The journey was very slow because of the terrible state of the roads after the punishing rains. When we arrived we found a great number of Indians celebrating their carnival. The majority, both men and women, were drunk and playing their quena flutes and dancing yaravíes and carnavalitos. The women, probably because of the alcohol, were much bolder than usual and, perhaps shocked by our attire, shouted to us and made obscene gestures, but it was nothing to get worked up about.
We reached the town at about four in the afternoon. Pelao was having a really bad asthma attack. We went to the Civil Guard post, but it was deserted. The police too were out on a binge. Ernesto collapsed in a corner, while I went out to look for water to sterilize the syringe. I bumped into a woman, asked her for water, and to my surprise she said she’d been looking for me. She had heard that two doctors were in town and wanted us to look at her sick father. She virtually dragged me, and I had no choice but to go and examine the man. As I did, a group of people with sick children turned up. I wrote prescriptions for the medicines they might find in the leprosarium pharmacy—the only place nearby to obtain medicine. Then I asked for water to sterilize the syringe.
The water they gave me was earth-colored and looked polluted. It would need to be boiled for quite a while. Fortunately it began to rain, so I threw this water away and filled the pot with rainwater. When I returned nearly an hour later Fúser was quite desperate, not knowing what might have been keeping me. As I boiled the syringe, I told him what had happened. I injected him with a vial and a half of coramina that the hospital had given us. After a few minutes the beneficial effect of the adrenalin had put him to sleep.
This town is large enough to have a hospital, so we’ll be able to get some treatment for Ernesto.
The road here, like all the others in the region, rose and fell sharply. At midday the driver of the truck we rode in stopped for lunch at a farmhouse. We had resigned ourselves to fasting, but our fame preceded us the mile or so up to the farm and we were summoned for a consultation. I examined a healthy child and a woman who probably has a tumor on one of her ovaries. So I prescribed nothing for the child and said that the woman should see a specialist in the city. They invited me to sit down to lunch with them and sent Fúser two plates of boiled potatoes and a plate of mote, as boiled maize is called around here.
Despite his asthma, Fúser ate well. The remains we shared with some little Indians who stared at us while we ate. It seems impossible that such cheerful, playful and charming children after a couple of years of ill-treatment, contempt and religion will be rendered unfit to be anything more than servants. To cap it all, chewing coca and drinking cane brandy makes them mistrustful, lazy and submissive.
By the time we reached the town, Ernesto was having another attack. We had to stop in a garage, where they allowed me to sterilize the syringe. After dosing him with adrenalin again and making him lie down on a bench, I went in search of lodgings. After a few unsuccessful forays I met a man called Romero. He patiently accompanied me to all the bars and brothels to look for the doctor and hospital manager, and managed to get us a room at the hospital. That evening he invited us to supper.
Mid-morning the doctor came to see Fúser. Clearly the man knew little about general medicine and even less about asthma. Unwillingly, he authorized a further night’s stay. We lunched there. The quality and quantity of the food were unlikely to turn out healthy patients.
We met the German doctor who runs the WHO chickenpox eradication campaign. He promised to take us to Huanta in his van.
Today we went to thank the garage owner for his help. When he learned of Dr. Montes’s unhelpful manner he offered us what little he had. As in Argentina and Chile, here in Peru it’s the poorest people who are generous. The better-off in general, and doctors in particular, are loath to show the slightest humanity. And they call themselves doctors! Usually, as with this Montes, they are the sons of millionaires who get rich exploiting the Indians. The title “Doctor” is but an adornment to increase their wealth, not a means to alleviate the suffering of humanity.
We spent all today at the police station, because the doctor threw us out of the hospital. We decided to skip the barracks cuisine and instead cooked up some potatoes, maize and ocumo. In the afternoon we brewed maté and we had to ask the prisoners for something to boil the water in, so we got talking to them. Most are soldiers driven to desertion by homesickness. With flawless logic they think it absurd to spend three years running errands for officers and their wives or mistresses while their plots of land become rank with weeds.
As we sipped our maté I noticed that the maté gourd had cracked. We applied adhesive tape to it, but to no avail. I went to get a rag from my bag so as not to burn my fingers and there I came across a handkerchief embroidered by my mother. It brought back a flood of memories. I told Pelao that once we stopped wandering and were back home sipping maté, we’d remember this maté shared with prisoners and deserters in the midst of fighting off the artful attack of bedbugs.
