Highway 61 Revisited*

Well actually the Pan-American Highway again, on the bus again (which was supposed to have wifi but didn’t) for another seven hours, back to Lima again. But before that we were collected by our ‘chauffeur’ Oscar who took us to Cantalloc. The reason for going there was to see the aqueducts (or are they aquifers?) that were built by the Nazca civilisation between 300BCE and 700CE and are still in use today. As we said yesterday, the Nazca desert is one of the driest places on the planet yet it is able to support a number of sizable communities and produce a wide variety of crops – particularly in the river valleys but as the rivers are dry for about nine months each year they rely on these underground aqueducts. The engineering technique and achievement of what was essentially a stone-age community is truly amazing. The aqueducts run for miles underground and are lined with huge stones with curves built into them so that the water does not flow too fast and damage the channels. At a variety of places there are inspection holes which enables people to keep the channels clear of debris, these, again, are amazing engineering achievements as they descend in a steady spiral so that access can be very easily gained but the spirals are also lined with same huge stones, with the surrounding land being terraced, with the terraces supported by the huge stones – all of this, we were told, prevented the ground collapsing when earthquakes occur and that must be true as the aqueducts are still there, still in pristine condition and still supplying water to the Nazca desert.

Why they built so many inspection holes so close together is another mystery. Oscar even climbed down, filled up a copy of a pre-Colombian drinking vessel and after pouring a small libation on the dry earth, drank heartily of the cold water. He suggested that we shouldn’t drink it because our digestive systems are still not accustomed to the local bacteria so we just poured some onto our hands. (Note: yes we’re still using bottled water to clean our teeth, drinking only bottled water and eating only fruit that can be peeled – well actually this last point is not strictly true as among the wonderful fruit available on the market stalls now includes delightful small black figs and many of you know that we cannot resist figs, so we purchased a bag full, washed them using bottled water, indulged in their deliciousness and had no ill effects. Yum. Perhaps we should also add that Peruvian mangoes are also truly delicious and we’re not aware that we’ve ever seen them in the UK).
In one of the fields next to the aqueducts prickly pear cactus were growing, but these were not being grown for their fruit, which cost next to nothing in the markets, instead they were being cultivated for the parasitic cochineal beetle which lives on the cactus. These are collected and crushed to produce the familiar red cochineal dye (which by and large in the West has been replaced by cheaper chemical alternatives) but is still used in traditional Peruvian woven fabrics. Indeed fabrics woven by The Nazcas 2000 years ago still retain their vivid cochineal red colourings. The photos show Oscar holding the beetles before and after crushing!

On our return to Nazca town we saw some of the shanty towns where people who became homeless as a result of the 1997 earthquake are still living in the most abject conditions. Many of the dwellings are no more than four stout posts (usually bamboo) which have maize leaf matting attached to act as walls and a roof. This is despite an enormous amount of international aid following the quake – much of which was misappropriated by corrupt officials. On the bus ride back we saw a large number of the poorest desert dwellings and vast shanties on the outskirts of Lima; this contrasted greatly with the capitalist dream (nightmare) that Lima has embraced. We got off the bus in the commercial district of Lima which is full of high rise offices belonging to banks, oil companies and other multinational organisations – the sky was alight with the neon signs of Coke, Pepsi and other American products; the billboards announced the forthcoming Beyoncé concert. The social injustice perpetuated by the church and capitalism left us feeling frustrated. Roll on democracy.

Desolation Row

* Bob Dylan's sixth studio album, released in August 1965 by Columbia Records which contains the ever wonderful Desolation Row and Like A Rolling Stone both of which G listened to several times on the bus journey.