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

Contact!

Sometimes all you have to do is put your doubts in writing and they are suddenly, miraculously, relieved. I returned to the hostal after writing my last post to find that Rosio and her assistant, Flor had just arrived there to meet with us. They have to coordinate with one other person, and hope to leave tomorrow with us to arrange for the mules and horses, and then head up to the cave on Wednesday. I'm so relieved I could melt right here.

We have permits in place to survey, take photos, and document the surface materials, but the permits for excavation have not come through yet because the government agency which controls such things (the INC) has a new director, everything has been restructured, and paperwork has become extremely backlogged. So, someone will have to come down from the cave periodically to check the status of the permits. But, at least we know what we can do for now, and even that portion will keep us plenty busy for a while.

I will post again before we leave to catch you up on whatever transpires for the rest of the day. Oh my gosh, what a relief.

Karen

Fireworks, Ancient Ruins, and Planning in a Vacuum

Hello friends,

It's been a few days and there are lots of tales to tell. I'll start with the festival on Saturday night.

The Raymillacta festival is held here every year, and is a gathering of people from all over the department of Amazonas. At midday there was a grand parade featuring dancers from all over the Amazon (I believe I wrote about this earlier). In the evening, there was a big gathering in the plaza in anticipation of the firework display to come. Evening things start late here, and we joined the crowd about 10:30. A few fireworks went up every 10 minutes or so, and then they began releasing the "globos". A "globo" is like a small hot air balloon, made of colorful paper in geometric patterns with a hoop suspended beneath. A kerosene soaked rag is ignited and the globo fills, and then takes off and floats away. They are lovely and amazing and would be completely illegal in the States. Each is maybe 5 feet in diameter, some have special shapes, most are round. One was shaped like a Chachapoyan style mummy, but the long thin form didn't fly well, and it tipped in the air and caught on fire and crashed down nearby. We were ready to see the city go up in flames, but instead a group of kids ran to find it and was back with the flaming hoop before the next globo was even launched.

At midnight the main event started. All day a group of men had been working on constructing the "castillo", which is a tower of bamboo scaffolding, maybe 80 feet high, with all kinds of pyrotechnic toys attached to it. When ignited, each level of the tower provided its own show, and the attachements spun, whirled, spelled out words, or flew along guy wires, showering sparks all the while. It was amazing and gorgeous, and again would never be legal in the states. Towards the end, the fireworks lit up words which said "Raymillacta de Chachapoyas" and listed several important Chachapoyan archaeological sites below. It is fabulous to see people who value their history so much! The crowd was really friendly and lots of people talked with us, which was a lot of fun too. What a night!

Yesterday we had a grand adventure. We booked a van to take us up to the site of Kuelap, which is a major fortress of the Chachapoyan people and second only to Machu Picchu in grandeur. The ride there took about 3 hours along unpaved, narrow, extremely twisty roads, but the scenery was beautiful and we stopped along the way to see some smaller ruins and pre-order our lunch. The site is at 10 or 11,000 feet, and is built on top of a hill with absolutely spectacular views of the surrounding countryside (very strategic too). Two main lookout towers, a celestial observatory, and over 500 houses which have been found there. The houses are all circular and include a central pit in which the elders of the family were interred when they passed away. When we asked about the general esthetics of living with your dead relatives in the middle of your living room, we were told that they were first evicerated, stuffed with incense, and mummified. I suppose that would help....

After four hours of exploring, we headed down for lunch and dined on fresh trout which had been caught especially for us that afternoon. They also had the hottest aji sauce (traditional Peruvian chili sauce) that any of us had ever tried. Delicioso!

