Cusco and Cotahuasi are linked for the first time
Prayer in the Highlands

Crossing the Andes, traversing six high passes over five thousand metres, we made the first journey along a highway linking the city of Cusco with the Cotahuasi canyon. The journey did not lack moments of drama, but the cultural mosaic of the villages we passed through and the imposing geography of the high plains were what made the experience an unforgettable one. 

Text: Álvaro Rocha Revilla
Photos: James Posso

The old woman was resting her head against a rock the colour of ash and muttering a few words that I couldn't quite decipher. "She is thanking the hills for having let us pass", an old man - her husband, I suppose - told me, when he saw me watching her attentively. We had reached the small town of Chincallape, situated in the high part of the Cotahuasi canyon on the newly-opened road, two days after leaving Cusco. I approached the old woman, curious to know what she was saying to the mountains. 

Journey Time
For some reason the bells of San Sebastián church were ringing on the southbound exit road from Cusco, Hail Mary, as we finally left the erstwhile capital of Tahuantinsuyo. The official starting time for this little expedition comprising two all-terrain vehicles and a couple of motorcycles was eight o' clock, and we had left the Plaza de Armas at that hour. But it was two hours later (after visiting a mechanic's workshop) when we finally began to put some distance between us and the city. 

A few clouds scratched the sky and the sun made its presence felt as we drove fast past Huasao (known locally as the village of warlocks), the lake at Huacarpay with its reed beds, and the smell of freshly-baked bread, Full of Grace, greeted us in Urcos and stayed with us until we arrived in Sicuani, 147 kilometres south of Cusco. I was in the back seat with James Posso, who complained because Frank Sinatra was singing Strangers in the Night, saying that it didn't tally with that clear day, or with the cornfields or the tiled roofs. Juan Carlos Cáceres - slightly crazy, in the best sense of the word - was driving the vehicle (which he told me he loved as much as he loved his children), and his co-pilot was Raúl Vizcardo, another amenable native of Arequipa. 

In Sicuani we filled up with gas, The Lord is With Thee, before taking the next turn west on a road that is being asphalted. It was then that we came across gleaming Lake Languilayo, with clouds playing in the mirrored surface of its waters. Kilometre after kilometre, we continued on our way in a land of blue winds and plains without horizons. 

Meanwhile, Julio Iglesias sang about how he always tripped up on the same stone, doing his best to ruin the mysticism of our solitary surroundings. The Arequipa members of our team had chosen a selection of music which, it has to be said, began to improve as we headed up onto the high plains shared by the regions of Cusco, Puno and Arequipa, and James Posso, who had moaned at each of Sinatra's and Iglesias's numbers, began to sing along hours later to a selection of eighties pop classics. 

Oblivion is Filled with Memories
Out of nowhere a town appeared - almost a city, in fact. Yauri is the capital of the province of Espinar and it is a soulless place but very important commercially. There we filled up with gas again and, by telephone, learned that one of the vehicles had run over a woman, Blessed Art Thou Among Women, although she was uninjured, thankfully. From there, our migratory flight took us through a perfect landscape, and I would have liked to have smoked a cigarette, but I don't smoke. And it was in the languid silence of the high Andes that we came across a young girl, And Blessed is the Fruit, carrying on her back a heavy load of firewood. Who knows where she had found the wood, for there was not a tree in sight on that vast plain. 

"Oblivion is filled with memories", says the Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti. I thought of that poem as we drove through that remote area and came to a colonial-era bridge (Machupuente), with the dark and cold waters of the Apurimac River flowing under it. In that moment we sank into a gap in the earth: it was like entering a lost kingdom, with the impressive ruins of Maukallaqta almost kissing the Apurimac, and the smooth granite walls above us robbing us of the last light, Of They Womb, Jesus. But just around the next curve the world seemed to open up once more. There were two other rivers within sight (the Cerritambo and the Cayomani), which together with the Apurimac form the Three Canyons, a remarkable geological formation. 

Hospitality in Cotahuasi
We arrived in Caylloma in total darkness and, Holy Mary Mother of God, some of our number were feeling ill and had recourse to the oxygen bottle we were carrying. Some wanted to stay the night in Caylloma, others preferred to continue as far as the Arcata mine, where there would be hot food awaiting us and comfortable beds. We decided to go on through a landscape we could hardly see in the lights of the vehicle. The snow fell mercilessly. A white cloak surrounded us as we arrived at the Arcata mine, at almost 4,800 metres above sea level, where we would spend the night. 

On the previous day we had been in the Atlantic watershed and now, leaving Arcata, the cold waters that ran across the wetlands inhabited by Andean geese flowed towards the Pacific. Spiky forests of rock, telluric mountains dressed in white and great lakes like Huanso, the source of the Cotahuasi River, formed the panorama. The rest of the day passed, Pray For Us, at altitudes in excess of 4,700 metres. The motorcycles usually went ahead, but one of them suffered a mechanical failure and we left them behind. We came to the hamlet of Huarcaya, lost in the mountains and surrounded by llamas. 

It was then that the most difficult part of the expedition began. The snow continued to fall and the road seemed to dissolve between enormous high tension electricity towers coming from the Mantaro hydroelectric plant. The motorcycles hadn't caught up with us and we had to wait for them. As the light began to fail great holes and huge boulders began to appear in the road ahead as we descended into the Cotahuasi canyon. We passed through an archway at the entrance to the village of Chincayllapa. The villagers had flowers in their hair and a gleam in their black eyes. It was there that I met the old woman whispering a prayer to the mountains and, straining to listen, I heard the words of the Hail Mary. 

Dreaming of Shrimps
In Churca, Huactapa and Puyca also, we were met with generous hospitality: There were songs in Quechua, Peruvian flags and plates of food thrust into our hands. We finally got the tents up in the middle of the night behind a house in Puyca. I was sharing a tent with Elva Yáñez, who inflated an enormous mattress that hardly left me space to move. It was a cold night. Too cold. 

The next day we reached the town of Cotahuasi, where we spent the night, before finally leaving the world's deepest canyon (3,535 metres) and heading towards the volcanoes of Solimana and Coropuna. Dreaming of shrimps, we passed through Chuquibamba and entered the Majes Valley, only to be disappointed to learn in Querulpa that the shrimp season was closed. Four days and three nights after leaving Cusco, and after seven flat tyres, we arrived in the city of Arequipa, Now and at the Hour of Our Death, Amen. 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

• Tracción 4x4 Perú: specialists in all-terrain vehicle expeditions. Information: peru@tracción4x4.com.pe

• Eric Adventures: travel agent: Information: cusco@ericadventures.com

• PromPerú.

• MINARSA.

• Arcata mine.

• Municipality of Puyca.

• Municipality of La Unión.

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