Sometimes adventure is lonely, sometimes it's not.

Sometimes exploring is about the people you meet. Today I went up the Sechin branch of the Casma River to the village of Huanchuy. I had initially planned to go to the formative site of Juerequeque and walk south, searching for late-period sites, but decided that I wanted to get to know the modern villages before exploring the archaeological sites at their boundaries.

It took a while for the colectivo to Huanchuy to fill up, and so my day started a little late. I ended up buying the two front seats in the colectivo because it's really uncomfortable cramming three people in the front seat of a small Toyota wagon. It was also because, as I joked, 'tengo un trasero hancho, pe.' I have a wide ass, man. Actually, this particularly self-deprecatory form of humor, which appeared to be much appreciated, was also a way of responding to the previous joke that 'el gringo tiene plata, se ha comprado dos pasajes.' The gringo has money, man, he bought two seats! For an extra $2, it was worth having the front seat all to myself on the bumpy ride to Huanchuy.

In Huanchuy, I immediately sat down on the Plaza de Armas and began taking a few notes about the villages we passed, the ruins I saw in the distance on the ride, and on some of what I had heard from the other passengers about local ruins. Before very long two elder men came and sat with me. They asked me who I was, where I'm from, and if I was on paseo, a little stroll. I explained I'm an archaeologist scouting sites for future research. As is often the case, one of the men, Feliciano Martinez (who gave me his permission to take and publish his picture) offered to take me through his chacras (agricultural fields) to visit a ruin that had been the site of huaqueo (looting). 

It seemed to me that I would get a personal introduction to a local archaeological site and I reasoned that - whatever the age of that site - there would likely be trails that led down the valley to other sites. So, together, we left the Plaza de Armas of Huanchuy for the east bank of the Sechin River Valley.

Plaza de Armas de Huanchuy

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Walking through the chacra Sr. Martinez explained to me the history of the area. It had been owned by hacendados named Monje and Blanco, but the land was redistributed in the 1970s during the Agrarian Reform. We walked a long time through corn fields and I noticed that the distant hills were also sown with plants. I asked if they used irrigation tubing to bring water and he explained that a combination of rain and asequia (irrigation canal) water was sufficient to sow the lower reaches of the hills; this is very uncommon in the lowest parts of the valley, where the hills are pure granitic bedrock.

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After crossing the chacras Sr. Martinez and I came upon an archaeological site that I decided to explore. In our exploration we went our own ways around the hillside settlement. Sr. Martinez went right to the top and I took my time exploring the terraces, taking photographs of the surface artifacts, of the architecture, and making notes about the site. I reached the top after Sr. Martinez had already made his way halfway down with a pile of cactus, or prickly pears that grow on wild cacti, called tuna. This kind of linguistic reversal from the apparent norm is not uncommon, and takes a little while to get used to. I surveyed the valley from the peak of our hillside archaeological site and then descended to share my lunch of avocados (locally, palta), pitless mandarin oranges (mandarinas sin pepa), and green olives with Sr. Martinez.

Sr. Martinez enjoying cactus

Sr. Martinez and me sharing lunch

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After lunch I explained to Sr. Martinez that I would follow the path south until the village of El Olivar. He confirmed that it is possible to do this, so off I went. He went back through the chacras to Huanchuy. 

My path was actually an old path that modern people thought might have been an ancient asequia. In attempting to revive the hypothetical asequia they created a very nice flat path that I followed around the contours of the quebradas (canyons), keeping an eye peeled for archaeological sites.

Path or asequia, possibly ancient, possibly modern, probably a little of both.

Before long, however, the path dissolved into the friable granite bedrock that I followed. The terrain became steep and thorny, and I was forced to descend into a very obviously modern asequia at the edge of a mango field. Before long I had to cut through the mango field and find the farm road back to El Olivar.

Following a modern asequia

Finally, I hitched a ride on a donkey cart driven by a kind man named Prospero. As we passed a small cluster of houses, all of a sudden, we heard cries of 'la carreta, la carreta, la carreta!' The cart, the cart, the cart! And so a gaggle of little children came running out of a house, ran alongside, and even jumped and hung on the back of the cart! We all laughed and eventually one of the children hollered, 'ya me bajo!' Alright, I'm getting off! And they all hopped down and scurried back to where they had come from.

B, the donkey

La carreta, la carreta, la carreta!

Travelogue 19 July 2014, Part 2 of 2

As a kid I always wanted to go on adventures. I lived in a suburb, then an exerb, then another – more remote and older – exurb. We’d play in the woods and explore them, though we knew that on the other side of the woods was another development just like ours. Knowing that your adventures are limited to the area in-between doesn’t diminish the sense of adventure, not even in hindsight. There was something legitimately revelatory in finding the plywood shacks that older kids used for chewing tobacco and looking at dirty magazines. Even more exciting was finding the remains of old buildings that had fallen out of use when the farmland (it’s always farmland) was converted into a development.

Yet, the legitimacy of those childhood adventures doesn’t diminish the experience of finding archaeological sites at the edges of Peru’s rural valleys.

Today I took a trip up to Yaután. I’d always wanted to go there, as it seems my years of experience in this part of Peru are pretty concentrated in the provincial city of Casma itself. The trip to Yaután and, ultimately, the sites of Palka and its neighbors highlighted for me all the wonderful things about Peru, Peruvians, and Peruvian exploration in search of archaeological sites.

