Chronicles of Peru
Plaza De Armas
A woman with a terracotta colored complexion, bundled in a hand-made embroidered scarf and beanie nods her head as people pass by and she calls out to them,
“De donde eres compañero?” Most don’t know what she’s saying, especially tourists. No one answers her, but they look down upon her as she stands holding baskets of decorated purses, wallets, dolls, and other delicate goods. The bright colors of the dyed threads jump out and seem to grab any passer-by’s attention like an invisible hand pulling them by the chin and turning their heads. You almost want to reach out and feel the threads between your fingertips, but that would be rude. The colors contrast with the road, covered in centuries old stones placed there by influence of Spanish conquistadors and their conquests in 1532-1572.
The stones are worn and the shoes of the tourists fade them with every step, while grand boulders hand carved by the Incan people are cemented into ancient walls that line the streets of the town square in Cusco. The boulders stick there in their eternal positions unable to be budged by any hands or tourist’s fingertips that prod their way along the grainy surface.
Cusco, Peru
The woman also wears a North Face down jacket, a flicker of familiarity to Westerners and even Europeans that might make them feel like the people of this city have given into the trends and values of imperialism. But there is a sigh that fills the air of the plaza, echoing into the faux Spanish architecture that rings true to the Peruvian people. It is a sigh that never forgets what the people have endured due to the colonization of their land. The woman sits stoic in her position on the cobble stone corner, taking up the place that belongs to her and every local in the city.
The people who visit Cusco are easy to spot. Their faces of wonder, fascination, or maybe even indifference mark them in this crowd. They are the ones questioning with gestures of their hands and frowned faces, where and what street to travel down next. They are the ones that think they need to be led to safety. They are the ones who fear everything that isn’t what they thought it would be. Spanish menus, Spanish-speaking natives that they refuse to converse with because they fear they might look ignorant trying to speak broken Spanish. The people of Cusco can see this vulnerability, especially the woman on the corner and she takes this ignorance as gift. It’s a gift to sell her wares to people who don’t know how to learn another language and get to know a civilization that’s one of the oldest in the world.
There is a feeling there, in the plaza of Cusco, a smell that permeates the senses, one of fresh baked pan, lemony ceviche, hoppy Peruvian Cusquena beer, and fresh Andean air that lifts a person not only in altitude, but in spirit, and instills fascination of a civilization that hasn’t forgotten who they are and what has happened to them.
A golden statue of Atahualpa sits in the middle of the plaza, lifting his hand to the sky, as if pointing and directing to the heavens. The statue seems to resemble the old conquistador monuments and makes a visitor wonder if the Peruvian people have fallen into the ways of their colonizers, but it could also be seen as a reconstruction, a taking back of their own culture through the use of their colonizers tools and devices of control.
Atahualpa looks onto the plaza and oversees his visitors as they flood in and out of both authentic and westernized restaurants, pubs, bars, and clubs. The lights on the hills past the plaza and the historic district glimmer in the distance and seem to beckon everyone to come closer, but most don’t have the guts to travel further than what they think is safe. Blue and golden lights cast their colors through the night caressing the plaza in a cradle of artificial cosmos, a blanket of electric stars, and everyone is too busy to witness it’s greatness.
You might find it lonely if you look towards other tourists while visiting Cusco, because their eyes waver away from the woman on the corner, and all the other locals that come to the streets of the plaza to sell their wares. You might find it lonely if you can’t seem to break away from speaking your native tongue and fail to converse and get to know the people of this place.
Cusco isn’t lonely to those that favor a new experience. For those that see the boulders strength as they hold the weight of hundreds of years, or for those that see the women carrying their children on their backs in papooses and wonder what story they have to tell. For those that see beyond the European influences of architecture, food, and the invasion of the Spanish language, there is a gift for you there, a gift of witnessing the resilience of a culture that has survived Spanish colonization and continues to thrive and never forget their cultural beliefs.