The peaceful moment was brief. The prison is housed in the police headquarters, and it was visiting day. Long lines of Indians, mostly prisoners’ wives, were waiting to enter. They were accompanied by their children, goats and even donkeys. Each visitor had to be searched. One of the guards, in a repulsive abuse of his authority, did much more than frisk them. He groped their breasts and thighs and gloated as he touched their genitals. Not even a ten-year-old Indian girl escaped his lewdness. For us it was really the last straw.
Together we strode toward the guard to call him to order, but the sergeant, who was sitting nearby, was openly enjoying his subordinate’s antics. Fúser and I looked at each other helplessly, gathered up our things and left.
The 19th found us dejectedly ruminating on our impotence when confronted with the abuse of authority against those poor Indian girls. But we were saved by the providential appearance of a worker, a representative of man’s true potential, the creator of wealth that others enjoy, he who must one day rule this beautiful world so badly governed at present.
As I was saying, we came across a poor worker from a neighboring farm who offered us supper and a corner to sleep. The following day he organized a truck to take us to Huancayo. First we went to Huanta and at nightfall, around eight o’clock, we continued on to Huancayo. The night trip was no different from others. The Indians settled themselves as best they could, and we ended up sleeping head to toe with them. Fortunately my olfactory nerve soon closed down and I slept.
Around midnight we passed through Ayacucho. We were told that a landslide had blocked the road, so this famous city, which sealed Spain’s defeat in the Americas, was our abode last night and today.
By two o’clock we were watching a tractor clearing the rubble from the road. Three dynamite charges were used to shift the huge boulder blocking the way.
We went for a swim in the nearby River Mautaro while we waited. The road was cleared by six, and on we went. We had barely gone a mile or two when we came upon another landslide, but this time it was loose earth. The drivers, assistants and passengers set to and quickly the road became passable again. “It’s true that unity is strength,” Pelao remarked, “but it has to be the strength of the working people. If anyone had said that they would not wield a pick or a spade, that unity would have broken. Surely this would have been the case if, instead of a convoy of peasants, truck drivers and oddballs like us, some of the professionals we have met over the last few days had been here.”
Agreeing with his words, I noted them down.
On we traveled. The road became very steep. As we climbed, the temperature dropped. At 2 a.m. the cold was quite unbearable. My feet were frozen and numb, so I took off my boots—no easy task in that crowded pile of bodies—and rubbed them vigorously. That was how we arrived in Huancayo, our present resting place.
Yesterday afternoon we entered what people here call the mountains. It’s really only a forested high plateau. The Huancayo–Palca road is like all the others we’ve traveled, but the Palca–La Merced is far more dangerous.
Before leaving Palca we witnessed a sort of carnival parade—mostly women with masks dancing to violins, drums and panpipes, practicing for the May festival.
Before leaving we had several drinks of maize liquor with the driver, which put us in a happy mood. The mood evaporated, however, a few miles farther on as we found ourselves going round hairpin bends and down a road so narrow that passing vehicles virtually grazed each other. On one of the bends the driver carried out a spine-chilling maneuver on the brink of the abyss to pass another truck. At one point a wheel of our vehicle hung out over the edge. Five or six hundred feet below rushed a river.
Just before coming in to La Merced, the road straightened and entered a real forest. Hundreds of acres of it were cultivated, however, with orange, banana and avocado groves. The climate has changed from the dry cold of a few hours ago into humid heat.
We couldn’t find lodgings. Finally a guesthouse offered us a bed for the modest price of two soles, including a cup of hot chocolate and bread. We hadn’t eaten for two days and our bellies were beginning to protest. Fortunately we spied some orange trees through the window, so we filled the empty hole with fruit.
Today we visited the malaria hospital. We gave a brief talk on leprosy and on the anti-malaria drive being carried out in Tucumán, in Argentina. Afterward we were invited to a meal and we ate sumptuously.
That afternoon we set out for Oxapampa. The road, as windy as ever, passed between small hills, but now the slopes were covered with valuable woods, such as cedar, oak, mahogany and so forth. There were also coffee and banana plantations and huge stands of avocado trees, tall papayas and leafy mangoes.
We had supper in San Luis. A man at our table appeared to be a perfectly even racial mix: 50 percent of his features were Spanish and 50 percent African. He was a small-scale farmer from a nearby city. In his own words he was proud of his “pleasant, cultured conversation,” which essentially consists of piling up ten adjectives in a single sentence. We began to mimic him, summoning up the most far-fetched words we could think of, quietly mocking his colloquial virtues. Initially he took us for a pair of complete liars. However, with time and as we replied honestly and to the best of our knowledge to his questions, he began to calm down and in the end was using no adjectives at all.
