JIMBORED AND POSSE PRACTISE FOR THE INVASION OF CHILE – 2007 PART ONE

The year 2007 saw us comfortably living out life in retirement. My vague memories of work seemed far in the distant past. One longing memory, that remained, was of our times in Peru. Often, we reminisced about returning and seeking out further adventure in that enchanted land. We discussed some possibilities and two visions seemed to pop out at us. First, we had a yearning to see what had happened to the Project that we had both worked on, so many years before. We needed to see if our small contributions had resulted in anything worthwhile. And we needed to travel to the south of Peru and explore. We had been in northern Peru visiting with the Chimu, as well as, the Lord of Sipan. We had trekked eastward, into the Andes, looking for the Inca, lost cities and treasures. And we had also explored the beaches along the west coast. What remained? South to Tacna (and possibly Chile), was the answer. So with that settled, Deysi started putting it together.

As always, when she got into the planning stage of an excursion, she did not miss a detail. Hundreds of times she checked and double checked flights, ground transport and accommodations. Most of it with little input from JimboRed. After all, “wasn’t she the one that made me get out from under her feet and go do something?” I was now so busy, that I didn’t have time left to help her. I did, however, allow that if she put it all together, then I would make room in my hectic schedule to accompany her. I guess everyone knows about how well that went over. That is, IF, I even said it out loud. I find that with the passing of time, my memory makes me a lot more brave, in those past responses to Deysi. Now, I’m not really sure, if I ever said this stuff, or just wanted to say it?

As we tried to do, so many times in the past, our plan was for a winter vacation from here, and a summer one in Peru. It meant this time it would be a mid January to mid February break. I often neglect to mention, that during the planning phase of our adventures, Deysi’s younger sister Lalitas was on the ticketing end. She had worked for years as a travel agent in Edmonton, specializing in South American travel. Between the two of them, Deysi tracked down everything she wanted and then dissected every possible option for our travel. At the end Lalitas would book the flights. With Deysi on the case, what need was there for JimboRed being involved. None, right? And as usual, every arrangement was perfect.

Ok, I can now hear everyone groaning and saying, “come on you old fool, get on with it!” So, bright and early in mid January 2007, we found ourselves, once again in Peru. It always seemed that, once there, I could release the demands put on me, by the drudgery of my workload. I could shed the burdens of golf, dinosaur hunting, star gazing and photo shopping; and finally relax. Ol’ JimboRed was now ready to rock and roll. I did not feel old at all, and felt I still had the potential to create some serious trouble. On arrival, I’m jumping around waiting for the fun to start. As always we are armed with cameras, phones, and laptops.

Almost immediately on our arrival to Peru, we gathered up our posse, Coco and Reggie and embarked on a three day “practise” vacation. At this time “the posse” consisted of our nephew “Coco” (son of Deysi’s brother,Arnie, and Big Sole’) and his wife “Reggie”. Later, once, they had the twins, then our posse grew and they also came with us. Many times, over the years, they were our touring companions and guides when we travelled to Peru. They were always up for a good adventure. Our first stop on this trip, was a “test run” before embarking for Chile. It just so happened that it was on our favourite beach.

The trip to the beach is always an adventure. You leave Arequipa at about 9000 feet of elevation. Immediately after leaving the city you descend onto the Atacama Desert. The scenery changes very quickly. Arequipa is in a high arid mountain valley. There is a major river running thru it (about one block from the family home). Because of the very fertile soil and ancient Andean agricultural methods, the area in and around Arequipa is a lush green oasis. The city is quite large and at the time of this visit (2007), probably numbered around 3/4 of a million people. It was, and is, the second largest city in Peru, and for sure the largest city, to be found from Santiago in the south of Chile, to Lima in the middle of Peru. A distance of about 2500km or 1600 miles.