Last night as I did a turn around Casma, I checked in with the ‘colectivos’ that run to Yaután. Colectivos are semi-private autos that do fixed runs between small towns. They usually hold 4 passengers, plus the driver, and can range in quality from later-model Toyota wagons to very early Mopar vehicles. When they’re full, they go. The fare (pasaje) is cheap and – increasingly – posted in the windshield. The colectivos (which also refers to the vehicle, not just the service) get filled up by callers barking out the destination. They’ll identify people, point at them and call out – inquisitively – “YAUTÁN!”

As a gringo, this technique always tips me off as to where people think I fit in. Callers often look at me and holler, “Huaráz!,”because Huaráz is the mountain sports capital of this area (and maybe all of Peru).

Last night I conversed with the colectivo caller and he explained they run from 4am to about 9pm back and forth to Yaután. I said I wasn’t going that night, but would the next day. Well, today he remembered me. I walked up and he said “Ya vez? Yaután!”… “See! Yaután,” ‘cuz he knew I’d return. However, I needed some AA batteries and asked when we’d be leaving “ahorita!” he said. I always understand ahorita to mean, ‘in a couple minutes.’ It’s the Peruvian version of the proper usage of ‘presently’ in English.

I said I needed some AA batteries, would get them, and then return. But another caller resting on a bench in the colectivo garage corrected me. “En Yaután también hay!” It’s hard to explain the charm of this phrasing. To me it translates pretty directly as “They got’em in Yaután, too!” But the light sarcasm floating over the totally factual – and helpful – statement defies easy appreciation. The resting caller was right, they have AA batteries in Yaután. I wanted to get there and so did the 3 other guys waiting in the wagon to hit the road to Yaután.

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The road to Yaután cuts in between the two branches of the Casma River. The south branch is properly called the Casma River and the north branch is the Sechin River. They meet about at the town of Casma and then flow past the Port of Casma into the Pacific Ocean.

The road between these branches cuts between a series of large, rocky, and almost completely barren mountains. The landscape is lunar or Martian in appearance: authentically extraterrestrial. Of course, this is because it really is an extra terrestrial landscape. It was formed under the ancient shoreline by volcanic activity and gradually elevated by tectonic uplift. These geologically recent origins also explain the distinctive pointy peaks of these Andean foothills, and probably why there are so many large rocks on top of granitic bedrock. All the sand was washed away by the ancient ocean or blown away by more recent winds. Indeed, there are some ancient fossils of bivalves in the hills, but very few plants in between Casma and Yautan, which is to say cutting between two sets of these mountains.

Eastward view of the mountains between the Sechin and Casma Rivers,
between Casma and Yautan

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Peru might be a small country, but Peruvian downs are definitely small towns. After only a little discussion about what I, a gringo, might be doing in Yautan, it turned out that the director of public relations was in the front seat of the colectivo. He was eager to help me find my way to the archaeological sites in the area, especially Palka. He explained that from the Plaza de Armas - the obligatory central square in every Peruvian town - I could take a mototaxi to the dirt path down the valley that would take me to Palka. He helped me find the taxi and off we went.

Yautan's Plaza de Armas

Now, I wasn't particularly interested in Palka. I know it's a very old site (i.e. Formative or Pre-Ceramic, ca. 2000BC or older). I also knew that the university in Huaraz had been doing projects there and found a Middle Horizon (ca. AD 500) settlement there, too. However, I reasoned that if there were an archaeological site in easy reach, there would be a path, too. Usually the sites are perched on the border between the cerros and the agricultural land and linked by worn footpaths. I could go check out Palka and then continue on looking for the archaeological sites that I'm interested in, which date to about AD 1000-1500. 

I found Palka and a pathway that I followed westward for a while. There were indeed some other archaeological sites, but I won't comment on them here. Instead, I want to comment on some unexpected finds.

Main temple terraces and mound at Palka (middle ground).
Notice that it mimics the mountains in the background

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On my way down from the walk through Palka's trails, I noticed a series of aluminum cans filled with charred corn fiber. At first, I thought these cans were used to create smoke for harvesting honey from any one of the many beehives that are found around these sandy, rocky cerros. However, many - if not all - of these cans were arranged along the trail, as if to illuminate it. 

Why would someone be illuminating a trail to an 'unimproved' archaeological site? My guess is that there are rituals of some sort that take place here at night. Archaeological sites remain important places for modern rituals ranging from the occult to overt nationalist purposes (e.g., Evo Morales being sworn in at Tiwanaku, Bolivia and Alejandro Toledo and his wife holding important political events in Cusco's sacred sites).

I wish I could have done more investigating of this mystery. On the one hand, I fully recognize and appreciate non-academic uses of archaeological sites. I think it's essential that archaeologists not monopolize the use and interpretation of sites. On the other hand, if I knew who was doing what out there, I might be able to provide some pointers on safe and sustainable practices for preserving the site for continued and future use by academics and non-academics alike.

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Archaeology, like any job, can lose its joy rather quickly. The most romantic notions of archaeology are pretty well wrecked as soon as you start that umpteenth day sifting sand for the same small scraps of broken ceramic vessels. The first time you run a project, you get a crash-course in endless acid reflux. Archaeology becomes a series of frustrations with broken equipment, bureaucratic barriers, and bundles of paperwork - much of it of your own making.

Yet exploration of millennial archaeological sites reminds me of the thrill of adventure. It feels like real exploration, real adventure. It really does.

Looking north over the Palka River/Rio Grande, 19 July 2014