insect and arthropod life in the cave region and made some very interesting observations about the microclimates within the cave. The result was a really interesting collaborative effort, and I'm excited to be a part of creating the final report.

The area is amazing, and is absolutely full of caves, all of which were used by the Chachapoyans as burial sites and possibly ceremonial sites too. The terrain is rugged, and very green, and often very muddy. There isn't a level square yard to be found anywhere. The local community shares the land, so horses and cows would occasionally wander through camp or stop and graze (an odd thing to hear outside the tent in the middle of the night).

We were only able to do a surface survey, but there was plenty of information to glean anyway. The cave burials were heavily disturbed by huaqueros (grave robbers) as well as natural processes. Luisa made some great observations about powder post beetles which had eaten away the burial platforms, causing a lot of the collapse and scatter of remains in the cave. The natural rock fall within the cave (due to erosion and earthquakes) has certainly effected the site significantly as well.

So, to best analyze the surface remains, we collected all of the scattered bones and material near each identified tomb site, sorted all the skeletal elements, counted everything, and then re-interred all of the remains into the tomb from which they mostly likely originated. During this process, we were able to count a minimum number of individuals per tomb, estimate the sex, and ages of the individuals represented, and look at musculoskeletal markers of stress, and evidence of trauma, illness, and medical treatment from the Chachapoyan people. Altogether, we counted a minimum of 368 individuals. These folks led hard lives and were really tough. We saw so many examples of horrible broken bones which were completely healed. This population not only took care of their own, but people lived on for many years following these injuries. We also saw really robust muscle attachments - these folks were strong. There were many more women than men, which is interesting, and not nearly enough children. Of course, all of this is unofficial and not intended to be read as a formal publication of results. For now, this is just my story of 'what I did this summer'.

It was an amazing time. I'll follow this with another post about some of the highlights (fabulous food in the middle of nowhere, meetings with the local populations, and a visit by the crew from the History Channel's 'Digging for the Truth'. For now, though, it's time to head out and pack up again for the last sprint towards Lima.

Take care everyone. I'll see you soon!

Karen

Life in Leymebamba

Hello again,

I'm sitting in an internet cafe listening to Celine Dion singing 'My Heart Will Go On (theme from Titanic)' with a latin beat in the background from somewhere else. It must be Peru. I have no idea why this country is so obsessed with that song, but anyone who knows me would know that I would not make up such a thing.

Leymebamba is an adorable little town, three hours south by dirt road from Chachapoyas. It is surrounded by impressive green peaks, and everyone you pass on the street wishes you Buenos Dias (or Tardes or Noches, depending on the hour). Everyone does, even the little kids, and they'll say it once for every person in your group. It's really very friendly and very lovely. There are two restaurants in town that were recommended by both my guide book and the woman who runs our hotel. Neither has a menu in the sense that we would think of it. Generally there are one or two choices, based on what they decided to make that day. Soup, a main and a drink cost between $1 and $3, depending on where you go, and the food is really very yummy. Yesterday I had fried trout for lunch, and a veggie omelet for dinner, served with pumpkin soup, fresh bread, corn, 'salad' (cucumbers and tomatoes), and rice. Delicious! (By the way, they've restarted the Celine song).

Yesterday we arrived and went up to the museum (Museo Leymebamba, run by the Centro Mallqui). It's a really wonderful museum with a very cool collection, set at the top of a hill near town. Rosio, the lead archaeologist from our trip, gave us a full tour. The collection is especially interesting because it includes a lot of evidence of cultural mixing between groups here. Generally museum collections are specifically Incan, or Chimu, or Chachapoyan, or Cajamarcan, or from one of the cultures of the Amazon basin (or from any other of the many pre-columbian cultures here). This collection features pottery and textiles combining any number of these groups, with techniques of one and iconography, materials, or shapes of another. It's really interesting. Mostly they feature the collection from Laguna de los Condores. Seriously, if you haven't seen the website for the museum, please google it. If I had a faster connection, I'd look it up for you, but you'll find it if you look. They house over 200 mummies from that collection, all of which are Inca-Chachapoyan, with some influence from the jungle as well.

They have an extensive collection behind the scenes too, and today we got to play. We're going through the pre-Incan bone collection, comparing the signs of stress, nutrition, and trauma with what we saw at the cave. (Incidently, they've restarted Celine yet again - I tell you this so that you will know how I am suffering for the sake of communicating with you). The work with the collection is extremely interesting, and everyone at the museum has been wonderful to us. We're planning to continue with that all day tomorrow, and then will probably move on by Monday. I'll let you know.

For now, I have to head off to meet the group for dinner. I think four of our group of seven will be leaving tomorrow, so this may be our last dinner together (at least for this trip).

I hope everything is going well for all of you.

Hasta luego,

Karen

Where to start?

Hello friends,

Thanks for being patient with me while I got back to civilization. It's great to be clean and in a place with indoor plumbing and restaurants and beds and walls and communication with the outside world again! So much has happened over the past two weeks, it's hard to know where to start. But, I suppose, I'll start at the beginning...