I guess my point is that once you leave this high, populated, oasis, you drop suddenly onto a hot, dry, barren desert. I’m saying that, this dramatic change, happens in less than 20 minutes. It is breathtaking! One minute you are in the hustle and bustle of this active city, and the next, you are in the solitude of the desert. And solitude it is. For hundreds and thousands of square miles from Chile all the way up to mid Peru, there is very little population. Every once in a while you might pass a valley, where a river cuts thru the desert, and there you will encounter a green strip of active farming. Then you might travel another 100 km’s before seeing another sign of an oasis. Of the Atacama Desert, itself, it has been said that it is one of the driest places on earth. In parts of it, no precipitation has been measured. EVER! Think about that for a minute.

So, with a practise trip in mind (before we took on Chile), we grabbed a few light bags and jumped in a hired car for a trip to the beach. We leave Arequipa, wind our way down from the mountains and onto the desert, for a straight run to the Pacific Ocean. The Atacama desert to me is enchanting. Nowhere in my youth had I ever had the chance to see a full on desert. For the most part, nearly everyone, I crossed this desert with, fell asleep shortly after hitting the long, straight highway to the ocean. Once outside of town and on the desert, the trip across took about one hour and 15 minutes. Just when you think you have seen all of the beauty you can take, you arrive at the edge of the escarpment.

This point signals the start of your descent down to the ocean. The drop over the escarpment and onto the beach is likely 1200 meters (or more). The distance to the Pacific from the top of the escarpment, is about 5 miles, as the condor flies. But it covers about 30 miles, twisting back and forth and around and down. Hairpin turns, switchbacks, edge of cliff thrillers, and a tunnel or two, fill this descent. It is treacherous. I don’t ever remember, many people sleeping on this part of the journey. Mostly everyone was holding onto something or someone, real tight. It also seemed as everyone had a brake pedal on the floor in front to them. All of us were helping the driver apply the brakes at each hairpin turn and every time we encountered oncoming traffic. Each and every time we descended from the desert to the ocean, I became very religious and mumbled a few prayers for our safety. And a couple more for a long life for our driver, whoever it was at the time.

This escarpment is amazing. It was as if someone had taken a knife and sliced off the end of the desert, about 4000 feet straight down onto the ocean. This geographical structure, accounts mainly for the lack of moisture on the desert. You see, the moisture laden winds blow in off the Pacific Ocean, and Humboldt Current. They then hit that knife sharp escarpment and have nowhere to go except for up. As they rise, they cool and drop all of their moisture on the narrow strip of land between the ocean and the base of the escarpment. Resulting in no moisture left by the time the air reaches the top of the escarpment and spills onto the desert. On the desert side the sparse inhabitants have more than 330 days each year of pure sunshine. The cloudy days do not bring rain and very little relief from the heat. As you descended towards the ocean, the increased humidity became evident. Almost every time, before we reached the bottom, we had to pass thru a heavy fog layer. This, inevitably caused a new round of crosses and whispered prayers.

Often when we returned to Peru, we would visit our favorite beach. It was about a two hour drive, from Deysi’s hometown of Arequipa. Our beach was just before the Port city of Mollendo, Peru. I might be a bit biased, but to me it was and is the most beautiful (small) beach in the world. It is called Playa Catarindo. The water is cool and crystal clear, fed by the Humboldt Current. There are about 100 umbrellas set in straight rows on the beach. There are some great food kiosks as well as a full service sit-down restaurant. We rented our umbrella, stretched out and I let my thoughts drift to earlier times. I can easily remember 10 times from the past when we spent a weekend, just lying there, having a picnic, and showing off my pure white skin to the admiring locals. This time was no different. I still had that pure white body, except now it drooped and sagged in places.

It is funny, but when I look back at all the places we have been, and sights we have seen, that this simple beach in southern Peru is what sticks in my mind. Some of my happiest times were here, with Deysi and whichever part of the family accompanied us on each of our weekend getaways and various holidays. We came here with friends from work. We also came alone from time to time, just to enjoy each other. On this particular occasion we came to revisit some of the places we had been around, those many years earlier. Momentous events had taken place in this very area. For example, one time, despite Deysi’s warnings, I got a sunburn so bad, that I truly thought the end was near. There was not one square centimetre of skin on my body that did not sting or itch like being staked out on an ant hill. This despite lying under an umbrella. Seems like the sun’s rays were no less effective on gringo skin, even when reflected off the water and under the umbrella cover.

