Trail of Feathers (8 page)

Thanking Manolo for his invitation, I accepted. When he leapt from the bus at the small town of Pati, with his box of
cuy
cradled in his arms, I too descended.

The village itself was reached after hours of hitching rides. Manolo helped me into the back of a lorry carrying melons. As we fishtailed our way north, up a narrow track, he told me about his guinea pigs.

‘They’re the finest
cuy
in all Peru,’ he said. ‘I bought them from a
campesino
, a farm worker, near Puno. We’ll snap their necks, marinate them overnight, and fry them on a hot griddle,’ Manolo rubbed his palms together indicating great heat. ‘Cuy
chactado,’
he said. ‘It’s my family’s favourite.’

The melon truck dropped us on the outskirts of a small mining community. We must have made an incongruous couple: Manolo with his guinea pigs, and me staggering under so much luggage.

Festivities were well under way. The main street was criss-crossed with banners. An inexhaustible supply of old men lounged on their verandas swigging
chicha
, in honour of their ancestors. Their wives were snapping the fragile necks of
cuy
, slicing potatoes and preparing
estofado
, a thick chicken stew. The early evening air was live with music: the sound of flutes, trumpets, drums and, of course, the sound of
quenas
.

Manolo took me to his house and introduced his family. His wife, four children, two aunts and grandmother shared the modest three-room shack. No one appeared surprised that a stranger had been invited at the last minute. The best chair was dusted down and placed in the shade for my comfort. Refreshments were brought out. Then Manolo quizzed his wife about the
Yawar
. When she had reported the details, he touched a hand to his heart and thanked God.

‘Te lo dije
, I told you!’ he exclaimed. ‘A magnificent condor has been lured by the fresh horse meat. We haven’t caught one for three years, and so there was great anticipation’

Manolo gulped his drink. Like everyone in the village, he could hardly contain his excitement.

Yawar Fiesta
, ‘Festival of Blood’, has been practised for at least four hundred years in southern Peru. The festival is as popular now as ever, an indication that political correctness hasn’t yet reached the Andes. A celebration, held in small towns and villages on the
Altiplano
, it honours the condor, the king of all birds.

Each year the ritual is the same. First a team of hunters go high into the hills in search of a condor. They abstain from cigarettes and drink as the great birds have a keen sense of smell. When they have come to a spot frequented by condors, they slaughter a pony by strangling it. Offerings are sprinkled around its body. The hunters pray to God to send down a condor. Then they hide among the surrounding rocks, and wait. Sometimes, days pass before a condor lands to feast on the pony’s flesh. All the while the hunters chant prayers and fill their minds with pure thoughts. Some years no condor descends, and the hunters return to their village with their egos bruised. In a good year, if the condor lands, it gorges itself on the fresh horse meat. With a full gizzard, the bird attempts to fly. But having eaten too much it’s unable to take off. Choosing their moment, the hunters strike. Throwing a poncho over the bird, they trap it, and tie its feet together. They would never harm it, for to do so would be an act of sacrilege. Overwhelmed with joy, the hunters embrace their quarry, and toast its health with
chicha
. They return homeward, with the bird wrapped tight in a blanket.

As the party returns to the village, trumpets resound, celebrating the capture of the condor. It’s taken away and plied with more food and
chicha
. By the day of independence it’s ready for the extraordinary festival.

Manolo drank all evening and by midnight he was very drunk indeed. He had made sure the
cuy
were marinated in his secret sauce, and that his wife had pressed his best clothes for the next day. I suggested we go to sleep. Fighting to stand upright, he smacked his hands together.

‘How can a man sleep,’ he roared, ‘when there is still
chicha
to be drunk?’

The central square was packed with people even before the band arrived. No one wanted to miss out on the best seating or, worse still, to miss the main spectacle. They all knew that the
Yawar Fiesta
comes at most only once a year. I heard the crackle of maize roasting on low charcoal stalls, and saw hawkers with barrows of pastries, ripe oranges, and skewers of beef heart ready to be sold. On every wall children were in position, their short legs dangling down, gob-stoppers rattling in their mouths. The old women, dressed in their finery, were fanning themselves with their bowlers. Laughter rang through the plaza like the click of castanets.

