Our Lord of the Earthquakes

by Hugh Thomson, Harpers & Queen Magazine, February 2001

There is a second wave of travel beginning in Peru. Now that nearly half a million visitors a year pass through the gates at Machu Picchu, attention is turning to some of the country’s other, more hidden attractions and in particular the complex interlacing of Incaic and Spanish colonial traditions that make up the Peruvian psyche. Nowhere can this be better seen that during the Easter week processions that take place throughout Southern Peru.

Semana Santa, Holy Week, began for me on Palm Sunday, as a wedding couple emerged from the church at Chincheros accompanied by a blaze of trumpets and a cloud of confetti. The blue and red paper strips drifted in the wind and settled on the telluric faces of the campesinos and market ladies who had clustered in the porch to follow the couple as they processed down to the parish registry office, many clutching bunches of palm leaves from the earlier church service.

Chincheros was originally settled by Topa Inca, one of the great expansionist Incas who pushed the empire on up into Ecuador, and built a moya here, a pleasure complex where he could retreat from the Inca capital Cuzco and affairs of state. The church square still rests on a retaining wall of massive polygonal stones built in the classic Inca fashion, with trapezoidal niches, and at first sight it might appear as if the Spanish had simply built over an existing Inca building. But in fact both church and wall were probably built at the same time, in the later sixteenth century after the Conquest, for the Spanish appreciated the brilliance of the Inca masons much more than is ever acknowledged (however much we like to think of them as brutal conquistadores) and appropriated many of their styles into their own buildings.

Chincheros is a centre for weavings and down in the market the cochineal-dyed red of the traditional fabrics were easy to spot amongst the tatty synthetic garments and alpaca smocks also on offer. I am personally not much given to anything that smacks of ‘handicrafts’, but the traditional weavings of the Andes belong to an all together different category: in a culture that famously never evolved a system of writing, weavings were a way of communicating and acquired a value far beyond any they might have had in the West.

Cloth was always obsessively valued by the Incas, much more than if it were just for clothing. There are numerous stories of retreating Inca armies burning the weavings in their warehouses, a gesture understandable to rival pre-Columbian peoples but completely incomprehensible to the conquistadores who pursued them.

I spread one weaving out and studied it carefully. There were narrow geometric bands representing las flores salvajes, the wild flowers, and stylised representations of condors, eagles and (since this was a manta matrimonial, a double blanket), a pair of humming-birds sipping from the same flower. A small symbol in the corner showed a more violent side to Andean history - a stylised representation of the last Inca Pretender, Tupac Amaru II, being hung, drawn and quartered by the Spanish.

The violence of the Conquest runs through the culture of Peru like its own embroidered thread. It was noticeable in the great religious crucifixion scenes that were paraded through Cuzco itself during Holy Week. The figures of Christ were far more sanguinary than most European contemporary work, showing a Christ broken and blooded.

In one particularly famous ceremony, I watched as the blackened figure of ‘El Señor de los Temblores’, ‘Our Lord of the Earthquakes’, was paraded around the great central square of Cuzco by forty-five men holding his solid silver litter. The square was packed with people throwing bunches of cantuta flowers over the Christ figure, the bright red flowers that the Inca held in particular regard, and just as with the Inca Emperor, attendants followed behind to sweep up the flowers after the litter had passed by.

In 1650 the same figure of Christ was brought out from the cathedral to successfully end a powerful earthquake whose successive tremors were demolishing the city. That same earthquake resulted in the re-building of the Monasterio, the beautiful set of Renaissance cloisters which have now been turned into a five-star hotel by the Orient Express group. It is the perfect place to stay in Cuzco and signals the last of the days when this was primarily a back-packers’ town, a key stop on the so-called Gringo Trail where all you could eat was a flabby lasagne and some watery tomato soup.

Now it is possible to live extremely comfortably in the old Inca capital and a rash of good restaurants have sprung up to cater for rich weekend visitors from Lima. The Monasterio Hotel even has a beautiful consecrated baroque chapel, useful if you want to slip in a marriage or baptism along with the usual sightseeing. (Orient Express, not content with investing in the Monasterio, have also bought into the Machu Picchu railway and hotel, with considerable improvement in service).

