This is the second installment of the story of my travels in Peru, Bolivia and... I've only written up the first two of eight crossings now. Every one has been memorable with details of its own -- and now I'm heading (at relaxed pace?) for numbers nine and next ... This one might stand on its own? I'd like to work up the whole series just because "it is there!"  Part 1: Condors Taking Wing from a Great Divide
- Rick(ardo) 

Classic Corculla

     My first crossing of that grand ridge and "power spot", final canyon rim of both the Cotahuasi and "downstream sister" Huanca Huanca/Maran Canyons, came after first stumbling into the great yearly fiesta at the classic village of Corculla. The four-team soccer tournament won by the Sayla team, with its 800-sol prize (about $275), was only one feature of this big event, which just happened to be the day I chose to try a more adventurous route to my years-long favorite hangouts in Cotahuasi Canyon. The soccer games were intense but clean, with hardly a foul. There was a final game between "veterans" that was noticeably slower and rather gentlemanly.

    The route from Pauza  -- or Pausa, named by the Spanish as a "pause" on the journey from Cusco to Lima --  is magnificent, with daily service now for the five-hour ride over a road that's only a few years old. The new mini-vans have good headroom and legroom and navigate some of the most extreme landscape where ever roads were made. From Pauza you go upriver first through a half-dozen picturesque villages, each sitting next to its own irrigated fields on scraps of nearly level land that stand high above the river on steep cliffs. After Marcabanba you go from a wonderful long view up-canyon down the first really big set of switchbacks, cross the Huanca Huanca River, and double back in a downriver direction. The road soon winds away from the main canyon, twisting into and out of one drainage after another through a confusing patchwork of side ravines and gorges, to Colta, Pomacocha, Oyolo, Ushua and finally Corculla. These must all be near or above ten thousand foot elevations, set along different parts of the final high ridges dividing the two main canyons. Endless switchbacks lead to cliffhanger roads that lead to more switchbacks and more cliffhanger roads over most of the route. At one exteme hillside cries of "Puta Madre!" greeted the sight of a big bulldozer blocking our way uphill and pushing a great pile of fresh landslide around. Out came the little travel guitar for a half-hour wait before the road-du-jour was passable again. A smaller bulldozer seemed to "live" at the bottom of this extremely steep and unstable hillside of constant switchbacks that is about one- third topsoil and two-thirds landslide.

    We arrived near dark at Corculla, to find -- surprise! -- the biggest festival of the year just beginning. My first thought that there wouldn't be a room available (usual at such events) and that tepee and sleeping bag would be called for proved not to be the case. Despite dozens or scores of far-away visitors, the single hostal in town was not full. Even the many visitors from Lima taking the rough thirty-hour bus or car journey and more than one family coming from the United States, taking up to a month to re-connect with family and community (excuse me -- "poor" people?) -- almost all evidently had a house of their own or their family's to return to.

     "The rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air" without warning at any and all hours, as is common at all these Latin American events, has never seemed festive to me. I used to think there was a revolt or something, like that first 4am time with nine-year-old Carl in Guatemala. I never get used to the sound of the explosions coming at any random time. Brass bands with drums move around and play near continuously day and night, and the dancing at this July l5th event is famous. People often ask "Did yiou dance?" -- well, of course! At 11,500-foot altitude, with the serious chill that sets in after sundown, you have no reason to decline the offer of a lady's hand drawing you into the beginner's level of dancing, a handholding circle that snakes randomly around the band with any steps in time to the music.Oh the beautiful singing in melodious Quechua! Oh the harmonious energy of these people reuniting around their traditions!

   From the hill above town I estimated two or three hundred small rooftops in view -- houses, barns and sheds randomly spaced together. Virtually all houses have unfinished, heavily-weathered adobe wall -- a very artistic set of scenes with streets curving along natural lines of hillsides.

  After quizzing the winning soccer players standing around a case of beer and having a few for the road -- "Who's the driver, and is he gonna drink less?" -- I decided to accept the lucky ride offer over the nearly-untraveled stretch and on to Sayla. I would have to miss the final day that included a "Castillo" of fireworks, presumably like that one with the kids years ago in San Blas, Mexico, where the fire consuming a rickety tower sets off randomly-aimed rockets that send the crowd screaming in various directions.

Long Lost Lands

   The Sayla woman's simple laughter as I said the traditional life here was better than life in the States, after warning about the culture-destroying potential of the large-screen TV they'd recently bought, aptly summarizes the mindset of most people here, except the elders [see Condors Taking Wing from a Great Divide]. Here come people from city lives far away to celebrate their heritage, so happy to return and touch distinctive traditions where they used to live -- only to return to what seems the inevitable change to "Modern" and a city life. Traditional songs from throughout Peru proudly and loudly state the names of towns and districts along with the the people's love of them. The scale of the disconnect between these long.lost worlds of authentic, independent plain living -- and any city, all places hanging by }"Modern" -- is surely aptly symbolized by any of these gargantuan gorges? Telling a "Modern" about the most true human life, not bought, but brought by highly developed traditions of community, family and subsistence agriculture -- or telling a person possessing all these natural values and detailed knowledge of ways to autonomy -- telling them of the dangers and creeping disempowerment of city living? You might as well try shouting your message across one of these monstrous chasms?

     The "Long Lost Life" of simple living contains real families, clean environments, near-organic food, wondrously beautiful traditional music, clothing, and handicrafts, group solidarity and cooperation, and the possibility of contentment. But the long lost people living in cities with no agricultural base are fully dependent on a deeply fraudulent economic system that ultimately subsitutes debt -- which is called "money" for ALL other values. This is truly The Lost World, with modernity, ""Civilization", life itself borrowed from the future. "Debtmoney" is loaned at interest to your government before being loaned at interest to you, how convenient. Debt is not money. Debt is the opposite of money. The civilization borrowed from the future is doomed to collapse as surely as castles built on sand.