Our best laid plan that went awry was our trip to Yauyos for the Amazing Race, an ecological/historical/cultural race organized by the Yauyos volunteers. We Juniners were bringing teams of kids down to compete. All together, we were 5 volunteers and 18 jovenes making the journey.
We ran into problems from the beginnig.
We needed to get the kids to Huancayo, a 3-4 hour bus trip away to meet the vans that would take us on to Yauyos. The night before we were to leave, we heard rumors of a parro outside of Huancayo. There was protesting and cars weren´t able to get through. We spend an anxious night and were all up by 5 the next day, lingering outside of our bus company offices to try to get word one way or another. We eventually united in Junin and got word that cars were getting through the parro and one bus would be leaving shortly. Normally there are busses ever 45 min, so this one bus was in high demand. We shoved the kids on at 10:45 am. There were seats for a few, but most of us ended up standing, sardined into sweaty dankness. We couldn´t lift our elbows to take our jackets off.
We surfed down the river valley road in the direction of Huancayo for an hour or so, pouring sweat and shallowly breathing air that smelled like wet wool and chuño, praying that someone, anyone would crack a window. Then the bus stopped and the cobrador told us all to get off.
It turns out we had hit the parro (stop) and would have to walk to Jauja, the next city. All the Peruvians on the buss grabbed their belongings and immediately started walking and us volunteer had a talk to weigh out the options. One volunteer had been up all the previous night vomiting and another had a bum knee. For better or worse, we decided to walk until we could find a car. A lady selling sodas told us it would be an hour, and we were sure she was exaggerating.
So we loaded up. We tied bags to rolly luggage and each volunteer was carrying a large backpack and various items in their arms. I lucked out by having the relatively light bag of sleeping bags for most of the time. 5 volunteers, 18 kids, all of our luggage, as well as tents, sleeping bags, cooking equipment, and assorted other camping gear headed off down the road.
It took 5 hours. At least it was a nice day.
As we were walking, we asked for time estimates from people that were coming from the other direction and got answers between 2 and 6 hours. Some people had been walking since 8 in the morning.
The road was littered with rocks. Some small, some boulder-sized, some stacked up to form walls.
Trees had been cut and laid across the road. There were broken bottles and smoldering tires. Some creative person had even strewn cactuses around. It was slow going around these obstacles with all our junk and the pavement was hard on our kneese and feet.
After two hours or so of trudging, we came upon a tiny town. Naturally, the kids hadn´t brought water or snacks, so we stopped to try to find them some food. The only tienda had already been picked pretty clean by other travelers, so we all had a clementine, a packet of cookies, and a soda and kept going. The kids were champions.
An hour down the road we ran into some active protesting. People were throwing bottles in the street and rolling boulders down the hill to block the road. They didn´t target us, but they didn´t stop doing these things when we were passing through. This was the one time I got angry because some of the kids could easily have been hurt. Thankfully, nobody got crushed by a boulder or glass in their foot and we made it by.
A few of the protesters were walking in our direction, saw how pitiful we were, and graciously offered to help us with our bags. We oblidged and asked them what on earth was going on. Here´s the story: The regional government wants to build a new airport in Jauja. Jauja already has an airport. The people want to use some of the money to renovate the airport, and the rest for other things. To demonstrate this point, they organized a two day parro in Jauja and the surrounding roads. This just happened to be when we had to travel. It was more about government corruption than the airport and things were coming to a head over this issue.
We parted ways near a bridge and re-shouldered our extra bags. We were almost in Jauja, our destination. There were hundreds of people gathered ahead, protesting. As we were resting, we saw the bottle-throwing boulder-rolling protesters marching around the corner behind us to join the larger group. We huddled the kids together and made our way through the crowd.
It was frightening. There was yelling and drinking and a smouldering dog carcass. We made it through unscathed and saw the buildings of Jauja. We thought, "Great! We can get the kids a rest and some food then get out of here!" False.
We ended up walking another hour through the city of Jauja, trying to reach the plaza where all the businesses were. We found the central district a ghost town. It turns out that the city was participating in the parro as well and nothing was open. Not a tienda, not a polleria. Nada. We plopped the kids down in the plaza and Grant and I ran around knocking on doors. People turned us away, saying everything was closed and they couldn´t serve us. Our car fron Huancayo couldn´t get through to get us out of there. Dread filled us as we considered trying to find someplace to spend a foodless night in a hostile protesting city.
Thankfully, we were saved by a lovely señora who approached us and took us to her hostel. Everybody got a bed and some rice with an egg for dinner. I have never attacked a pile of white rice with such gusto.
Everything else turned out fine. We made it to the Race and the kids had a good time. They were troopers through the whole death march, with only light complaining and pouting. Peruvian kids are made of tough stuff and we were really proud of them.
The rest of the Race stories pale in comparison to that one day, but we had some fun ultimate frisbee time at the end, so I´ll leave you with that.
No comments:
Post a Comment