Great Festival of the Summer Solstice
It occurred to me that in this town of two thousand there is no significant income gap. There are the laborers with hand tools and a load on their backs, and the owners of the stores and lodgings with their own cars, but walk the streets and the houses are all pretty much the same mud brick and field stone - none of them rise above the others, boasting of HDTV, jacuzzis, roombas, or a staff of servants.
There is a little cluster of houses visible on a hillside north of town, though, and I thought the well-to-do might live there, so I took a morning walk. A very pretty one into greenery, sunup, and birdsong.
It started out cobblestone, turned to concrete, then to dirt road, and stayed dirt past the little neighborhood, which turned out to be the same as the rest, a campesino vecinidad. It was a pleasant walk so I kept on; and around a bend, at the very top of the valley, was the finca, the estate.
I counted, in the distance, 28 windows along the front face of light chocolate stucco, and there were two or three more tiled roofs and other sides; it isn't an apartment complex or a hotel, it is a residence, set against lush green mountain slopes and overlooking prosperous fields of maize and grain. The gate, a double wooden door in neat stone pylons, faced the dirt road and opened to a grassy stone track a couple hundred meters long to a twin gate at the manor itself. I walked the mud road on by above; there is no other access.
Some great owner lives there. They get in and out by a grassy trail, unless they have a helipad up there. The surrounding scenery is the most idyllic, the most edenic I've seen in Peru - a wider range of forest flora, an arcadian paradise.
So there is your gap; off by itself, one family. If I lived here long enough someone would tell me who they are.
Today is the Inca celebration of the summer solstice, Capac Raymi, the Great Festival. It was their biggest holiday, the state gave everybody five days off with free food, drink, and dazzling ceremony. Modern Peru pretty much ignores this fiesta in favor of the winter solstice, Inti Raymi, into which they pour a lot of phony Inca tourist stuff - I can spot like four or five really obvious blunders in their production, the worst of which is the Inca himself in all his long-haired bravissimo. The Incas cut their hair above their ears; it was part of the symbology of royalty, and showed off their huge golden earplugs, another badge of superiority. They should know that.
But on this day, the youth of the empire became adults, and earned their grownup names. The boys competed in a grueling footrace through the highlands outside Cusco. And throughout the Tawantinsuyu, the Four Regions, the common folk would would be treated to a golden and feathered panoply of the might of the empire and the glory of the gods.
Actually, they got about a hundred days a year off at government expense; about what we do. Plus entertainment and refreshments. They could envy only the French.
Now I'll go out and see if this town gives any recognition to Capac Raymi. And, I spied some ruins to the east yet to see.
Nope, oblivious. Took a walk along a trail to the last of the ruins I know about, and selfie in front of a handsome gateway that may and may not have been originally inca - the INC, Instituto Nacional de Cultura I think I told you, is so good at faking inca stuff it gets hard to tell. In the plaza a long-hair local tried with an obsequious air not entirely consonant with the somewhat truculent "excuse me, can I pass" in the square a few minutes earlier, to sell me some CDs of authentic Andean music. I asked him in spanish how many notes in the inca system of music and he said, wait, let me remember, but he could't; answer: five. And no stringed instruments. Well, I'll get over it. That Peru has not made a national holiday of my cumpleaños.
Time now to take photos for local color, not to record archaeology. Of people. I'm shy about that though, I don't know how they feel about it. I remember french youths on the metro mocking my cell cam with some hostility. But people are what make a good picture. That will be my mission for the next couple days. I have seen so many I'd like to memorialize. Though, in general, I don't like to suffocate immediate experience with the camera. It is always a relief when I feel I've done with data collection and can just breathe in the vicinity.
A fair amount of day left, and it's warm now. I've got my strength back, what there is of it, and probably more, I'm doing a lot of walking compared to normal life. I have just projected myself into each of you, into what you may be doing now, and I deeply wish you well.
Later...
The manor house. Forget it.
Long ago in Ecuador I saw two young guys on a bench silently watching the Marias, the young girls in maid's uniforms going to work; two cute ones passed, and one of the guys said to the other, "Pura fantasma." Pure fantasy.
Well, that's what my take on the big house was; pure fantasy. I took my laptop to the smart son, with googlemaps zoomed to Ollantaytambo, showed him a satview of that big estate, and learned that it is an unfinished hotel. That's all. Not a great family hacienda. Just a story I told myself. Like most of life.
