This is a continuation of the Cusco Day 1 post, but that post was getting long and this is quite the story, so I am making it seperate. Please check out the Cusco Day 1 post again, as I added more information.
So, I was picked up by the Agency from my hostal around 9:30 and we drove around and met some other people as well. We then went to a plaza where many more people were waiting to go on our trek. The trek included: Claire and Johnny from Ireland, Alex and Me from the the United States, Sarah and Ronco from the Netherlands, Yanca and Henning from Germany, and a family of 5 from Denmark. It was quite the representation from the developed world.
After a few problems and trying to negotiate prices on sleeping bags and trying to settle some confusions we were off to our first camping site. We were driving along outside of Cusco when suddenly there are massive rocks on the road. These were the road blocks that the Agency was talking about. Come to find out that the protests in Cusco and these protests were related. The native farmers of Peru all own their own land and basically farm for subsistance, or for their own needs. This happened when in their history a leftist government took all the land away from some form of plantations where the native people worked and redistrubted it to the native peoples who could not produce enough to export for profit and they became terribly inefficient. At the time the plantations ran the show they basically used the natives as ´slaves´ but they did get a wage, just a very small one. This land redistribution was liked by the natives. Currently, the Peruvian government is talking about redistributing the land again, but this time away from the natives in the hope that they can become more productive, export more products, and become more wealthy as a country. (I just have to put a plug in, this exactly the economics stuff I study in International Economics and will study in Growth and Development Economics, so this experience, while a little scary was very educational.) The reason they blocked the roads is because everything basically comes to standstill in the country because they use their roads so heavily, also the tourists are the ones who bring the most money to the country, so if you stop the tourists, it gets reactions from many of the government officials and the people of Peru in general.
Going back to the rocks. We would try to take our van and go around the rocks as much as possible. At one point our drivers and guides got out of the van to move rocks from the street. When they did so and we started going through the rock barriers, people came running out of the fields to try and stop our van, but we got away.
At another block there were not only rocks but people standing on the road. Our driver stopped quite aways away from the block and went to negotiate with them. The guides and driver ended up bribing the people to move out of the way with Soles, the local currency, and by lying to them saying that we were a local van with locals in it. The people moved out of the road and clear a path from the rocks, but as we were driving through the natives were yelling... they a locals they lied to us, and the driver hit the gas and we got away.
At another block there was a fire in the middle of the road with a huge tree laying across the road as the fire was engulfing the tree. We drove around the tree on the shoulder of the road.
Somewhere in between all these road blocks we saw a government semi tractor trailor come with a huge bulldozer on it because they were going to remove the rocks from the road. It didn´t help.
At the last block we got to there was a group of women and children who would not let us pass. The driver and guide tried to negotiate with them for probably a half hour, but they refused to let us pass. Instead they said that we could stay in their village for the night and spend the day visiting an Incan ruin that was above their village. A little strange, but that is what we did. We popped our tents in the village and slept the night. We probably arrived at this village at 12:30 or 1am. So the adventure had begun with a bang. I slept in a tent with the American, Alex, who was 21 and spending some time in South America because he took a year off from school to visit the world--- or South America I guess.
It was quite the adventure.
2 comments:
Well, the BBC has a different reason for the strikes in Peru. Here is the link. I still think the land reform was probably part of it as well.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6899331.stm
This is from the Miami Herald. It gives a pretty good insight into the protests as well.
Thousands protest economic policy in Peru
By CARLA SALAZAR
Associated Press Writer
LIMA, Peru -- Tens of thousands of union workers took to the streets across Peru on Wednesday to protest rising food and fuel prices they blame on the free market policies of President Alan Garcia.
Nine police officers were wounded after protesters attacked them with sticks in the village of Puerto Maldonado in the remote jungle department of Madre de Dios, state news agency Andina reported.
Protesters in the same town also set a fire that destroyed a regional government office, Cabinet chief Jorge del Castillo told reporters.
Peruvian media estimated that across the country, more than 30,000 members of the General Confederation of Workers heeded the call for the national strike. In Lima, some 6,000 people filled a central plaza for a noisy pot-banging protest.
Authorities did not give crowd estimates.
Gen. Octavio Salazar, head of the national police, said 216 people were arrested nationwide.
Transportation workers did not strike, but protesters blockaded key roadways with rocks. Rail service to the famed Inca citadel Machu Picchu was suspended Tuesday and Wednesday because of safety concerns related to the strike, train operator PeruRail said.
Garcia said the protests represented only a small sector of society and did not have a major impact.
"The population has shown that it didn't have ... the will to leave the country paralyzed," he said in a televised address.
Peru's economy has surged since Garcia took office in 2006, with growth hitting 9 percent last year and projected to be 8 percent in 2008.
But many of Peru's poor say they haven't seen any benefits from the boom.
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