By the time we had returned to our camp high in the Andes, I had turned into one major blister. I somewhat resembled a water balloon with legs. I must say, I whined and cried so much that Desyi, just kept feeding me alcohol to shut me up. Here I am a bit confused, but I think it helped, although I can’t remember. Once back up in the camp, another visit to Deysi’s “Ex” (our company doctor) was needed. You could see the glee on his little face as he took a big white terrycloth towel and proceeded to scrub the blister from my back. I almost bit my tongue in half to keep from crying like a baby in front of this deranged doctor. Or the time Deysi’s sister Lupe got an ear ache, in the middle of the night. It was so intense, that no matter how brave she was, it still necessitated a few hours in the emergency room in Mollendo. Somehow, I remember sitting in the emergency room there, as being just about as much fun as sitting in one in Canada.

Another time, on their first trip to the beach, Deysi’s sisters (aged 8, 10, 13 years old then) accompanied us. As we rounded the corner just before Mollendo, Deysi told them to hold their breath. She explained that they were about to experience the most wonderful smell of the ocean. “Hold it, Hold it”, she exhorted! And then “NOW, NOW, TAKE IN THE WONDERFUL SMELL!” This just as we passed the front doors of the local “fish meal” manufacturing facility. The gagging, dry heaves, and loud retching were something to behold. For anyone that has never smelled this particular odour, I believe it is truly one of the worst manmade smells ever invented.

We stayed in a local hotel in the nearby city of Mollendo. It was a one storey concrete structure build around an inner courtyard. I struggle to remember the details, although I do remember that it was fairly clean and acceptable. The hotel on the promenade in Mollendo, where we always stayed, in the past, had long since, been demolished and no longer existed. We were forced to find an alternate hotel. It was not downtown, but located some blocks north of city centre. We spent some time wandering around the centre of Mollendo, reliving our glory days of the past. Our posse, accompanied us and pretended that my unending stories did not bore them to death.

Mollendo of itself, was a very interesting place. It became a city in the mid 1800’s, although it existed from the time of the Inca. I think it was a guy named Capac, son of an Inca, that brought 20,000 warriors down from Cusco (hundreds of years before) and conquered the whole coast of Peru. Including this area around Mollendo. It is widely believed that the warriors of the Inca could bring fresh fish from this area, and by a system of way stations, using their top couriers (or relay runners), could run the fish up over the Andes and into Cusco while it was still fresh enough for the Inca to dine on. I expect it was true; just because of the many wonders these people left behind. I just quit saying “I don’t think so”, and became a believer in whatever they said.

In the 1800’s, Mollendo’s main purpose was as a Port and railhead for shipments into Arequipa, as well as, the rest of Peru. In those days minerals such as sodium nitrate, which was mined in the south, guano (bird crap used in explosive and fertilizers), fish and crops such as corn, potatoes and fruit were common cargos. It rapidly grew and a military presence was established there. The city is unique in Peru, in that the building and housing construction mostly consisted of wood frame. This in the land of rocks, bricks, mud and concrete. To see wooden construction in a place where there are few trees was unusual..

The start, of the end, came for Mollendo when they found themselves invaded by Chile in the late 1870’s. The Chilean forces attacked Mollendo because of its good rail links to the rest of Peru and supply chain potential. At that time there was a military force of about 100 Peruvian naval personnel, who quickly retreated south to avoid being overwhelmed by the many times greater Chilean navy. The Chileans promptly ripped up the railhead, tore up the tracks and generally made a fine mess of the harbour facilities. Unfortunately Mollendo never recovered its full potential after that point. The rail link was repaired to Arequipa, however, new and better shipping points were found to cover the north of Peru. The south of Peru was sliced off and incorporated into Chile. So that market was also gone. I’m not going to dwell on the issues with Chile, in this article, but you better believe, we are going down there soon to see what we can find out.