Manolo wasn’t going to let the temperature or a hangover spoil his fun. It was a baking afternoon, in the high 80s, but he wanted everyone to see him in his best clothes. The flaps of his collar stuck out over a green mohair sweater, on top of which he wore a woollen peacoat. Beads of perspiration merged into droplets on his forehead, before cascading down his face. He greeted old friends, bragged about the
cuy
he’d brought from Puno, and drank toasts to the Festival of Blood.

From the distance came the piercing sound of a piccolo. Then the thunder of a bass drum, trumpets, and cymbals cracking like gunfire. The bandsmen in their tight woollen caps and matching ponchos swaggered towards the plaza. A hundred feet kicked the dust as they danced, hips hula-hooping and hands clapping, as they heralded the arrival of the show.

Following behind the musicians were a mass of revellers, coaxed into hysteria by a cocktail of adrenaline and drink. Among them, its immense ten-foot wings held outstretched, its beak bound with twine, was the condor. Black in colour, with an ivory ruff and blush pink head, the bird was guest of honour. With the horde pressed into the far corner of the plaza, the serious business of
Yawar
could commence.

A young bull, unable to move in its tiny pen, was readied for
la corrida de toros
, the fight. A sackcloth saddle was fixed to its back as hands taunted it through the bars. When the saddle was tight, the condor was harnessed to the bull’s back. Facing forwards, its feet were sewn into the cloth.

Only then, as the band’s cacophony ranted around us, did the free-for-all begin. The gate to the pen was hauled aside and the bucking-bronco ran wild. On its back, writhing like a phantom from the limits of Hell, was the condor. As the bull lunged through the plaza, the bird’s tremendous wings heaved up and down, desperate for flight, its beak tearing into the beast’s back. Would-be matadors, their courage bolstered by drink, stumbled into the square, only to be stampeded one by one. In the frenzy of wings and hooves, bovine and bird blended into a single creature from Greek mythology. Neither seemed to cherish the performance, a fusion of two traditions. The bull symbolises the power of the Conquistadors, and the condor the might of a proud native people.

When the fantasy was at an end, the animals were cut apart. A bowl of
chicha
was placed at the condor’s beak, and the bull was pushed back into its enclosure. A group of mauled matadors swapped tales of their bravery, and tight-fitting shoes danced once again in the plaza’s dust. Then, with the band romping triumphantly through the streets, the bird was dragged to the edge of the village. Twisting its neck back in horror as it glimpsed the crowd, the condor thrust its mighty wings and soared up into the steel-blue sky.

*

Another cramped long distance bus whirred west towards Arequipa. Up on the roof a herd of sheep were balancing alongside the bags, their feet trussed, their faces rapt with alarm. They bleated, but no one was listening. Below, in the cabin, a demonic figure with gritted teeth crooned over the controls. Like a schoolboy piloting a make-believe Zero fighter, he mimicked the clatter of gunfire. The bus swerved left, then right and left again, the driver spinning the wheel recklessly through his muscular hands.

In the belly of the bus a little girl had spewed orange jelly down the aisle. The man beside me, a clone of Manolo, slapped his knee. Was he angry at the pools of amber vomit? With the glint of a gold tooth, he laughed at my question. A child is
el fruto de la inocencia
, the fruit of innocence, he said.

As we jerked about, I found myself thinking about
Yawar Fiesta
. If the root of the festival was a love for the great bird, why expose it to such torture? The only parallel I could think of was
lomante
, the Ainu Bear Festival. The Ainu, the original people of Japan, loved bears beyond all other creatures. They considered them to be mothers of the Earth, venerating them just as the Andeans do the condor. In the early spring a male bear cub would be caught in the mountains. It was taken to the village, kept in a small cage, and fed on delicious morsels. If it was too young for solid food, an Ainu woman would suckle it. The little bear was given as much as he could eat, to fatten him up. When mid-winter arrived, and his pelt was thick, he was taken from the cage.

The villagers declared their love for the little bear, praising him as a god. They placed him beside their altar and worshipped him. Then, one at a time, they would shoot blunt arrows at him with their bows, wounding him. Death was agonising and slow to come. Once dead, the bear cub was the focus of a midnight ceremony. Its brain, tongue and eyeballs were hacked from the skull and adorned with flowers. And, as they celebrated the bear’s beauty, the Ainu feasted on its meat.