To end Easter week, I headed west towards a region so isolated that for two centuries it seems to have slipped from the official record books altogether. The Colca canyon is a great geological rift that runs from the Andes down towards the Pacific. The early Spanish conquerors valued it for its mines and rich climate, and built wonderful churches that dwarfed the small villages. But when the mines ran out, the valley was forgotten by the colonial administrators and as a result it has preserved in microcosm some of Peru’s richest traditions.

It is also the one of the very best place to see condors. Being unable to fly - they glide rather than flapping their wings - the condors like to catch the thermals rising up the deep valley canyon.. There are also herds of wild vicuña crossing the high puna, the grasslands.

Although April, it was Autumn here and the crops were ready for harvesting, with fields of quinoa burnt yellow, red and gold by the long summer. Easter was therefore a Harvest festival as well, and the churches were full of giant squash, decorated with the orange aji chile peppers of the highlands.

On Good Friday there was a powerful ceremony in a village called Yanque which lies about 10,000 feet above sea level. The cavernous church interior was lit only by a few candles near the altar and the priest’s words "mi reino no es de este mundo, my kingdom is not of this world" took on a particular resonance in the blackness. The villagers - gaunt cheek-boned men, and women in full layers of embroidered shawls - stared intently at the priest and the readers during the two-hour service.

And then at the end of the service something quite extraordinary happened. A few of the villagers got out a ladder and ascended the cross above the altar. They proceeded to take the figure of Christ off the cross, hammering the nails back out of the wood and lowering his body down into the church (the arms were articulated for the purpose, so they could be laid beside him). The Christ figure was laid out on the floor of the church and anointed with cologne, placed in a glass coffin and covered with rose petals. Eight pall-bearers in black suits then carried the coffin out into the village, accompanied by a brass band for what was effectively an Andean funeral.

I found it very moving: the slow mournful procession through the dark, passing by crumbling adobe walls and small altars that had been set up on street corners, where the procession would stop and responses would be sung. Accompanying the coffin of Christ was an effigy of Mary on a litter surrounded by fruits of the harvest and lined with glittering steel trays from all the houses of the village.

The next day I went back to look at the church in the daylight. In the façade that had been beautifully carved by the Indian craftsmen for their Spanish masters, working in the volcanic stone of the nearby mountains, I could see that they had mixed in puma heads with the angels. And on the pavement atrium were symbols of the sun, moon and the cantuta flower. The Spanish may have conquered Peru, but the Inca inheritance runs deep within it.

When to go: April to October is the dry season in the mountains, but it is also winter so it’s advisable to bring plenty of layered warm clothes.

Weavings: look for natural dyes and the quality of the final run-off. Many of the finest come from the high villages above the Valle Sagrado, the so-called ‘Sacred Valley’ of the Incas, and can best be bought at the Sunday market at Chincheros, at the shops in Ollantaytambo (particularly near the ruins) and at "Inca Wasi" in Cuzco at Calle Palacio 104,. Expect to pay $30-50 for a fine piece.

Cuzco is also an excellent place to buy baroque picture frames. Try the shops of San Blas.

Where to stay: By far the best hotel in Cuzco is The Monasterio, a converted monastery run by the Orient Express ($200 per double). Cheaper alternatives are the Hostal Plaza Cuzco, ($50 double, 246161) nearby or the Los Andes ($80 double). Avoid hotels on the main square, as they tend to be noisy. Best food is at The Inka Grill (around $15 per head), or the mellow atmosphere of Greens in the bohemian quarter of San Blas (backgammon boards supplied). Salsa-dancing at Ukukus continues until the early hours.

The Orient Express are also in the process of converting the Machu Picchu Sanctuary, the somewhat tired hotel beside the ruins themselves, which is still worth staying at to beat the crowds. ($200 per room, book well in advance, fax 0051 84 237111). The Machu Picchu Pueblo hotel in the village below the ruins is a good alternative (approx $200 per double).

In the Colca valley, Mauricio de Romaña runs the Parador de Colca as a private guesthouse accessible to some agencies. Mauricio can guide guests to the best places for viewing condors and other wildlife.

Hugh Thomson travelled with Cazenove and Loyd, who arrange tailor-made itineraries to the area.

Hugh Thomson’s book on the Incas and the exploration of Peru, The White Rock, will be published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson in the summer of 2001.