FEATURE
MOUNTAIN TREKKING IN PERU In 2002 we celebrate the international Year of the Mountain, an unparalleled opportunity for Peru to demonstrate why we think that being a country that has developed on one of the most spectacular mountain ranges on the planet puts us in a special position, unique in diversity, rich in scenery, culture and ancient societies adapted to this spectacular geography.
This is an invitation to us to consider the modern world that tells us "the mountain people are not profitable" and are therefore nearing their end, and to insist, in contrast, that despite their apparent aridness the mountain has life, history, an ancient past and a long future ahead of them. This is the year in which to ask the mountain people "what inspired you to create one of the finest textile traditions mankind has ever seen, and an expression of genius? What direction do you want to take in the future?
Its nature and culture make Peru a mountain country which has turned its back on this extraordinary reality. The Andes, the longest mountain range in the world crosses several countries. In Peru it is the spinal column defining the country's geography. In the west its granite roots lie in the Pacific Ocean, leaving a narrow plain which we call the coast. In the east, they descend to the Amazon plain and it is the mountains that are the origin of all the water that flows in the mighty rivers of the jungle. Between jungle and coast are the peaks, valleys and plateaus of the Andes - the region that all Peruvians refer to from childhood as the sierra. This division of the country into coast, sierra and jungle is the work of a coastal republic that developed with its back to the mountains and rather fearful of them. In terms of climate, geophysics, history and daily life this division does not exist because all parts are interconnected and interdependent. Peru is defined by its mountain and we Peruvians are faced with the interesting task of rediscovering and reinventing ourselves in the 21st Century.
For the 12,000 years of human presence in this part of the world, hunter-gatherers explored the country, taking food from the sea, hunting in the hills and climbing to the highest summits, valleys and caves of the Andean massif. In the process, men and women brought seeds from the east as far as the coast and vice versa, domesticating an immense variety of animals and plants, settling and farming ever further upwards, up to the biological limit of life. By some point more than a thousand years ago they had populated all but the icy peaks which they left for their gods, the Apus. Agriculture flourished and developed to an extraordinary extent giving rise to important civilizations, because clear-thinking people lived here and made use of the diversity and resources of their land.
Today, true to their custom of making use of everything above and below, the young people dance in honor of their land as their grandfathers did one day, and the next they are in Lima trying to live as mountain folk in their own modern way. The youngster studying for a place at university is the same person who keeps the old culture alive at the fiesta of the crosses, offering the products of the family farm to the tutelary deities and restoring the order of his world in company with his family and community. The traveler from the lowlands - from the city - arrives in this highland world with much to offer and to learn, to the mutual benefit of highlanders and lowlanders both. With luck and a little effort the same could happen to the traveler as happened to the maize - as told to us by a lady from the village of Vicos in Ancash: 'the maize plants travel by night, they go from the farm to the sea and on the way meet maize from other places. There they mix or decide to follow another road¡Kand so colored (more diverse) maize returns, stronger and more able to withstand the weather and disease'.
We invite the reader to explore and to marvel at this mountain country and to be ready for unexpected encounters. Our mountains are our history, a place where the doors of silence can be opened to reveal ourselves and our land. It depends on you. Welcome.
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This page was last updated on January 14, 2005
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