We returned about 7 pm, having been gone for almost 12 hours, to find that there is still no real information from the archaeologists about our trip. However, I did receive an e-mail from Sonia Guillen (the head of the project) saying that the team leader (Rosio) is supposed to be here in Chachapoyas. I checked at our hostal and the other best guess hostal in town, and she has not arrived nor has reservations for either place. There are no messages, no e-mails, no communications at all. It's all very frustrating. The cavers have decided to leave today, in an hour, to arrange for mules so that they can go up to the cave site tomorrow. The rest of the team has committed to going tomorrow to arrange mules, and then heading up on Wednesday. I have insisted on communicating with the Peruvian team (after all, we are here to support their project) prior to leaving, regardless of when that is. This is not the most popular stance, but I feel very strongly that I have no other option. I really believe that communication will come today and that everything will proceed fine after that, but I'll let you know. For now, I should go back and help the caving folks gear up to leave. Sigh.

So, Peru is still amazing. I really love it here. The expedition is a bit up in the air, but I can roll with it. I'll let you know how it goes!

Karen

Amazonian dancers and communication tangos

Hello all,

Today has been a comedy of communications. This morning we tried to phone Rosio, the lead archaeologist on the Peru team, to find out the status of the project from her point of view. We still don't have confirmation that our permits from the government have come through, or any idea of exactly how many folks are coming from their team, when they are available, what gear they lack, and how long they're planning to work at the cave. I've been e-mailing Rosio, but haven't had a response, and so, having discovered a phone number at the bottom of the one e-mail she sent me two weeks ago, we thought we'd try giving her a call. So, Andreas and I headed down to the phone office near the main plaza. As it turns out, the number is in Lima. The woman who answered the phone said Rosio wasn't there. She was down in Ilo (way down at the south end of the Peruvian coast) with Sonia Guillen, who is truly the head of our project. They wouldn't be back to Lima until Monday, but we were welcome to call them then. Or, if we wanted to speak with them sooner, we could call the Museum in Leymebamba and they would have a contact number in Ilo. Well, if you've been following my travel schedule, you know that Lima isn't exactly near Chachapoyas, and Leymebamba is another 4 hours down the road. Also, Ilo is easily 10 hours from Lima. So, it doesn't seem too likely that anyone from their group will be ready to leave on our planned departure date of Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. Sigh.

So, Andreas and I returned to the hotel to try to figure out how to call the Museum. I had previously searched the website, and there's no phone number to be found. The very helpful gentleman who runs our hostal said he had a friend who runs a hostal in Leymebamba, and he could call him for the number. Fabulous. So he called, and was assured that his friend would find the number and have it in five minutes when we called back. However, when we called back we were told that the museum has no phone number. None. They do however have an e-mail address, so we were encouraged to use that. So, I e-mailed the museum to ask for contact information for Sonia and Rosio in Ilo. I'm still waiting on a response.

Meanwhile, the caving team is still planning to head up to San Carlos (our point of departure for the caves) on Monday to reserve the horses and mules, so that we can leave first thing Tuesday morning. At this point, we figure that we can set up camp, map the cave, and get things ready for the archaeologists whenever they are available. However, until I actually talk to Rosio, the Chico team (P, Andreas, and I) will hang back. This is not optimal. But, it's what we have to work with, so we're trying our best to make the best of the situation.

Then, just an hour ago or so, Luisa arrived. Luisa is a biologist from Oregon who is here to document the critters living in the cave at Atumpampa. She has been corresponding with Sonia and says that just yesterday she received an e-mail from her saying that Rosio would be arriving here on Sunday. Well, this is markedly different than everything else we've heard. Having checked my e-mail again, I have no correspondence from either Sonia or Rosio, so we're just going to hang out and see which story is correct.

In the mean time, there's a fiesta in town. Chachapoyas is the capìtal of the Amazonas department (state) of Peru, and people from all over Amazonas have arrived to dance in the streets. It's a huge crowd, and really amazing to see folks dressed in grass skirts and feathers and headdresses. I saw one group with full "condor wings". We haven't had nearly the the time that I'd wish for to watch all the festivities, but since we're pretty much hanging out waiting now, tonight should be a good chance to get in on the fun.

Oh, and I have a hostal room for tonight, sharing with Luisa. I took a shower today. Such luxury!!! It's been since Lima, including the bus ride, the dusty road out here, camping out last night, and all the other assorted sources of muck that cross one's path when travelling. It's so very very lovely to be clean!

