K'uchuhuachu and the Hiking Doctors of the Altiplano

I approach 11 years working and wandering about South America and I cannot help reflecting... It all started as a one month visit back then and then a three year assignment and here I am, still a virtual or not so peripatetic, aimless... Jack Kerouac has nothing on me. Most of that time, I have spent in Peru. I have gasped for air on peaks well over 5000 meters (16,500 feet) above sea level. I have slipped and slid down into the valleys on rutted, nasty roads that have no par in the world. I have walked over many kilometres of Peruvian landscape. I have frozen in cold that helped me understand cryogenics; I have been blasted by winds and will probably die one day from the severe scorching by the searing altiplano sun. I have been host to numerous creatures that my body has welcomed, hosted and not easily let go of. At the same time, I have eaten things that I considered inedible before coming here: sheep’s head soup, Chicken’s feet in soup, cooked cow's udders, braised bull's testicles, guinea pig, freeze dried potatoes worked over by barefooted women and cooked into a soup with sheep intestines, to name a few. To name a few more I have also eaten a few true delicacies: roasted lamb with the hide on, alpaca loins and ostrich haunches served still cooking on red hot rocks, quinoa, papas ala Huancayna, Pollo ala brasa, chupe de camarones, ceviche de pescado, mixto and de mariscos and rocoto relleno not to mention a vast variety of fruit and vegetables not found anywhere else.

This is a time of change in the Altiplano. God makes a big swap in his palette and starts to get rid of the verdants for duns. Not just yet, but it is coming on. The rains have slowed down although they had a funeral on Sunday, the day I arrived in Challhuahuacho, for a teacher who got swept away by torrential rains that raised the river just three weeks ago. They found him three hours away in the Apurimac River.

The frost has not fallen, kicking off real winter. However, the wheat fields that I drove by two weeks ago have swapped green for gold and the subtle effects are everywhere. Fall here, does not have colored leaves but the grasses change in browns, ochre and umbers in a way that really takes my breath away. I love autumn and winter colors in the Altiplano. I can honestly do without the cold. I am changing out my sleeping bag for the next trip. My summer bag was just barely warm enough this time.

This trip, I went to a place called Tambulla (Tambulya), one of the communities that we indirectly affect and I went there to speak with the medical outpost. These remote pueblos have doctors and nurses that depend upon the nearest hospitals and who are kind of paying their dues, living in the middle of nowhere working with the locals to ease their suffering. The thing is, as remote as these places are; there are villages even farther out. They have special houses where expectant mothers come at about eight months to await delivery so as not to have to travel so far.

When we went to Tambulla we did not find the regular doctor but members of a group that are called AISPED. These doctors and nurses come from Abancay, the provincial capital and they provide a direct support in the more remote parts of these already remote areas. In my life, I have met few heroes, maybe none until now. This is a group of fit, young people who get taken to these remote areas for 21 days and from there, they backpack to the super-remote areas with names like K’uchuhuachu, and Anta Anta to provide direct support to people who cannot walk on their own to the posta. They truly awed me.

The group consists of one male GP, a female dentist, a female obstetrician and two nurses. It was fascinating to hear their tales and all about their experiences and challenges. They told me that this place is considered the most remote of Abancay and Abancay is next only to Huancavelica as the most remote in Peru. No one comes here. They asked us for some help and I was glad to respond.

The Docs Getting Ready To Hike

The story is that they spend a day getting from one place to the next and they sometimes have to hike over those 5,000 meters+ high mountain crests. One of them told me that she was afraid she would faint and that she was spitting blood from her tonsils as she went. She said that she just wanted to lie down and die up there. I knew just how she felt. I have been there and done that and known that exact feeling of knowing you can’t go another step but knowing that I had no choice and I might be spitting blood and feel like my eyes would pop out of my splitting head but to lie there would only prolong the agony. Anyway, once get to they village where they are headed, they have one day to do their medical work. Thanks to things being a little slower during the last couple of weeks, we have been able to support with a truck that was kind of free to jockey them around and gain them a full half to three quarters of a day when they got to the villages in question.
They get to spend their time in the school house that becomes their bunkhouse and clinic. They cook their own food with materials that the locals provide them, including cooking over dried-dung fires. As you can see from the photo, they are good looking vibrant young people who sacrifice greatly for this hellish duty. They told me that they get one day off between their 21 days and then it is back out again. Not that Abancay would present a spectacular social life, but at least a lot more than Tambulla!

They had to go to K’uchuhuachu (kkhuchuwachu) the same day that we did so I went along with them to this little place that they described as the rear end of Peru. We drove as far as we could and then we went on foot for about two miles along a beautiful lake in the bottom of a 4,000m high valley. We walked along looking up at 5,200m crest lines that jut nearly straight up fantastically as craggy slopes with water cascades at every turn. Clouds boiled up and we got caught in a downpour and I had forgotten my raingear. They had an extra poncho to loan me.



The K'uchuhuachu Valley

The place was spectacular and the doctors told me how the inhabitants have built their mud houses in a bog. The houses just wick up the water until they fall apart. Their floors are constantly damp to even standing water.

Our purpose in going was to present the school with some notebooks and other educational donations, pencils, pens, erasers, rulers etc. Once there, the doctors were so grateful for all of our logistical support that they insisted upon fixing us dinner and we stayed to eat with them and the comuneros provided four nice sized trout from the lake. We had quite a feed of fresh new potatoes, chuño, potato and chicken soup and fried trout. It was tasty to be sure after the long hike.



Giving Out Books In K'uchuhuachu


Tiny K'uchuhuachu Students

One of the most remarkable things about the visit for me came when it occurred to me to ask the locals if any gringos had ever been in their village before. To a man or woman, they did not even look for corroboration from the rest, “Manan” (No), they all said. I was the first white person to have ever made it to their village. I got back to our camp puffing from the altitude, wrote in my journal, ate dinner and slept the whole night through, something I almost never do. It seemed a fitting end for my blog this go around, to have arrived to the most remote part of Peru and been the first non Peruvian to have ever been there. Cool!

Cultural Cross-Over Student