The remainder of last night’s journey was through rain forest. The roadside was thick with tall trees hung with lianas and beautiful climbing plants that should be displayed in an exhibition.
The recent rainfall had made the road virtually impassable. It took us twelve hours to travel the fifty miles between La Merced and Oxapampa. But for me the journey was wonderful. I feel elated here in the tropics, having always dreamed of this.
After a short nap under the truck we reached Oxapampa round about 2 a.m. At eight we went to visit the family of a dear Peruvian friend, Dávalos, who studies with my brothers at Córdoba University.
I hoped to find letters from home waiting for me, as this was one of the few pre-fixed places we planned to visit, come what may. But nothing had arrived, and despite Dávalos’s sister and her husband’s lavish hospitality and pleas for us to stay, I was determined to continue on to Lima.
By chance, a neighbor was leaving for Tarma that afternoon, so we fell in with him. Before leaving we visited the town, which sits in a small wooded valley. The climate is much more agreeable here than in La Merced, and there is no malaria.
All the houses are built of cedar or oak, attractively constructed, but with an obvious absence of town planning. On the lower slopes coffee, oranges and bananas are grown. Higher up are maize, sweet potato and, in between, rice. It is a very fertile area, but the production is haphazard, and there are no roads to get the produce out. The ever-present two-sided coin!
On arrival, our driver suddenly announced he could not continue and left us standing in the middle of the main square of the town at two in the morning.
His strange behavior took us by surprise, but we set off toward a light in one of the few illuminated corners of the town and there we found a trio of night owls, drunk as skunks, who had quite a scare when they saw us appear in our leather jackets, with our knapsacks and bags. They must have thought we were the vanguard of an army of Martians.
Recovering from the shock, and having convinced them that we weren’t paratroopers or anything of the kind, they offered us a drink. Soon we were conversing like old friends. Later on more drunks appeared, this time a duo. After brief greetings we all began singing a series of tangos and waltzes at the top of our voices.
When the bar closed we were taken to another, and we continued to drink beer and emit sounds that approximated the tango. Fúser and I employed all our skill to indicate to our hosts that we were more hungry than thirsty. As our hints went unheeded, Fúser ordered a generous portion of bread and cheese, which we devoured. As one might expect, although we tried to pay for it they wouldn’t hear of it, and the amount went to swell our hosts’ already rather large bill. Dawn overtook us there amid our beer and tango.
We said goodbye to our fortuitous and cordial friends and went to sleep in a derelict house which, according to the townspeople, is haunted, but not a single ghost came to disturb our slumber. Pangs of hunger we did feel, however, as our stomachs can’t be fooled for long by liquid and tidbits of cheese.
In our search for something solid to eat we crossed the river. As we rubbed the sleep from our eyes we realized that the fortunate townspeople had had the excellent idea of planting orange and grapefruit trees on the river banks. Further, it had not occurred to them that they might need wire fences or any other newfangled invention, which only serve to blight the landscape.
So two hours later, after having eaten more than four dozen oranges and a dozen grapefruit each, we left, blissfully happy. But not for long. Our gastric juices were triggered off, followed even more violently by our glomeruli, and soon that incredible feast turned into a little vitamin C and a lot of urine.
At midday we had a delicious lunch—maté with bread and bread with maté.
Yesterday at around five in the afternoon we got a lift on a truck to Tarma, once again over horrifyingly dangerous roads. This road was even narrower than the one between Palta and San Ramón, which is really saying something. We passed at least thirty crosses marking the places where trucks had gone hurtling into the abyss below, taking the lives of all their passengers with them.
As the road climbed, the ravine deepened. The road was actually carved into the hillside. If a vehicle went off the road, it wouldn’t fall onto the road below, but plummet directly into the river below, as the highway formed a spiral of ascending breadth.
Suddenly the driver hit a pothole in the middle of the road. When we asked why he hadn’t avoided it, he confessed that for some time his eyesight had not been good. This did not exactly allay our fears about his driving skills.
It was night when we reached Quillabamba, where we dined on milky coffee, the only food we could come by. Despite the grumbling of our stomachs, we went to sleep in the truck’s cab. It was quite cold.