Atahualpa glimmers in the unforgiving sun, beaming light fractals in the eyes of tourists as they take selfies in front of him. All the while the woman on the corner smiles and embraces their squinting glares and the sols from their wallets, and stands firmly rooted, feet to stone, near the ancient Incan walls.
Poems for Sale
On a corner street stoop of Cusco, sits a young man, typewriter on his lap, feverishly pressing the vintage metal keys down into paper. The audible click to my writers’ ear sends me staring back at his black curls bouncing to the rhythm of his poetry in motion. Poems for Sale, states the sign next to him as he’s haloed by a shadow from the doorway to a closed Museo De Arte. I seem to be the only one, of all the tourists on the street that pays him any mind.
The click, click, clicking of his measured movements drown out the footfalls of the tourists rushing past him, rushing past the locals of the city in their small shops, rushing past me. The cobblestone streets are not easy to maneuver in any type of shoe and I can feel myself almost roll an ankle while stopping and turning towards him to ask how much a poem would cost. For a moment, I think I hear Atahualpa’s laugh echoing in my ear, until I ground myself, and he stops.
I remember the Inca in this moment and the unread chronicle of Guaman Poma, a full-blooded Incan native that proposed better treatment of his people through his chronicle but it wasn’t widely read until the 20th century, leaving his words unheard, his pleas for justice dying with him.
This poet is not unlike Poma, as he sits near a plaza, hoping that tourists and locals alike will lend an ear to his craft, choose to witness him speak and be changed by what he has to say. Approaching nervously, my poor excuse for Spanish spills out like a water hose with holes, missing adjectives, nouns, verbs and sometimes everything, leaving facial expressions and hand movements to try to communicate. There’s more than a moment of hesitation, a fear of taking a chance at being misunderstood, a fear of being uncomfortable sounding stupid, but I let it come out anyways.
“Hola, Cuanto es?” I say, pointing to his stack of poems by his side.
He gives a toothy grin, welcoming the conversation, and the question. He says a phrase in Spanish that loosely translates to, “However much you think it’s worth.”
The sols in my wallet stick to the plastic lining as I pluck them out to place in his hand, which isn’t even extended to accept any money. Papers shuffle between his fingers as he seems to pick the one that draws the most connection, or maybe it’s just random luck.
He takes a roller ball pen; black ink, dating and signing his name overtop the typewriter font on the page.
“Muchas, muchas gracias,” I say as he hands me the poem.
I ponder if it was fate or destiny to have run into him this night. And although there are missing words in our own languages that we can’t seem to bridge, a universal language emerged in the energy in the air. The nightlife of Cusco all around, creating invisible static that drew me to him and made me stay for a while.
Saying farewell, I turn and wave the poem in my hand, as if to lift the words off the paper and float them to the stars, where I feel like they belong, with all the other Incan gods and lost ancestors. He waves and I’m on my way, taking in the poem with my eyes and feeling the words even though I only can decipher a handful of them, until I reach my hotel and Google translate, of course.
Do not unfold your identity
do not dilate your dignity under a conch shell
life belongs to you as well
the right to choose what you want with it
Wherever you go you will find conditions
to be on the edge of danger:
but there is no other way, Woman
than to take the risk.
I connect instantly with the poem, knowing that it was written, by fate, to conjure my thoughts within my experience. My military veteran identity floats along with me as I travel and experience Peru bringing forth a fear of stepping out of my comfort zone, or confronting old wounds. But, the poet doesn’t know his affect on myself, or anyone he had given his poems to. That’s the beauty, the magical realism of a place like Cusco and Latin America, in general. What is meant to be will be.
Jesus Espicasa, the poet on the corner of a Cusco street, his hair shaking to the movement of his poems and the city sounds, waits for you too. Waits for you to be drawn to him for a moment, to take a walk and feel the cobblestones in the arches of your feet, almost fall, but don’t, take a chance, speak terrible Spanish, and witness the power of words connecting our human condition.
