A tale of two nights

Two nights, split only by the sun between them.  One spent in the campo, the countryside, the other  in Oropesa, a town just south of Cusco, Perú.  Two nights that couldn’t have been more different if they’d been separated by a million years…one a night of peace and solitude, the other of frustration and bad feelings.
I was pushing it hard to get into cusco.  After leaving Puno, Perú and Lake titikaka behind, I had a solid ten days of walking to get to Cusco, if I averaged 24 miles a day.  Actually, though, I’d have to average more than that beforehand, so that my last day walking into the city wouldn’t be such a grind. 
Entering cities on foot is about the least enjoyable thing out there.  All big cities, like toilets in public bathrooms, are rimmed with the crusted waste of everyday life.  Oil change places, brake joints, engine repair shops, suspension fixers, welding shops, tire repairers, windshield replacers, transmission centers, gas stations, car washes, junkyards, impromptu garbage dumps, dent repair joints…anything and everything that has to do with the maintenance, upkeep, repair, and or care of semi trucks, dumptrucks, pickups, vans cars, buses, motorcycles, scooters, and any and all other motorized vehicles.   And here in South America, where the word “environment” basically means “trash can” or “effluence receptacle”, these long corridor-like entrances into a city proper are about the filthiest, most contaminated, depressing and dangerous places to hang out, let alone walk through with a glorified baby cart.
The dirt and stone lots in front of the various shops are caked solid with old oil, chunks of tire, gasoline, solvents, welding slag, dirty water, human urine and lots of dog shit…all of which slowly leaches into the ditches and canals that line either side of the highway.  After a solid rain, these drainage systems run rancid and toxic, mixing with the overflow from the sub par sewers. 
The noise and traffic is always amazing, like an airport, rock concert, and medieval torture chamber all mixed into one.  No one knows what the fuck a muffler is around here.  Hell, no one knows what a traffic law, a brake, or   caution is…common sense has never visited these hellish areas. Every particle of my being has to be concentrated on what the traffic is doing, I am nearly run over, trampled, and splatted into non-being at least 50 times an hour.  In these parts, only horns and gas pedals are used, and to absurd excess.  I’m honked at if I walk in the road, I’m honked at if I walk in the shit-and-super-fund-site-waste puddles, I’m honked at if I pause to try and get at least a molecule of oxygen out  of all the fumes, smoke and vapors that billow and roll out of the ass-end of every vehicle.  Road-crossing pedestrians are honked at, as if they have no right to get to the other side, other cars are honked at for honking at other honker’s honks, it’s a certifiable madhouse, and it exists at the entrances and exits of every South American city that I’ve had the dubious honor of walking through.
On day 8 out of Puno, I hammered out 27 miles, but that left me between towns.  Usually that would be just fine with me and I’d pitch my tent in some hidden spot, get a good night’s sleep.  But this part of Perú isn’t anything like what I was used to up on the Altiplano, or down in Patagonia where wide open spaces are the norm.  Here, the land is populated.  It might only be one old dude with more children than teeth, it might be just a cluster of mud homes…but every nook and cranny seems to have a human denizen. 
On this night, though, I was in luck.  To my right, the mountains rose from the road at a steep angle, too steep for homes.  To my left, fields of barley and corn, separated by old stone fences and tangles of cacti and thorn bushes.   Further along to my left, a village, in plain sight, but luckily sitting on the other side of a steep canyon replete with a wild river at the bottom…no bridges near at hand.  I waited until the road was empty of cars, bicycles and llama herders and quickly ducked down to the left, rattling my cart along the edge of a field of barley.  The crop was planted unevenly and my path between the last stems of the grain and the thornbushes and cacti curved and dipped amoeba-like down toward the canyon.   A break in the thorny wall led me into a cornfield, nearly flat, not too rocky, and best of all surrounded on three sides by an impenetrable wall of menacing plants…a perfect, and rare bit of solitude.
The sky was murky, with hints of night in it as I set up my tent.  I hunkered down afterward and cooked up my specialty: a stew of tuna, hard-boiled eggs, pasta, rice, tomato paste, onions, carrots, potatoes and spices…if I had a chunk of lard to throw in there, I’d have done it.   I’m not sure how many calories I burn on a 27 mile day, but I do know that no matter how much I eat the evening afterward, I can’t even get close to replacing them…it’s a hell of a weight loss program.  As I cooked I watched an old man wandering through his patch of corn on the other side of the river.  He walked along slowly, caressing each stalk with one hand or the other, maybe thinking of the harvest, or of his chores for the next day…or maybe not thinking at all…just at peace with the little world he’d sweated to carve out the rocky soil.  A tinny radio in the house behind him stuttered with salsa tunes, the sounds echoing oddly off the hillsides behind him.  The only street in the man’s little village was strung with streetlamps, little pools of orange-white light, out of which seemed to come the everyday sounds of a day’s end:  bursts of laughter, a revving car engine, a hammer against wood, clanging pots, snatches of song and conversation.