We chartered a 'combi' (a van) to take us up to the town of San Carlos, which is a tiny little hamlet just southeast of Pedro Ruiz, and about two hours from Chachapoyas. There we were dropped off at the only hospedaje in town, run by a man who calls himself 'El Tigre' due to his professed talent for hunting deer barehanded and wrestling them to the ground. We got there about two-o'clock, plenty ready for lunch, but apparently they hadn't expected us to want food until six or so. A quick flurry in the background and the sound of a screeching chicken let us know that lunch was underway. Luckily, someone ran back to let them know that there was at least one vegetarian in the crowd, so the life of another chicken was saved. While we were waiting for lunch (starting chicken from scratch takes time), we walked up to the little plaza in town, took in the spectacular view of the Andes and surrounding cloud forest, and toured the little adobe church. Following this, we were taken to the municipal building to view their collection of mummies which had been recovered from people's homes. They were both fascinating and horrible, as their care was absolutely inappropriate and many were growing mold. All the same, it was very interesting to see them and to get a sense of what might be in our futures up at the Atumpampa cave. (A note out of sequence - at the end of the trip, we met with the local government folks who are working on developing better facilities and care for the mummies in the immediate future).

Eventually, we headed back down to Tigre's place and lunch was served. Each plate had white rice, thick-stewed split peas, and aji chili sauce. Most folks had a chunk of chicken on top, but mine came with a fried egg instead - the best I've ever tasted!

After lunch, the locals discovered that most of us had arrived without knee high rubber boots (who knew?). They were mortified at the idea of our traveling on without them (I should have read more into this at the time!), and eventually a plan was raised to get someone with a moto-taxi to run two folks down to Pedro Ruiz to buy them. A moto, by the way, is a small motorcycle with a small cab attached to it, in which two small people can fit. We chose two folks (not me) to go, and all was happy until they came walking back an hour later, having run out of gas just a ways out of town. Another plan was hatched, and a local guy (Jorge Botas!) made a run in the very early morning, and we were all outfitted with our fabulous rubber boots. We came to appreciate them very much.

The horses were loaded with us and all our gear and we headed up the mountain. Four and a half hours later, we arrived at the campsite. Along the way, we gained at least two thousand feet of elevation (I'll check for a real number), and learned all kinds of things about horses, mud, slippery stone paths, and thorn bushes. As far as my horse was concerned, there are not enough thorns in the world for me. Three of us fell off along the way, slipping either with or without our horses, but everyone arrived relatively unscathed (except of course for those thorns - I still have about seven that haven't worked their way out).

The campsite was incredible. The cave is made of limestone, and has a large overhang, under which the kitchen was set up. There was no flat ground to be found anywhere, so we each chose a site for our tents as best we could. After one night of sleeping as though I was on a steep couch (on a slant and pressed up against a wall of my bags), I moved across the bog to a pretty darn flat area away from camp. It was a lovely spot and I stayed there for the remaining two weeks. In the morning, the clouds rise from the surrounding green mountains and the landscape is just glorious. The land is used by the local community for grazing, and often horses or cows would come wandering through - a strange thing to deal with in the middle of the night in a tent!

Next post, I'll tell you about the archaeology and the cave, but this is probably plenty of reading for now. Tomorrow we're heading for Leymebamba and the Centro Mallqui museum there.

More soon!

Karen

Back in Chachapoyas

Hello friends,

It's been an amazing 2 weeks in the field. We're just back today and I realllllllly need a shower. I promise you tales of adventure and archaeology tomorrow, but for now I just wanted to let you all know that I'm back and I'm well and I'm looking forward to a bed and hot water and clean clothes!

More tomorrow!

Karen

Into the field...

Hello friends,

Well, it seemed that this day might never come, and now that it's here everything is a blur. We are packing up to leave in half an hour, so time is tight. A minibus will take us the 2 1-2 hours up to the tiny town of San Carlos, where we will arrange for mules and horses. We'll stay there in a little hostal and then get up early, pack the mules, and head up to camp. We'll camp near the Atumpampa cave for two weeks, during which time I'll have no access to internet, so the blog will be silent for a while. But, I promise many interesting stories when I'm back. We're expecting to be back in Chachapoyas on the 27th or 28th.

The permits for excavation did not come through, and at this point they are not expected. This changes the focus of the expedition quite a bit. We won't be able to collect or conserve anything, but we can map the area, do the initial survey, document the artifacts on the surface, and take a lot of photos. Hopefully all of this work will enable the group to obtain permits for future excavations.

It's going to be so strange to be out of touch. In this day and age, going even a few hours without a cell phone is unusual. I'll miss you all so much.

I'm in really good hands. The team is experienced and capable. I have full confidence in them. And, if we should actually need to contact the outside world at all, we're only a few hours away by mule (grin).

Until the return,

Karen