Pachamama
It hangs between two clouds, a talisman, hand of an ancient clock, striking the mountains of Templo Del Sol with it’s light, revealing unheard secrets. The secrets of Pachamama, the ancient Quechua word for Mother Earth. Standing at the base of steps that expand upwards into the sky, the air is thin and hearts beat faster to pump blood, as you move one foot after the other. The Inca knew the way before the Spanish ever stepped foot on their sacred soil. There’s a certain purity in being stripped down and coming face-to-face with the natural world. That purity is Pachamama’s secret.
Cusco sits at 11,150’ above sea level and the altitude hits a traveler, not used to such heights, slowly, inching it’s way into the empty spaces inside brains and lungs. Pachamama is the great equalizer in these parts and she reminds you of her presence, her hands inside your chest, the one squeezing your heart, as your trek up her back and she opens your eyes and mind to the past of her children, the Incas.
It’s funny how we don’t notice the breath in our lungs until we are in a position of being winded, in the middle of a workout, running up a street, or climbing steps up a mountain or hill. It’s then when we understand that our lives are spent moving so quickly that even the air escaping our mouths is taken for granted.
The local tour guide leads the way, his lungs adapted, grateful, thriving in the atmosphere. He looks back at his herd of wary travelers and makes sure none have fallen to the wayside. He wonders if they’re taking in the soul of Pachamama, as he was taught to do. He knows that he holds the key to the secrets of his culture. He is the portal to Pachamama and only some, or very few of theses travelers, will make the connection. He is a product of an ancient people grounded in the past, present, and future, leading everyone through.
The steps are uneven, clipping the fronts of hikers shoes because they are not paying attention, or just exhausted from the climb. Looking over a shoulder doesn’t steady any nerves, as the incline is more than enough to startle anyone from going further. But Pachamama also consoles you, wind to your back, lifting you up, pushing one foot after the other, one foot after the other.
Pebbles are disturbed beneath you and you may think you’ll go backwards, hitting soft skull to hardened rock. It would be fitting, no? A sacrifice to Pachamama? Instead, she takes pity. You are steadied. A wall built of stone, composed by the Incas, saves your footing.
At the top, a mountain hovers above the valley, the timepiece to the sun that catches a steady stream of light on certain parts, at different times of the year. As the light begins to fade the mountain crouches like a condor over the valley, covering it in shadow. Every pinked-cheeked tourist breathes heavy, some poking their walking sticks into the dirt and leaning against stones.
The tour guide points to the shape of the valley, “The Inca laid out their cities in the shapes of animals, and this one is the shape of the Llama.”
He opens a book of Inca history and outlines with a finger, the llama. The city becomes the body of the llama, and it’s imaginary head pops up looking towards all of the souls at the top and in the doorways of Templo Del Sol. He shoots a sly grin, recognizing foreigners when he sees them.
The wind kicks up dust into everyone’s eyes and the tour guide shepherds, with his arm movements, along past the doorway of the temple up to the priest’s house, the highest point of the climb. The roofless building and three walls shiver and wane in comparison to the mountain that stares at it from afar. Although withstanding time, the walls are eaten away by erosion and Pachamama’s cold breath.
At last, descending down the steps, the tour guide lets his sheep go their own route, knowing that there will be nothing to learn if they don’t. He stays behind them watching as each one takes their own path, some easily advancing, others clinging to the sidewalls for stability. He watches them from above, along with Pachamama who whispers wind in their ears, while swirling dirt under tired feet.
Contributor
Jacqlyn Cope
Jacqlyn Cope is an 8-year Air Force veteran who has worked as an aeromedical evacuation mission controller. She decided to leave the military in 2016 to pursue her writing career and education. She has an MFA in creative writing from Mount Saint Mary’s University and is currently a 7th grade English teacher for LAUSD.