An accidental mountain walk

Yesterday we went back to Pampallacta.



The plan: get the 4am bus, arriving at about 7am.  Visit various houses, chat to people, teach God's work, do a kid's club and church service in the evening, stay the night.  Get the 7am bus back to Abancay.

It didn't happen quite like that!

The last flat part of the walk to Pampallacta

We'd arranged to get a taxi together to the bus stop, but Dina overslept.  We arrived only 5 minutes late, but the buses are the only exception I have found so far to Peruvian timekeeping, and they leave on schedule.  Fortunately there is a system - other cars come around to pick up people like us!  So we got a lift, but only as far as the junction with the main road, leaving a 1400m climb to reach the village.

We started walking, but keeping our eyes and ears open for anyone coming up the hill.  In Chapimarca (the district capital) they are building a new sports field so lorries deliver materials several times a day.  Sure enough, after we'd climbed about 200m, we were glad to hear a truck, so flagged it down and were given a lift to the Pampallacta junction.  From there it's a couple of miles, but at least it's flat.

It's the growing season...

Once again we found that many people had gone to their "cabañas" for the maize-growing season, so there weren't many people around, and almost none of the children.  So we decided to visit the Christians one by one, rather than waiting for an evening service, and then also visit some of the non-Christians to explain God's word to them.  This is where the AIDIA materials are really useful - the Quechua New Testament, the oral teaching book (pictures to prompt telling of Bible stories), and various other booklets.  Here they are very new believers and don't necessarily understand much of what the Bible teaches.

One of the families we chatted with

I often feel like a spare part on these visits, because when everything is in Quechua, I can´t contribute (much).  But a couple of conversations in Spanish on this visit were very encouraging, particularly talking to one lady who said "so what I need to do is stop sinning and be good and then God will accept me".  Well, no... I was able to explain to her that God accepts us as we are if we give ourselves to him, and only with his help are we then able to change.

 

Lunch

We also visited a young family who are not Christians... asking for 10 minutes of their time.  To start with they weren't paying much attention but soon started listening, coming closer and asking questions.  There are a lot of different "religions", often just meaning different denominations, who come emphasising different things, and many people are confused.  Our answer was always "if their teaching is from the Bible, then what they say is true.  We can't necessarily trust what people say, but the Bible is God's word, and he is trustworthy."

You can see the road zigzagging down

 

Once we had finished our visits, we decided to head back down to Abancay.  We figured we'd probably meet one of the returning lorries on the way, or some people who we'd seen earlier who'd come from Abancay selling mattresses.  So we set off back down the mountain, on the shorter track used by the people who walk rather than the long zigzagging road.  We did see a few cars descending, but we were always on one of the short-cut sections, so never managed to flag one down.

At one point we took a path which ended up not being "the" path, but the track to someone's house.  We armed ourselves with long sticks (to persuade the dogs to keep their distance) and stood our ground.  It ended up being the house of the Pampallacta president, who I had hoped to meet - so worked out well in the end!













Journey stats:
Starting altitude: 3600m
Finishing altitude: 2200m
Distance walked: 7.5 miles
Time: 3.5 hours
Top speed: 9mph (we were running to reach the bend in the road before the car did)
Blue route: the road
Red route: the path we walked down

Once back at the main road a bus to Abancay came past very quickly.

Fortunately my general visiting rucksack is not too heavy, and generally contains the same things as a walking-in-the-mountains rucksack.  Although next time I'd probably choose my walking boots.

*A note on hitch-hiking and remote mountain paths - mostly for my mother

 For those whose safety alarm is going off at this point, a few clarifications.

So few people have cars in this area of Peru that everyone is reliant on either walking or shared transport.  Those who have cars offer lifts to people who are going in the same direction, and their passengers share the cost of the journey.  These are often families, and the car is usually full of varied passengers.  It's well-known and well-used system.  Peru is also a very community-based culture, which means people rarely travel alone, but also means people will usually know someone you know.

Mountains are also a very different concept from in the UK.  While at home changing weather and remote locations can make mountain walking very dangerous especially for the unprepared, here the routes to the places we visit are populated areas of farming land, usually with small houses dotted around and people out working who are very happy to show you the way, and even invite you to share their meal.

