After four days of hiking and 6 days of living in Qusqo and its mesmerizing vicinity, here I am sitting at a window table at the Limo restaurant. I made a contract with the waiter: I will spend my afternoon here working on my blog and have dinner before 6 pm and leave by 7 pm since they have reservations for the window tables, one of which I am delightedly occupying, from 7 pm on. Deal, I order my first anise tea, which has replaced my usual mint tea here in Colombia and Peru. "What does this trip to MP leave me with" is what I’d like to think about this afternoon. Exposure to yet another culture with its many layers: Its generous, hard-working, humble, shy but proud, definitely appreciative mountain people; its smart and witty entrepreneur indigenous youth, who find their way into tourism and opportunities to get the best out of their language skills, their wild and striking landscape and their relationships with tourists; its modest but courageous indigenous women, who find opportunities to help their families with their handcraft either on the streets or in many small shops; its adorable children, mostly inappropriately clad, but still gifting me with a big smile when I give them merely a piece of chocolate, or fruit and more, much more…
It looks like marketplaces are dominated by women in Peru
I don’t even think of all the history, yet, the grandeur of a past empire, the Spanish conquest and everything in between: Whenever I travel, what makes my travel worthwhile is who I meet, who I connect with, how they interact with one another and us strangers, and how they live their humble lives, which happen to be so similar to ours in many surprising ways… My mind veers toward our guide sharing with me the last evening of our tour his difficulties with his wife-to-become at times when he is torn between her and the demands of his job and not knowing how to drop his manly, patriarchal mask that holds him back from a genuine communication, apology at times.
A peasant playing his local instrument as we hike
by him at the north end of our first campsite on Quarry Trail.
Don’t we all, all over the world, struggle with this same pride versus open communication? Don't we all fear vulnerability and avoid opportunities that may bring understanding into our relationships if only we could risk being vulnerable at times? When we submit to “my way or highway” attitude, which we all do at one time or another, and some of us, all the time, how our relationships become shaky even with our most loved ones… I open my book by Thich Nhat Hahn on anger: He writes "Spirituality is a practice that brings relief, communication and transformation. When an intimate relationship contains spirituality and emotional connection, physical intimacy is so much more meaningful". How I wish, mindfulness and meditation practices had been taught in schools...
Our crew lined up with their horses behind us as we leave the first village
I recall my last moments of exploration in Qusqo: I was left with several bars of chocolate from our hiking. Knowing, how happy kids become with even a square inch of a chocolate, I am looking for kids to give them away. I see kids in school uniforms climbing up Sachsayhuman, some with their parent(s). Apparently, locals are allowed to use Sachsayhuman as a short-cut between lower Qusqo and upper neighborhoods, nice. I see two kids, and hand out to them two bars. I will never forget the spark in their eyes and the enormity of the smile that turns their face to one big sunshine instantaneously!
The father walking along with them is also one big smile, in his appreciation more than excitement. We exchange loving kindness right on the spot. How little we need to be happy and content and grateful… One of the boys start running up the road announcing to his mother selling her handcrafts up the hill with another child. I can’t help but holler after the runner “Share it with your brother” since they are already almost by the mother at this time…
For the last two bars I have left, I will have to look for kids to give to downtown. I see a mother with her sons, I ask her permission to give her sons bars of chocolate. She gracefully and somewhat shyly says yes. Who knows, maybe my white hair is imposing trust and respect in these parts of the world, although my hiker attire not so much at times. The boys’ faces light up with disbelief as if to say “Wow, how did I turn out to be so lucky today? Who is this mamako (respectable elderly woman in Quechua culture)?”
I wonder if they ever wonder “Why is she giving this to me?”, it doesn’t look like it. Kids or adults in cultures like this, grow up with and understand “people do good things for no reason at times, it is a gift to accept.” I don't know if I could do this in the US, I worry it would meet questioning eyes "Why does she do that? Is there something harmful in it?" Are we losing contact with one another as we become more "civilized", especially as we move into exclusive digital era? This is what traveling does to one, open all channels of observation and critical thinking... That is why when I hear about somebody in the US, who hasn't traveled outside 100 miles of their hometown, I feel sad for them. Not having encountered people of different cultures, distant geographies is one of the reasons how Trump got elected in the USA. Ignorance coupled with malevolent politicians' brain-washing, fear mongering campaigns is breeding ground for the electability of the likes of Trump, Tayyip Erdogan, and all other fanatics across the world.
As my afternoon wears off, I start recalling layers of history I encountered here in this Urubamba Valley from pre-Inka, to Inka, to colonial occupation and their surviving cultures and remains. It is still a lingering question for me that every nation and individual have to strive to find answers to: How do we come to peace with our past? I see that Peruvian society is also looking for answers to this very question with its human rights movement recognizing the need to finally revive and allow to flourish whatever remaining components of the Inka culture there are. However, will they continue doing it in a business-first mind-set by commercializing whatever is Inka or will they invest true cultural efforts into understanding Inka culture in its full scope and pass on the truth to future generations.
