ST. PETERSBURG TIMES
* SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18,
1998
3E
A view of Machu Picchu, a deserted Inca city in the Andes Mountains.
Photos by ROBERT W. BONE
From jungles to modern cities, Peru has it all
A package tour proves to be a whirlwind
of learning, from insights into the breeding habits of llamas to the use
of blowguns. It also reminds us that you can't please everybody all the
time.
.
A resident along
the Amazon River in Peru shows off his pets: an
ocelot kitten, an endangered species, and a rather unhappy looking
sloth.
By ROBERT W. BONE
We were
visiting the ranch of Michael Debakey, about 25 miles outside Lima. The question
came from one of our group of 20 members of a Maupintour excursion. We had
just had an outdoor lunch at Paso Chico, where the son of the famous Houston
heart surgeon was raising a special breed of prancing horses.
Debakey knows a lot more about horses
than he does the compatibility of llamas with their long-necked cousins, the
alpacas and vicuņas. One of each of these were recent additions to his ranch.
“Well, we'll find out
soon,” he laughed, while we watched the
trio of furry beasts. For the moment, they were chasing the Debakey dogs
around the property, apparently much more interested in them than in each
other.
A permanent resident of Peru, and married
to a Peruvian, Debakey has been involved in a number of South American
enterprises over the years. But perhaps the most interesting are the special
Peruvian paso horses, whose offspring bring not less than $8,000 and sometimes
as high as $20,000 on the equestrian market.
He also owns a local tour company in Lima,
which is how he came to invite our group of gringos to have lunch on his
lawn. There he proudly demonstrated his high-stepping horses, bred originally
for their ability to move quickly and smoothly through high grasslands.
The lunch also included some traditional
Spanish dancing by two children of some of the ranch hands. For most of us,
the experience was a welcome respite after a morning of touring museums,
trying to absorb some of the details of the pre-Inca society which once peopled
the area.
Our group had perked up at the displays
of one ancient society, called the Moche. The Moche did some amazing pottery
work, depicting details of every aspect of daily life a millennium ago, including
some exaggerated depictions of their erotic interests.
Travelers who can't get enough of this
kind of material may ask their way to the Rafael Larco Museum, which devotes
a special room to the more salacious works. When I was a correspondent in
South America in the 1960s, this was familiarly known as Lima's ``Hot Pots''
Museum. It was not on the Maupintour itinerary.
On our tour, the pots were interspersed
with occasional exhibits of dried-up mummies accompanied by exhaustive detail
on other arts and crafts of a long-dead society.
All this was only a prelude to the main
theme of a two-week guided tour which gathered together a diverse gang from
all over the U.S. and tried to give them an itinerary that they all would
enjoy.
In this, the tour was less than successful.
Ours was a frequently grumbling group, often more concerned with getting
plenty of sleep than in experiencing exotic cultures. Some groused that they
couldn't understand people who spoke English with a Spanish accent. A few
even thought the lawn lunch was really too primitive for their taste.
Happily, each facet of the tour also pleased
at least some of our number. The ancient center of Lima, which proudly displays
Spanish architecture that the conquistador Francisco Pizarro would recognize,
was a definite hit. Things were timed so that we could join Peruvians in
witnessing a colorful changing of the guard at the presidential palace, the
soldiers performing in well-synchronized goose steps.
Everywhere we were given frequent warnings
about robbers and pickpockets, and many wore money belts or little
pouches for cash and credit cards that hang under a shirt or blouse. As it
turned out, no one had a bad experience over the two weeks, unless you count our
guide whose purse was snatched in La Paz. A tough and feisty lady, she managed
to snatch it right back.
The Lima museum and the Debakey ranch day
were part of the tour entitled ``The Inca Empire,'' which covered much of the
territory once occupied by the Incas in Peru and Bolivia. This version of the trip also included a brief flight and a long
boat ride to spend a day and a night in a lodge on the Amazon River.
There in the jungle the climate was hot
and sticky, and the tour's normally luxurious digs were replaced with crude
huts without electricity or hot water. We saw lots of unusual plants and
birds, some fresh-water dolphins, and even shared some dances with the native
peoples of the neighborhood, and were impressed with their target practice
using blow guns. The only thing related to the Incas in this tropical
neighborhood was the presence of that ubiquitous Peruvian soft drink unabashedly
named Inca Cola.
Inca Cola will never give Coke a run for
its money, tasting more like the cream soda we get in the U.S. Most of our
group opted for Pisco Sours, instead. It's a Peruvian specialty, made from
white grape brandy, and which tastes pretty much like a whisky sour.
In high-altitude areas of the Andes, we
partook of coca leaf tea, a standard prescription for helping folks adjust
to the reduced air pressure. (Cuzco is at a heady 11,000 feet; La Paz and
Lake Titicaca top out around 13,000 feet. Oxygen bottles were also readily
available.)
Since our tour covered a lot of territory,
it included some one-night stands and several trips in planes, trains, boats,
and buses, and each gave the grumblers plenty of ammunition. We were frequently
up at very early hours in order to catch these various modes of
transportation.
But time and again, it was proven that
if we were going to see anything worthwhile, the early wake-up calls were
well advised. A case in point was the trip from Cuzco to the ancient city
of Machu Picchu. We took the very first train, which meant getting up in
the dark. The first happy result was that we reached our destination well
ahead of the madding crowds.
Some of our group then wanted to take
a nap at our hotel just outside Machu Picchu for the rest of the morning.
But the our guide insisted that we have an initial tour of the ruins for
the two hours remaining before lunch. Again, it was the right thing to do.
We saw and learned a lot, and then returned for our noon meal just as a dense
fog rolled in. The heavy mist continued to hang around, forming a literal
wet blanket the rest of the day.
So there was plenty of opportunity for
a nap after all. Some enthusiastic travelers returned to visit the ruins
in the afternoon fog. With only a few ghostly figures moving through the
ancient walls and stone houses, it proved to be an unusual and genuinely
mystical experience.
Robert W. Bone is a freelance writer living in Honolulu.