chapter 9 - modern conquistadors

We have arrived in Nasca without being mugged or murdered after all. It was a long day. No doubt the nine hours felt longer due to the limited comfort of Peruvian buses. We kept water consumption low to avoid the need for a toilet. Of course we could have joined the locals and make a dash outside to relieve ourselves on the road every time the bus picked up passengers but I didn’t fancy it somehow.

Surely the best way to see the awful Lima suburbs is from the window of a bus. Miles and miles of squalid shantytowns where millions of people exist. It always takes me a while to acclimatize to poverty. I never get used to the disbelief. As we passed the tiny shacks peopled by dozens of ragged children, aimless young men and hobbled old women, I began to absorb some of the dismalness. Why am I here anyway? I wanted a holiday at home this year after spending so much time on the road with business trips. It was all Hamish. No notice, just a playful note and a bag already packed. I want to look forward to such a trip, not just arrive and be handed an itinerary. I know he was trying to be thoughtful, but there are times I wonder if he knows me at all.

I must squelch these feelings. Hamish is so happy, he’s proud of what I do, never complains when I have to work late or have to dash off somewhere for weeks at a time. And he is thrilled to have secretly planned this trip for us, convinced this is what I want, what will make me happy. What will help get our lives back on track. It might of course, but I am too cynical to think it will. I know I’m lucky to have someone who cares so much about me. After all this time I still look at him and wonder how I deserve it. If I deserve it. He does so much for me, tries so hard. When I think back, Hamish has really been the only person in my entire life who has never told me I ‘should’ do or be anything. What an awful word that is, "should", full of guilt.

Once settled in Nasca, we set out for an explore. I haven’t had a proper explore for ages; business travel is so fixed. The word feels wrong though: ‘explore’ belongs to history. The world is known, all mapping complete. Discovery is biased. Anything new is a discovery of a sort.

We found a fascinating market, a labyrinth of stalls covered with plastic against the searing sun, that twisted along a snakelike path. I was arrested by one tiny place that sold history books, pictures and maps. Hamish goodnaturedly stopped and let me pour over curled scraps of paper, keeping up a casual conversation that was vaguely related. “Did you read about a new theory that the Chinese circumnavigated the globe almost a century before Magellan?”

“Yes, I will read it when it comes out but I am having a hard time believing it.”

“Why is that?”

“Don’t you remember how proud the Chinese were of their accomplishments and national history? Even now the nation denies suggestions that human life could possibly have began elsewhere, let alone someplace like Africa. If they really had gone off and circumnavigated the globe, why is this the first time we've heard of it? Doesn’t it surprise you that this has not been illustrated in any map?”

“Well, I’m still wondering if they really did invent toilet paper. I never saw any evidence that it was used in China when we were there.”

I smiled in spite of myself, remembering, then reflecting. We’re only a month away from 9/11; what will we feel looking back on this time in the future, individually and collectively? Will our later experiences change the way we remember feeling about the world? Was the crashing of the Trade Center really a seminal event as described so repeatedly, or is it the only first of many? Will records change, deleting current and more immediate reflections with others? The web and net and blog cultures have facilitated gut reaction reporting, easily deleted for another go at it, then another. Reminding. Reinventing. Showing the same pictures over and over, with different words each time.

I listen to news differently as I age. I question its motives, its authenticity. What’s on the radio or in newspapers is usually so truncated, showing maybe one part of one side of the story. Information is certainly not wisdom. Sometimes it’s barely information. And I do find what different countries consider newsworthy is fascinating. Floods, wars, the cost of bananas, the theft of an old lady’s purse, the exploitation of a young girl’s nakedness, two enormous towers falling in slow motion. The moves of the latest empire. Phoenician, Greek, Egyptian, Roman, Islamic, Scandinavian, Celtic, Tartar – no matter how large or small the country – Portugal, Spain, France, tiny Belgium and even tinier Holland, all were world powers. Leaders in trade and science and art. There’s no such thing as the dark ages; there was always some culture in full swing. We just don’t always have the records to prove it. Yesterday it was Britain who powered the world. Today, it’s the U.S.A. China will be next, if they want it. When will it change over? And how? An implosion like the Romans, crushed by their own decadence and ignorance? Or ebbing away like Britain, many of whose citizens still don’t quite believe that it’s over, that mistakes were made, that although some countries came of age due to its progressive policies, others railed against its patronistic decision-making. Or maybe it will come from without like Spain, an empire that grew smaller and smaller with each lost battle.

The Spanish empire is evident everywhere here. Looking over a faded old schoolbook about the War of the Pacific, I see that Peru’s perspective of that historcal event is startlingly different to that of Bolivia and Chile. I purchased a chart of Peru’s original coastline and intend to hunt out the other two. They’ll make an interesting triptych.