I'm off to see what the latest happenings downtown look like, which I'll happily describe to you in the next entry. Until then, think happy thoughts for me about permits and archaeologists!

Karen

Arriving in Chachapoyas

Hello from Chachapoyas,

Yes, we survived the bus trip. It took 19 hours to get to Pedro Ruìz, and another two hours for the taxi to Chachapoyas (once we were able to go that is), but I'm getting ahead of myself...

The bus trip was very nice - buscama seats are almost like first class airline seats, very cushy, roomy, and fully reclining. The trip was very long, with only one stop at hour 9 or so to stretch a bit and then back on the bus. The route follows the coast, which is not the most beautiful part of Peru. The coast is primarily desert, rolling brown hills of sand, not many plants or settlements at all. We did pass through occasional towns and our brief stop was in Trujillo, which is a place that I stayed a few years ago for almost a month. It was nice to see some familiar sites zipping by, and I wished I could stay, but the bus rolled along, and soon it was dark. I slept for a few hours and then woke up when we started through the mountains. The route is extremely twisty, and I didn't expect to sleep while swaying from one side to the other, but the next thing I knew it was 6am and we were driving through an amazing river valley. The Utcabamba river flows at the bottom of a deep and narrow gorge, with steep cliffs decorated with small deciduous trees, which were dotted with bromiliads and flowers. It was gorgeous.

We arrived in Pedro Ruìz, reclaimed all of our luggage, and set out to find a way to Chachapoyas. Meanwhile, the bus had apparently used up all it had to give, because it took another 3 hours and much banging around by mechanics before the remaining passengers could get back underway. We were glad to have arrived without incident! It was a bit surprising that the hostal in Chachapoyas hadn't sent a ride for us as had been arranged, but we soon found out why - the road was closed until 12:30. It was only 8am or so, so we had several hours to wander in the little town, have a bit of breakfast, and generally enjoy the respite from travel. At noon the taxis arrived to take us to Chachapoyas, and at 12:30 the road opened as scheduled, so we hurtled our way the remaining 2 hours or so over occasionally paved roads past more amazing scenery. The cliffs are mixed sandstone and limestone, and are dotted with bromiliads and speckled with caves. The river was beautiful and flowed through the valley floor as our caravan of three taxis packed with gear made its way up to the town of Chachapoyas.

We arrived at our hotel here to learn that there was a mix-up and the very friendly and apologetic hotel owner didn't expect us until tomorrow. There is apparently going to be a fiesta in town in the coming days, and all the rooms in town are booked. However, the hotel has a courtyard which we were offered as a camping area, so we'll be camping tonight at the hotel! There was never a group more prepared for impromptu camping, so we're actually very happy with the accommodations. Tomorrow morning we should have actual rooms.

We have heard absolutely nothing from the Peruvian archaeologists, which is a wee small problem. We're not sure how many are coming, when they will be ready to go, what the plan is, or basically anything at all about their intentions. And it has become my responsibility to figure this out. So, I need to run and find a phone and see if I can locate anyone in Leymebamba (the site of the museum, which is about 4 hours away from here). I expect to travel down to meet with them either tomorrow or the next day. I'll let you know. It's never dull. Oh, and we still haven't heard if we even have permits to be doing this work. Meanwhile, plans continue between the cavers and the History Channel folks, who are expecting to arrive in 2 weeks to film our progress. Fabulous!

I've got to run. Hope everyone is well back home!

Take care,

Karen

Leaving Lima

Hello again,

Here's hoping that this computer is friendlier to me than the last...I've got stories to tell.

The flight to Lima was really nice - Lan Peru knows how to treat their customers. We were served actual meals (2 of them!) on the 8 1/2 hour flight, and there was in-seat video for every passenger with a choice of 25 movies, several tv shows, several games, maps of our position and other things that I didn't have time to explore. Each person can choose to watch or do whatever they want, whenever they want. It was great! We arrived in Lima at about midnight, navigated the sea of people and bags and boxes and luggage in the customs area, and emerged into a cool Lima night by about 1am. Andreas, the other CSUC student travelling with me, has family here and three of them were waiting to greet him at the airport. So nice! There was also a car from the hostal waiting and our trip into town was smooth. There has been a surge of casino construction since I was last here. One place even had a Las Vegas style giant Statue of Liberty out front. It was ridiculous!