*Note to spanish speakers: it should read, pura fantasia," pure fantasy, but what I heard was pura fantasma so that's what I'll report
It occurred to me that in this town of two thousand there is no significant income gap. There are the laborers with hand tools and a load on their backs, and the owners of the stores and lodgings with their own cars, but walk the streets and the houses are all pretty much the same mud brick and field stone - none of them rise above the others, boasting of HDTV, jacuzzis, roombas, or a staff of servants.
There is a little cluster of houses visible on a hillside north of town, though, and I thought the well-to-do might live there, so I took a morning walk. A very pretty one into greenery, sunup, and birdsong.
It started out cobblestone, turned to concrete, then to dirt road, and stayed dirt past the little neighborhood, which turned out to be the same as the rest, a campesino vecinidad. It was a pleasant walk so I kept on; and around a bend, at the very top of the valley, was the finca, the estate.
I counted, in the distance, 28 windows along the front face of light chocolate stucco, and there were two or three more tiled roofs and other sides; it isn't an apartment complex or a hotel, it is a residence, set against lush green mountain slopes and overlooking prosperous fields of maize and grain. The gate, a double wooden door in neat stone pylons, faced the dirt road and opened to a grassy stone track a couple hundred meters long to a twin gate at the manor itself. I walked the mud road on by above; there is no other access.
Some great owner lives there. They get in and out by a grassy trail, unless they have a helipad up there. The surrounding scenery is the most idyllic, the most edenic I've seen in Peru - a wider range of forest flora, an arcadian paradise.
So there is your gap; off by itself, one family. If I lived here long enough someone would tell me who they are.
Today is the Inca celebration of the summer solstice, Capac Raymi, the Great Festival. It was their biggest holiday, the state gave everybody five days off with free food, drink, and dazzling ceremony. Modern Peru pretty much ignores this fiesta in favor of the winter solstice, Inti Raymi, into which they pour a lot of phony Inca tourist stuff - I can spot like four or five really obvious blunders in their production, the worst of which is the Inca himself in all his long-haired bravissimo. The Incas cut their hair above their ears; it was part of the symbology of royalty, and showed off their huge golden earplugs, another badge of superiority. They should know that.
But on this day, the youth of the empire became adults, and earned their grownup names. The boys competed in a grueling footrace through the highlands outside Cusco. And throughout the Tawantinsuyu, the Four Regions, the common folk would would be treated to a golden and feathered panoply of the might of the empire and the glory of the gods.
Actually, they got about a hundred days a year off at government expense; about what we do. Plus entertainment and refreshments. They could envy only the French.
Now I'll go out and see if this town gives any recognition to Capac Raymi. And, I spied some ruins to the east yet to see.
Nope, oblivious. Took a walk along a trail to the last of the ruins I know about, and selfie in front of a handsome gateway that may and may not have been originally inca - the INC, Instituto Nacional de Cultura I think I told you, is so good at faking inca stuff it gets hard to tell. In the plaza a long-hair local tried with an obsequious air not entirely consonant with the somewhat truculent "excuse me, can I pass" in the square a few minutes earlier, to sell me some CDs of authentic Andean music. I asked him in spanish how many notes in the inca system of music and he said, wait, let me remember, but he could't; answer: five. And no stringed instruments. Well, I'll get over it. That Peru has not made a national holiday of my cumpleaños.
Time now to take photos for local color, not to record archaeology. Of people. I'm shy about that though, I don't know how they feel about it. I remember french youths on the metro mocking my cell cam with some hostility. But people are what make a good picture. That will be my mission for the next couple days. I have seen so many I'd like to memorialize. Though, in general, I don't like to suffocate immediate experience with the camera. It is always a relief when I feel I've done with data collection and can just breathe in the vicinity.
A fair amount of day left, and it's warm now. I've got my strength back, what there is of it, and probably more, I'm doing a lot of walking compared to normal life. I have just projected myself into each of you, into what you may be doing now, and I deeply wish you well.
Later...
The manor house. Forget it.
Long ago in Ecuador I saw two young guys on a bench silently watching the Marias, the young girls in maid's uniforms going to work; two cute ones passed, and one of the guys said to the other, "Pura fantasma." Pure fantasy.
Well, that's what my take on the big house was; pure fantasy. I took my laptop to the smart son, with googlemaps zoomed to Ollantaytambo, showed him a satview of that big estate, and learned that it is an unfinished hotel. That's all. Not a great family hacienda. Just a story I told myself. Like most of life.
*Note to spanish speakers: it should read, pura fantasia," pure fantasy, but what I heard was pura fantasma so that's what I'll report
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