Bullfight & Drunks

I love the lyrics to in the Grateful Dead song Truckin’:

Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me,
What a long, strange trip it's been.

The other day I had one of my more spectacular series of experiences since coming to Peru. I had arranged with a group of nurses to go and see a project to improve living conditions of the campesinos.

To start with I am in the middle of nowhere 12 hours from Arequipa, 6-8 hours from Cusco and 7 hours from Abancay. Near the town of Challhuahuacho we have been working for three years on a mineral exploration project. I work primarily with the native population trying to gain and maintain social license to do our work.

About a half hour away from our spot is the town of Tambulla a scenic burg of about 1000 inhabitants with its own medical post on very rough roads.










Beyond Tambulla the roads are worse to impossible, parts only accessible in 4X4 Low Range. I got to Tambulla at 4pm as arranged with Savi, the head nurse and picked her up with two assistants, Linda and Teofilo. We happened to have chosen the day of a bullfight in Tambulla and by 4pm many people were feeling little pain except for the woman who got gored by one of the bulls. Most having consumed inhuman quantities of a licorice smelling concoction of anise and pure ethyl alcohol from the pharmacy had become pretty tottery.

As we passed by slowly every possible person attempted to catch up to hitch a ride with us but we had no room. We made it past the ring full of bulls and the hills were covered with people in the most spectacular dress imaginable.













As we made it past the teaming masses a handful of folks had begun their trek home. Obviously they stuck out their thumbs for my consideration to get them to their homes. I was full and had to decline but one elderly man kindly exclaimed “Hunta” (we are full) and kicked the truck as I passed. I slowed thinking something else had happened but my passengers urged me to keep moving saying “Esta borracho. Así es esa gente.” As I looked in the rearview mirror, I saw that the old man had picked up a rock and I sped up as he hurled it with deadly accuracy in my direction. Had I not accelerated, it would have landed in the bed of the truck at least.

We went on to the village we wanted to visit, hiking 45 minutes over a hill about 1,000 feet above the village and down into the valley. The view from above really defies description because adjectives like breathtaking even fall short.











Our motive for traveling to Kuchuhuachu was to see this project that involves low-cost, improved homes and kitchens using local materials, adobe bricks and so forth. I went to this town a year ago and they told me that I was the first non Peruvian to ever visit it. It lies at 14,000 feet above sea level, 9 hours by truck and foot from the closest major city and is truly unspoiled.

Very proud of their accomplishments Anita and Delfina showed us their homes and kitchens.


They have changed everything from their homes before,

To their new homes.


Rightfully proud of their accomplishment since the area has no clay and all of the adobes had to be carried in on horse and human back, they happily showed us their modernized condition. Really, the change since a year ago left me amazed.

Winter has arrived here and so by the time we headed back up the hill, we had begun to lose daylight and the temperature really had begun to drop. Resting at the top of the hill we shared cheap soda pop that tasted like ambrosia, our small repast lit by the yawning view of the eternal firmament. Time was when the view of the Big Dipper on end and the Southern Cross in the sky kind of disoriented me but no more.

We had to move on before catching a chill and we had to pass through a village with a pack of savage dogs in total darkness. Lighting our way by the light in our cell phones, I would like to say that I pondered the incredible contrast to the dark huts of the other village but I actually spent the whole time hucking rocks at the constantly circling and obviously dangerous curs. I did think of Xenophon on his way back to Greece through hostile Persia. Just to let you know what a geek I really am. Afterwards, we headed back to Tambulla and thence home through the night.

I worried about the drunks but figured that the dark had driven them home by now. The very clear thought crossed my mind that I might run over a passed-out drunk in the road but I dismissed it. Nevertheless, I did my best to move through the dark cautiously.

Bouncing over the road we came upon an abandoned bicycle and speculated on its owner. A little farther along we came upon an inebriated woman who held up her plastic bottle of anise scented rubbing alcohol in a kind of barroom salute. A little farther along we came upon a saddled rider less horse and the women in the car began to speculate on whose was whose. They decided that the woman was on her way to a secret meeting with the bicycle’s owner and that she had fallen from the horse. They commented on the strangeness of the whole thing saying, “Bicycle without owner, horse without owner… married woman without owner,” and all laughed.

We had gone about half the distance to Tambulla where there is a rough patch of road. A detour has been made around it. As I turned into the cutoff, we saw a figure lying in the road, just as I had imagined before. I could have actually run over him had I not been going the speed I was going. The nurses asked me to stop and check him out and they speculated that he had been thrown from the horse. I turned around to put my headlights on him and we got out to check on him. He was just sleeping or passed out but had sustained no damage averring that he had not been bucked from his mount but had been on foot. I doubt he really knew. We moved him off of the road while Savi said that he would react to the cold but no one would run over him there.

We left them in the Puesta de Salud in Tambulla and headed back to camp. On our way we came upon a wasted horseman who we followed as he strove to urge his mount to higher velocity. With each effort to whip his charger he nearly fell from the horse. Sonia, our nurse filmed the hysterical antics of the jinete and I asked if she thought he would fall if I passed. “Que caiga, pue!” (Let him fall, man!) and she laughed. We got home in time to eat the last bits of food in the lunch room.