A cave on Quarry Trail with remains from Inka time, reportedly...
In my understanding, Inka culture was a combination and product of its predecessors that came to be through wars, invasions, and blood shed. It was a culture based on class, even our tour guide eventually admits to the fact that noble upper class surrounded by the religious entities of the time ruled a middle class and the working class, the latter of which was building the palaces, the temples, the walls, and the cities of the Incas. Where we depart from an agreement is that our tour guides claim, in this class-based society, all class relationships, and the submission of the working class to the ruling class, even human sacrifice were voluntary since they believed their upper class was the representatives of God on earth, thus, denying the existence of slavery in Inca time.
A dance show in Qusqo
Our guides’ position is that Inca society was a communal one and when all due was paid, meaning working in the masonry for a few years, the society lifted all its people with adequate housing, food, and communal protection. What I know from history tells me the opposite: In every society based on class economic relationships, there is always class struggle and conflict: Our contemporary art scene, literature, film, mythology is full of such stories Spartacus, Jesus, Moses, Apocalypto, Borderland... These people also lived in cultures when the rest of the society believed in the dogmas the ruling class pumped on them, but sooner or later, those opposing or questioning the status quo created a leader that rebelled against the rules of the ruling class.
Our entire Intrepid group of hikers in Agua Caliente after our first shower following a three day hike and camping
Especially when it comes to human sacrifice, I tend to believe Apocalypto and Mel Gibson as well as Smithsonian documentary on virgins of the sun rather than our tour guides, whose job was most likely to create all embracing sympathy toward Incas as the victims of the Spaniard conquistadors: These protagonists in these movies are the visionaries of their societies that, even in their death and sacrifice led the future generations to rebellion and revolution. I wonder if the Incas’ weakening society that led to wars among their partners had something to do with the rulers not being able to rule the ruled as usual toward the end of their reign, which made it all too easy for the Spaniards to give them the big blow after several years of fighting.
Spaniards were not humane at all, either, perhaps, much more harsh than the Incas in the new order they brought upon South America: Feudal system replaced the slavery based system. This was accomplished not so much with peace of course but with the blood-shed generated by cannons, weapons, and torture, all in the name of God! They destroyed everything Inca, they could put their hands on and/or if they were able to move it elsewhere. They enslaved Incas to serve their God, exploited the riches of the land, and converted the Incas to Christianity. As they infused their Inquisition culture to the depths of the fabric of Inca society, Incas played kind of a trick on the Spaniards: They absorbed Christianity into their own culture, but in a way that they preserved many of their Inca religious traditions, thus, they created an Inca Christianity! Just like Turks inserted many shamanistic elements into Islam as more and more of Anatolia was converted...
Qusqo through a window at Santa Catalina Monastery
Finally, in the last several decades, the human rights movements all over the world started recognizing the importance of understanding and acknowledging how first peoples have been oppressed, exploited and at times destroyed to extinction, by the explorer western civilizations be it in South America, Central America, North America, Pacific, and other places. The descendants of Incas joined in with all other first peoples demanding recognition, respect, and acknowledgement of their first ownership of their lands.
In all this, where is the balance that glorifies only the truth? To acknowledge what was good in the past and what was not so good to build on the strengths of the past? I don’t believe accepting the today-unacceptable practices of the past empires would hurt us in any way. In fact, I believe it would increase our respectability: I would like all Turks accept the fact that Armenian genocide did take place.
I would like the British Empire to acknowledge that World War 1 was their attempt to exploit the riches of the middle east and their artificial division of the Arab world actually seeded the middle east with the ongoing warfare that inundates tens of millions of people all around the world even today... I would like the US accept the fact that racism is killing many African Americans on US soil either by police bullets or in prisons with industrial-prison complex’s inhumane profit-oriented entrepreneurship. Is it possible that the Peruvians also approach their Inka and Spanish history with such honesty and openness?
San Pedro Market in Qusqo
Wouldn’t it be good if all nations could embrace the richness in the products of the clashes and integration between the subcultures they have oppressed or cherished? Wouldn’t it expand the richness of our contemporary societies if we could melt all our cultural components into a humane, progressive, and egalitarian pot? Is this a possibility in Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and in all other places where the West clashed with, destroyed, and rose on top of the embers and ashes of indigenous people’s cultures? This is the question I am ready to leave with the Limo restaurant, Plaza de Arma, Qusqo, Peru, and Colombia, on my way back home, the USA. Food for thought for all of us.
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| Urubamba River and Valley from the air as I leave Qusqo |
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