After a very long time I go back to Mariscal Gamarra

When I visited Peru in 2013, one of the areas we went to was Mariscal Gamarra (about halfway down this post, if you want to see a map it's about 5 miles north of Palpacachi, which google can find).  They were very keen on having possible water projects and seemed very proactive.



However, when I came back in late 2014, it transpired that the AIDIA team were no longer focusing on that area - the villages having graduated from their training programme they were now focusing elsewhere.  That was fine as "elsewhere" there are also a lot of opportunities!  But recently various new churches have expressed interest so I went back with Cicilio who has been visiting the area since the year I was born.



This, like so many, was a "building-relationships" visit, rather than specifically water-focused. But it also gave me a good opportunity to talk to Cicilio about my plans for water-related teaching.  He was very positive and suggested I be involved with a training visit he'll be doing later this year, to include water-related teaching.  He also pointed out that people are more likely to be motivated if they know what they are drinking is of poor quality, so I might also coordinate with the Ministry of Health (it's their job really) and get some samples from various points in the water systems to be tested.  Usually the source is clean, but contamination occurs within the system so it's good to pinpoint where this is in order to target a project.



From Abancay it's a 6 hour bus ride to Mariscal Gamarra. We got off at a bridge over the river and walked up the side of the mountain to a few villages.



It's not ideal visiting season, partly because the heavy rain at night often means the roads are blocked in the morning, but also because it's the maize-growing season, and many people take off up into the mountains with their animals so that they don't eat the growing corn.  But many people were around, and it was great to visit them.
 


Anastasia has been a Christian for about a year.  We visited her and her husband to talk, to pray, to encourage, and to teach.  This was almost entirely done by Cicilio, because it was all in Quechua! Every time I visit with him I am motivated to carry on improving my Quechua... but I found I could pick up the gist of what they were saying.  Anastasia´s husband, Sebastien, had a bad fall recently up on the mountains looking after his animals, and has damaged his leg and can't really walk.  This has led him to evaluate his life a bit more, and while we were there Cicilio led him through a prayer giving his life to Christ.  Then it was lovely to be invited to pray for Anastasia - in Spanish, so she may not have understood the words, but God did.  And as we were kneeling together on the dusty ground I am sure she understood the love that prompted my prayer.




Walking up the hill afterwards I was "meditating on God's wonderful works" (from Psalm 146) - the amazingly beautiful and huge creation that we were standing in - and his continuing miracles in transforming lives and hearts.  Both glorious to be able to see.



Then we visited the pastor's family.  Again, most of the talk was in Quechua but I could mostly follow it.  We prayed for the pastor's wife, who has been having trouble sleeping, and encouraged the pastor that although he is untrained and very daunted by his role, God has chosen him and is entirely capable!  We stayed for a service in the evening - amazingly about half of the community are now Christians and it was certainly a crowd inside the pastor (right) 's house.

 

Next day, and the walking continued.  Cicilio is very impressed by my walking ability ever since I proved myself willing and able to get up at 4am and still keep up with him!  But I really enjoy this part of the journeys - the Apurímac region is like the most beautiful parts of the UK, but bigger.  And I have always had to save up my holidays for time there - but here, walking on the stunning mountains, I am working!

Betty, on my last visit.  This time we were
too busy chatting to take photos!

More visits today, and a higher Spanish content!  We were mostly in Paccaypata, the village I had visited before, so it was wonderful to meet up with old friends.  Juana and Mateo are brother and sister, each with their own families.  Last visit we stayed with Juana and I found here very bubbly and talkative - quite rare in the introverted culture.  Her brother is the same, and I stayed with his family and his daughter Betty who I had met previously - it was great to be reunited with her.














Juana's son is now in Abancay preparing to go to university to study... Civil Engineering!  He has to sit an entrance exam for the state university, so there's a lot of work to do.  I talked to her about the Christian student group here (CBU) so she passed on his details to me.  Since then I have discovered one of my CBU friends also runs preparatory classes in the evenings - so have also managed to link him up with that!