Back on the bus, the driving was getting worse. We veered to the left, round a hairpin. I joked to the man beside me that the driver must have been a
kamikaze
pilot in a former life. Another retch of jelly came and went. Then, as we strained to sit upright, the driver aimed the vehicle at an upcoming slope and banged in the clutch. Never before have I experienced such propulsion. On the roof the sheep must have been fumbling to escape. Inside, the rows of passengers blurred together. I snapped for air, my diaphragm distending, my cheeks pushed back by gravitational force.

A drop of three thousand feet sheered away to the right. We might have sailed over the edge, but the road and the bus swerved left in the nick of time. Gradually, the bus came to a halt and the driver stood up. Removing his Fedora, he passed it back, mumbling. The starched hat was handed from one to the next. As it made its way round the bus, even the poorest passengers tossed something in. I was unsure what the levy was for, but even so I threw in a few
céntimos
. It was given back to the driver. He climbed down from the cab. Facing the precipice, he crossed himself, kissed his knuckle, and hurled the contents of his Fedora over the cliff.

Unfamiliar with the tradition, I quizzed the man beside me.

‘Es para los martires
, it’s for the martyrs,’ he said.

*

The White City, as Arequipa is known, nestles at the foot of the snow-capped volcano, El Misti. The peak reminded me more than a little of Mount Fuji, and a year I spent starving on the streets of the Japanese capital: the bad old days, kept alive by a diet of ornamental cabbages, stolen from Ueno Park. But Peru’s second city couldn’t have been more different from Tokyo except, that is, for its fear of earthquakes. Its low buildings were constructed from sillar, a local pumice the colour of bleached whale bones.

Arequipe
ñ
as had the time to be sophisticated. They sat in cafés off Plaza de Armas, discussing politics, reading the papers, having their shoes shined. Gone was the scruffy, honest clothing of the Andes. Gone, too, were the dark, furrowed foreheads, born of worry and overwork.

The manager of Hotel El Conquistador offered me a room for a third of the normal price. In many countries I would think twice about turning up at a deluxe hotel and offering a pittance for the best quarters. But in Peru, where wheeler-dealing dies hard, ruthless bargaining is expected. I asked the manager if he’d heard of a local man who was building a glider. He nodded earnestly.

‘Si, si Senor!' 
he clamoured. ‘Everyone knows Carlos. I will telephone him for you.’

Once my bags had been dragged to the room by the manager’s son, I inspected the bathroom for spiders. I never quite understood why, but Peruvian bathrooms were awash with them. In one hotel, a cleaner told me they came up from the sewers.

For an hour I waited for the telephone to ring. It did not. There was a delicate tap at the door. I opened it. In its frame was standing a lanky young man with pale skin, sullen eyes, and a mole on his cheek. He looked Russian. He said that his name was Fernando and that Senor Carlos had sent him to collect me. His master was, he confirmed, building a traditional glider. But, he went on in a gravelly voice, his real passion was bringing Juanita back. ‘Who’s Juanita?’

Fernando smiled nervously at my lack of knowledge. ‘Juanita, the ice woman,’ he said.

Once aboard his dilapidated red Lada, Fernando insisted on telling me all he knew about Juanita and the campaign to save her. The story began in 1995 when the mummified body of a young Incan girl was discovered on Mount Ampato, not far from Arequipa. The girl, who was entombed in a block of ice, was thought to have been sacrificed to the mountain spirits, some five centuries before. But no sooner had her mantle of ice been chipped away than Juanita, as she became known, became a political hot potato. Like a rock star hurled into the big league at a tender age, Juanita began her world tour. For three years she criss-crossed the United States, shuttled about in a giant deep freeze. At an engagement in Connecticut she was even presented to President Clinton. She was currently appearing at venues across Japan.

‘Arequipe
ñ
as have had no opportunity to enjoy their mummy,’ said Fernando dolefully. ‘We don’t understand why she’s in Japan … we want her back!’

The scarlet Lada rumbled east from Arequipa, towards El Misti. The fields, terraced by the Incas centuries before, were thick with garlic. Crooked
viejitas
, old women, were busy with bringing in the crop, wide hats shielding them from the winter sun. Fernando explained how the soil was suited well to the cochineal cacti as well as garlic. The female cochineal beetles, he said, are brushed from the cacti and pulverised. It takes seventy thousand of them to make a pound of the red dye.