Way up on the hillside behind the town, I could still make out the sharp shadows of ancient terraces, like elevation lines on a topo map.  Other slopes lay patchworked in quilts of crops.  The moon wanted to come up somewhere behind me, I could tell by the invasion of pale light against the tattoo-black of the rest of the sky.  I ate in gulps and slurps, listening to the rumble of truck on the road, the hum of bicycle tire, the clip clop of donkey and horse.
When my stomach would hold no more, I lurched upright, stretched for a bit (achingly), organized and covered my cart, and crawled into my tent.  I wrote about my day, read a bit of Don Quixote,  and then, with almost no transition that I can recall, slipped into a long night’s dream-filled sleep.  It rained some that night.  I woke up briefly to the patter of drops on my rainfly, listened as a truck passed, and fell again into worry-free sleep.
The next day, I woke up refreshed, happy to have been able to camp out without nagging worries of detection ruining my sleep.  I walked on varied terrain that morning and afternoon, leaving the wild Sicuani river behind, climbing and dropping along a wide valley leading to Cusco. 
Peruvians, at least in this neck of the woods, seem a curious lot and I passed a better part of my day chatting with those who also walked along the road to their various lives as woodcutters, crop workers, stone masons, and day laborers.
 In the late afternoon, I reached the top of a climb, glanced up between gasps for breath and saw my first Inca (or Inka, depending on who’s spelling) ruin, part of a wall that must at one time have been part of a fortress defending this southern entrance to the series of valleys that hold Cusco and the Sacred Valley, which is home to a ton of amazing ruins, including Machu Picchu.   The stones gleamed a coffeeish orange in the low afternoon light.  They fit together with such organic perfection that the whole seemed almost supernaturally permanent.  I rolled on, past those ruins and a few more, moving too long into the coming night.  In such low light, choosing a good campground is tough, and I began to get frustrated as I passed one not-quite-good-enough camping possibility after another.  Soon, night entire fell around me  and I had no option but to shoot for the next biggish town, Oropesa, which, I had been promised, had a cheap hostel.  To my dismay, the town was tucked about a mile and a half off the road, extra steps that I always loathe taking, especially during a 28 mile day.  And if I had known what was awaiting me, I would never have turned my cart and headed up the road to the town’s center.
Oropesa is a poor town, its empty-eyed storefronts and sagging ceramic roofs attest to that.  The people of the town, as well, spoke of that poverty with their shiftless gaits, blank stares, and sullen responses to my greetings and questions.  About as shot-through as I can get from the long, hot day, I pushed my cart up a hill into the center of town.  Asking for the hostel, I was directed along a series of cobbled, rutted, and at times, dirt streets.  The walls of all the buildings seemed to be in a sort of geologically slow buckling process, bulging and bowing as if too depressed for linearity.   Finally, I saw the hospedaje sign, lodging.  I ducked into the storefront carrying the sign.  A plumpish man looked up at me from his ledger.  I asked him if he had any rooms available.  He nodded disinterestedly.  I asked him if he had a place I could safely store my cart and he nodded again, told me to follow him.  As we rolled to the garage doors next to the store I told him that I sure hoped the hostel cost 5 soles (about a dollar fifty) like all the other hostels I’d stayed in so far because that’s exactly how much money I had on me.  He abruptly stopped, turned around and gazed at me, almost glaring.  “I charge 8”.
“But truly, sir, I only have 5 soles on me until I get to Cusco tomorrow.  Isn’t there anyway we could work out a deal?”
“No.  I charge 8.”
“So you’re telling me” I said, trying hard to control my rising temper “that you’re going to forego what is at the very least a bit of cash…and your place doesn’t look too busy at the moment…and at the same time deny a tired traveler lodging, even though it’s night, and a storm is coming, and there’s no other place around here for me to spend the night?”
“Yes” he said curtly, nodding.
My patience gave way under the weight of 28 miles, of knowing that the rain was soon going to catch me without shelter, of knowing that to find a place to camp now would mean another couple of miles of walking back out to the road, of realizing that “restful” wasn’t going to be a descriptor for the night.  “Wow, man, what a huge fucking heart you have.  I’m glad to see that you’re concerned for the welfare of your fellow human…You tremendous son of a bitch.” And, with that bridge burning brightly now behind me, I turned and walked away. 
“No, you’re the son of a bitch, gringo.” I heard him say before I got to the end of the block.
I headed for the central plaza, a steeply sloped square of cement with a few eucalyptus trees standing like shadows in the center.  Up and to the right of the sad-looking church, I saw the local comisaria or police station.  In my few weeks in Perú, several locals had told me that if I was ever in a desperate strait, that I should swing by a police station and ask them for help.  With that advice in mind, I parked my cart and stepped into the main office.
A young woman, holding her child’s hand, accompanied by another woman, one of those that could easily be anywhere between 30 and 60 years old, was trying to get some kind of restraining order on her husband, who, she said, was abusive when drunk…and that at this moment he was wasted.  I sat down on a plank bench along one wall of the dusty room.  The “cop in charge” was seated behind one of those old 40’s style bureaucrat’s desks, a gray metal Brother typewriter in front of him, a beat up ledger filling up the rest of the desktop.
“Just a second” he said to the young woman.  “Whattya want?” he asked me leaning to his right to see around the ever-age lady.