There still remained some markets for Mollendo to collect and to ship too. The city continued, on a more moderate scale until the 1960’s when a new deep port at Matarani was developed. That basically was the death knell for Mollendo’s shipping industry. From that point on it became a local port for fishing boats and local goods. There also remained in the later years a Saturday train from Arequipa, returning to Arequipa on Sundays. We never had the opportunity to ride it, but I do believe it would have been a great trip. At some point, in the later years, say 1970’s and 1980’s Mollendo was quite popular as a retreat for the rich and famous from Arequipa. Many owned summer homes there. At the time of this visit, the city was starting to clean things up, modernize the beachfront and cater to tourists. Along the beachfront, many new eating establishments had been added. There was a new swimming pool, 2 or 3 fronton courts, and a couple of fulbito pitches (6 a side soccer on a half size field).

We snooped around Mollendo on the second morning and then hailed a taxi to take us a few miles south of the city to a beach town called Mejia. The reason for this visit to Mejia was, that when Desyi and I were first married in 1978, we spent our first Christmas break, with all the family, in Mejia. We rented a big cliffside home and brought everyone to the beach for Christmas and New Years. Over the years, we had a longing to return to the place where we had so much fun. Finally we decided to quit talking about it and just go see, where our history together really got started.

Stories of Mejia grew. From a very small beach side village, in 1978, It now seemed as if most of the medical professionals, and their families, from Arequipa, had established their summer homes here. It was strange, but although you could see Mejia, in the distance, down the coastline, we had never actually visited it, since our first Christmas there. We decided to go see what the hype was all about. I, also, had another memory when I looked south down the coast and could faintly see the outline of Mejia in the distance. In our early days of dating in 1978, I remember going to the beach with Deysi. She made us drive well past Mejia, before letting my Snow White body out of the car to lay on a deserted beach with no one in sight. I guess she just wanted me all to herself!

We flagged down a taxi and within minutes, he had dropped us in the centre of Mejia. I might say that the drive along the coast, was pretty spectacular. The escarpment, that held the Atacama Desert from pouring into the Pacific was about 3 miles from the coast. This narrow strip of land was very green and bursting with vegetation. There were all kinds of fields, such as banana plantations, cane crops, fruit, vegetables of all varieties, dairy cattle, huge chicken farms, as well as some very nice ranch houses. Mejia, itself, was a small seaside town, with maybe 1000 permanent inhabitants in the winter, and possibly, 4,000 in the summer! It was also a mix of wooden frame construction, and bricks and mortar. The centre of part of town on the highway, was fairly old, probably dating back to the 1950’s or earlier.

We spent a part of the day searching around the town, we walked the street where Deysi and I had spent a wonderful Christmas almost 30 years before. Soon exploring gave way to the lure of the sand and ocean. We gravitated to a spot where we could rent Umbrellas and an awning, along with beach chairs. The passage of time was evident. In the past, I would not have set one minute before ordering some beer, and then running headlong into the surf. Now I just kind of sat back and let the young ones break the surf. I was more interested in finding out what was for lunch. And the lunch was spectacular! They brought us plates full of fresh caught and cooked calamari, and fish, heaped on top of a kilo of fresh cut Peruvian “papas fritas”, right to where we sat.

A few last memories of our trip to the beach, and training, for our upcoming invasion of Chile, and then I will wrap this long and tedious narrative up. When we entered the beach area at Mejia, the first thing that jumped out at us, was a new and modern Beach Club for the summer inhabitants of this area. It was truly remarkable. This, members only, club, had pools, restaurants, a small golf course, stables, volleyball courts and soccer pitches. It just seemed, to me, that if I made all of the effort to get to the beach, in one of the prettiest places in Peru, then I would have a hard time spending my days behind a big wall with guards. It kind of seemed to defeat the purpose of the beach.

We spent and idyllic day on this beach. It brought back so many memories for Deysi and I. Our companions were not yet born, or at least were very tiny when we visited here 30 years previously. At a certain point, loaded with sun, sand and food we decided to make our way back to Mollendo. We had been told to just get back to the main road thru town and there would be taxi after taxi to take us back. Famous last words right? We waited, waited and waited some more. It might have been like a miracle, but not one taxi went thru that town in over an hour. It had never happened before, nor since! Eventually, with everyone growing grouchy, except me, Deysi and Reggie went into a local restaurant and convinced the owner to get his car out and drive us back. I am done, now off to Chile, stay tuned.