The hostal itself was very modest, but interesting because it is used primarily by adventure travellers (cavers, kayakers, and mountaineers). People from 76 countries have stayed there, and have left behind quite a nice library. They were full and had booked Andreas, my professor (P. Willey) and myself all in the same room, which wasn't exactly what we expected, but worked out fine. I claimed a top bunk and was grateful to have remembered to pack good pajamas!

Yesterday we had breakfast at the hostal (Nescafe, juice, bread and jam) and then headed out to visit an archaeological site just three blocks away. It was built by the Lima culture in 400AD, and is a huge pyramid of adobe bricks (pyramid in the Andes style - stepped and tall but not pointy on top). The bricks were arranged in layers, with a row of vertically positioned bricks with space between each topped with a "frosting" of clay. Additioinal layers are placed on top, resulting in an incredibly stable structue for earthquakes and the passage of time.

After the huaca (sacred site), we returned to the hostal and met up with the caving team. Steve, Scott and Roc are all from the US and have extensive experience caving in Peru, Mexico, the US, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and I'm sure several other places. We're in good hands. We all had lunch together, and then several of us headed over to the Museo Larco.

The Museo Larco is an amazing museum here in Lima. The textiles blew my mind. They have a piece there with a threadcount of 398 per inch, all made of thread created on a drop spindle and woven by hand. Incredible! There were several other pieces there of amazing complexity - so cool. They also have collections of stone carvings, ornamental metal work in gold and silver, and ceramics. It's the ceramics that really steal the show. The collection includes something like 50,000 pieces (really), which represent almost all of the early cultures of Peru, but particularly focus on the Moche. The Moche lived on the north coast between about 300 and 800AD and used ceramics to represent basically everything in their lives. They sculpted animals, plants, foods, portraits of people, depictions of people at work, at play, and in intimate situations as well. The museum includes an 'erotic' gallery with a whole collection of sexually themed pottery, as well as a vast repository of work sorted by theme (entire shelves of pots that look like corn, like bats, like people with illnesses, like people without illnesses, it goes on and on).

So, after thoroughly blowing our minds at the museum, we retunred to the hostal and then had dinner. Today we're about to board a bus which will take 20 hours or more and by tomorrow morning we should be in Chachapoyas. The latest weather report looks like lots of rain there, but we're hoping for the best. I'll update you when we arrive.

I hope everyone is well at home. I'm having a great time here. I love Peru!

Karen

Loving Lima

Hi folks,

I´m sorry to leave you waiting for so long, and even more sorry that this will be a relatively short message. I´m fine, our flight was great, and I´m having an excellent time in Lima. However, this internet connection is not so fine. I have already composed two fabulous, detailed descriptions of everything I´ve seen and done over the past 24 hours, and then had them disappear as this silly connection blinked out on me. So, I´ll leave you in suspense, but I promise to write soon and tell you all about everything. Tomorrow we´re on a bus to Chachapoyas. It leaves Lima around noon and arrives early the following morning. So, it will be more silence from me. So sorry! I´ll make up for it soon. Promise!

Karen

On the Road Again!

Hello friends,

I'm on my way to Peru again, and will be there from the 5th of June until the 7th of July. This time it's a trip to the Chachapoyas region, in the north Central Andes. I'm travelling with two other folks from CSU Chico, a group of speleologists from the US and meeting up with a team of archaeologists from the Leymebamba area. We'll spend a few weeks camping, exploring and mapping caves, and documenting and collecting any artificats or remains we find there (assuming the permits from the INC come through - of course they will, of course they will - please repeat this for me until you hear otherwise!).

I'll keep you posted about our adventures. We will be arriving in Lima around midnight tomorrow.

Here we go!

Karen