“Well, you see, sir, I just got done walking 28 miles today.  I was hoping to stay at the local hostel here, but the man was charging 8 soles and I only have 5, and he wouldn’t cut a deal.  So now I find myself here at night, with rain on the way, and no place to stay.  I was wondering if I might stay in the courtyard right next door.  You know, all I need is a roof and a place to throw my sleeping bag.”
He pushed his chair back, stood up, stared out the door at my cart, his hands on his hips.  “Can’t stay next door, that belongs to the municipalidad. Where’s your passport?”
Shrugging my shoulders, I went down to my cart, grabbed my irish passport and handed it to him.  He sat back down, hunched over my document, and spent 10 minutes shuffling between its pages.  What the hell he was looking for, I’ll never know.
“Can’t let you stay.  We don’t have a place for you here.”
I stood, stunned.  The beaten woman and her companions watched me and the cop like we were a tv show.  “Wellll” I drawled out “do you have any suggestions where I might be able to find some shelter, then?”
“Nope.”
I choked out a not-at-all-happy chuckle and stepped out to my cart.  I turned it, and was about to roll on away, and then stopped suddenly.  I just had to say something.
“You know what?” I called out to the cop and a couple of his buddies “I’ve been walking for over a year and a half (that’s of walking, for those of you saying “but wait, he’s been gone over 3 years!”) and in all of that time, in Argentina, Chilé, Bolivia, and now here, I have never, ever come upon a town like this, or a group of people like you, who would turn a traveler away to the rain and the night without even giving a shit.  Man, and I was beginning to think that Peruvians were going to prove to be the nicest, most generous people I’d so far met on my trip…but you sir” pointing at the lard assed man who’d so blithely me shut me out “you are a pathetic excuse for a public servant if that’s how you treat people.  You know, I just read that plaque on your wall, that one with the 10 expectations of a cop…and the first fucking one says ‘honor and strive to serve every citizen’…boy, you did one hell of a job with that one didn’t you?” 
I was ready to go on, I was on a roll.  A small crowd had formed to watch the gringo vent himself at the cops.  A lady, who’d stepped out of the municipality next door to the cop office asked me what was going on.  I told her, barely containing my frustration and sense of, well, almost helplessness that the police had refused to help me find a place to crash.  She grabbed her cell phone and said “Hold on, I’ll call the mayor, see if we can get you to stay in the courtyard here, under the awning.”  A sense of relief washed over me.  At last, I could just lie down and pass out for the night…tomorrow cusco!
She talked a moment or two on the phone, nodded and then hung up.  “I’m sorry” she said, looking a bit baffled “The mayor says that you can’t stay on our property.”
“Amazing.” I said.  “This is just fucking amazing.  Thank you ma’am, for your effort, but why in the name of all that is holy did I ever fucking step foot in this shithole of a town?”  The lady walked past me.  “Where is your boss?” she shouted at the cop that had said “no” to me.  A couple minutes later the chief came out…frankly, he looked like all the other cops; saggy-jowled, plump, and bloodshot-eyed.  The lady, who’s name I never caught, let him have it, telling him what a shame it was that a visitor to the town ever be treated like that.  The chief came up to me, shook my hand, and said “why don’t we go back to the hostel, the owner is a friend, and we’ll get him to charge you only 5 soles.
“I’m not going back there.” I said firmly.  “First, the man’s got no heart, secondly, we shared some unpleasant words with one another and I doubt he’ll want to have anything to do with me.”
The chief shook his head “Why did you talk to him like that?” 
I laughed.  “I’ve just walked for 12 hours, I’ve eaten very little all day, I’m exhausted, and the guy refused to bargain, even though he could see that I had no other options…you’re right sir, I should not have talked to him like that, I’m very much in the wrong.”  I didn’t care how thick my sarcasm was coming across.  The chief didn’t seem to notice, or decided not to.
“Well, you can sleep here in the office, I guess.” He said, motioning to a corner near the plank bench.
“I’m just tired enough to accept, but it makes me sick to think that I had to basically beg to get a roof.”
The chief nodded noncommittally and walked away.  I threw down my sleeping bag and lay myself in the horizontal for the night.  Not long after it began to rain in huge bucket loads.  And minutes after, a loud crash of breaking glass drew those in the office to the door.  Out in the plaza a couple of young drunks had broken bottles and were threatening one another with the jagged chunks still in their hands, lurching about and yelling obscenities.  The cops ran to get their night sticks, but before they could do anything, the two men fell into each other then to the ground where they wrestled over bits of broken glass.  Another drunk was pushing and yelling at the cop that had told me to hit the road.  I looked over at a man that was waiting in the office to be helped “quite a town you have here.” I said.  I returned to my bag and tried to sleep, my stomach grumbling angrily at the fact that a few chunks of bread were going to stand in for a dinner I just didn’t have the energy to cook.  As the night wore on, a string of people entered to register complaints, ask for help, or deny wrong doing.  The stories varied a bit, but the main theme for almost all them seemed to be alcohol, abuse, and theft. 
Oropesa, a sad town, indeed.  Finally, the day’s exhaustion drew me down into sleep and to the end of a Tale of Two Nights.