A visit to a Peruvian mountain village

The village of Kygygy is as hard to travel to as it is to pronounce. Pronounced Ki-ji-ji, and located in the mountains of Chachapoyas, the village can only be reached by horseback. For five hours, you have to sit on a horse and look at the trees, and the view from the valley below. Sometimes the path is so bumpy that you have to get off the horse and walk.

As you go up the mountain, you pass a village that is two hours’ travel from the main road. Then you pass another village which is three hours’ travel from the main road. Kygygy is five hours from the main road. It is the highest village on that side of the Utcubamba valley.

By the time you reach Kygygy, you feel as if you have arrived at the end of the earth. There are no traces of modern life, only fields, dirt houses, and dirt roads. People grow corn and potatoes in the fields because that is the way they get their food. They work with their hands and use simple tools such as hoes and shovels – there is no modern machinery. Their lives are very similar to their ancestors’ lives two hundred years ago – and many of them dress the same way their ancestors did. Watching people work the fields in ancient clothing makes you feel as if the modern world has vanished. And, until you can muster the strength to spend another five hours climbing back down the mountain, it has.

Kygygy is a village where people greet you warmly even if they haven´t seen you for years, or don´t know you. They will serve you a plate of food and chat you right up. As a guest, you will not be expected to work. To pass the time, you sit on a porch with an old woman and shuck corn.

Shucking corn is a popular pastime here. You use your hands, particularly your thumbs, to loosen the corn kernels from the cob and drop them into a cloth sack. It is surprisingly fun. As you shuck corn, you watch the smoke from the house across the road disappear into the sky. You look at the hens walking around the yard in their scatter-brained way, and at the horse tied in the distance. It all seems preternaturally calm and beautiful. And, for once, you do not check your email, because there is no wireless signal.

Night falls and it is truly night-time. The darkness is complete: there are no city lights to soften it. After a few days, your eyes adjust. You spend your evenings sipping hot tea around a fire, and perhaps listening to the radio. Besides that, there is nothing to do, and you go to bed at 8:30 like everyone else. You wake up at hours that you didn’t know you were capable of and anxiously wait for dawn so the day can start. Daylight seems like a miracle.

As the days pass, little events begin to take on more significance. A hen caught stealing eggs, or a pig breaking free from its post, will serve as the afternoon´s entertainment. The weekly market, held in one of the lower villages, seems like a huge social event. When a communal chicken barbecue is announced, people talk of little else.
When it came time for me to leave, my boyfriend´s great-aunt led me down the trail to the highway below. I went on horseback; she guided my horse with a rope.

It was a stubborn horse, who liked to walk at its own pace and chew grass. Aunt Rosa, however, was a woman of purpose. Her voice was soft, and then loud, as she cajoled the horse in her mountain dialect: shoo-blathar-blathar, SHOO! The horse was not impressed. Rosa continued with her chant. When all seemed hopeless, she took the rope and hit the horse lightly with it. She gave the horse a few light whacks with a rope, and then one that was harder, and meant business. The horse gave a yell that was more fright than pain, and finally began walking faster.

This happened several times during the journey. Each time the horse slowed down, Aunt Rosa would start to chant, and eventually wind up hitting the horse with the rope a few times.

After several hours, my thighs burned from the saddle and I had to get off the horse and walk. The weather was hot, and I was soon panting and sweating.

Aunt Rosa, however, showed few signs of tiredness, even though she was almost seventy. I marveled that she would go to all this trouble for a near-stranger such as myself.
When we finally reached the highway, I had to adjust my eyes to the strong sunlight, and to the passing cars. The spell of Kygygy had been broken. I bought Aunt Rosa a soda from the store by the side of the road and bid her farewell. She mounted the horse and made a speedy ascent up the side of the mountain.

As long as I live, I will never forget the sound of her voice leading that horse.

Source: Lauren Bulfin - Peru This Week
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