Still deep in the rugged mountains bound for Huancayo I finished after a 30km day in a small village called Huachinga.

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THE RUN INTO HUACHINGA. VIOLETS HOUSE WAS THE FIRST HOUSE I CAME TO.

It was like a village that time left behind. Though there were street lights in the village plaza, there was no electricity anywhere in that village of 200 as far as I could see. No televisions, signs of newspapers, the only connection to the outside world were the battery operated radios that people listened to. Normally even very poor people have satellite dishes or antennas, here nothing, not even power.

People in the previous villages had told there was an hotel here. On the way into the village a lady at the very first house I passed greeted me. I asked her about the hotel. She told me that if I had no luck to return to her and I could stay the night. I asked a couple of people, nothing doing, the hotel had long since closed down, derelict, just like the plaza which was overgrown by grass. I was about an hour away from the next village called Lamblam where I was also assured, but the offer I had here was just too good to be true.

HUACHINGA PLAZA

I was delighted it had been closed down, this would be a rare experience to observe very closely life in a Peruvian home.

Back at Violets house, as the lady is called, I talked some small talk with her and some of her neighbours. There was a man called Luis also there. I took photographs and asked Luis, probably in his forties to take one of me with Violet. I reckoned he had never taken a photograph before.

THE LOVELY VIOLET.

She told me I was the very first gringo this remote village had ever seen. Inside Violets house, which was really just a converted barn with a bed, table and chairs I drank some coffee and bread she had given me. She told me her husband was out working in the fields as a potato labourer. Her house was full of potatoes. They were everywhere, under the bed, table, in every corner. They are obviously very poor. I shared my spare food with them. In the morning I will give her my hotel money. This is always a very delicate thing to do as the poorest people in the world are often the kindest one could meet. I try to do this in as sensitive a manner as possible. What with their wonderful hospitality, kindness, also not wishing to offend or whatever they are still very poor and need it more than I do.

LOIS AND SON

I also got a smell of varnish in the house. Lois had come back in and sat down to talk to me. I took a bit of a dislike to him when he started only what I would call interrogating me. Then I realised the varnish was coming from him, I suspect it was not on his clothing but he had either been drinking it or inhaling it.

He was right up in my face almost shouting…

” But what are you doing here…?

” How can you afford to do this…? ”

” Have you money…? ”

Then he asked me why I had finished early for the day instead of running onto Lamblam!

He was getting so carried away that I just wished he would go away… Then Violet started to briefly get in on the act, also shouting up into my face. This was after Luis asked if had any weapons! I was starting to become very uncomfortable here and wondered what I would do as it was now very dark and cold outside.

 I told them I write and this is more or less my work… So then I was asked if I was a journalist and what was I doing!

Eventually and thankfully Luis left after telling me his wife left him for another man, I wondered why. He has custody of their small boy while she has custody of their young daughter.

I enjoyed my coffee in peace after that and talked to Violet. She had boiled the water over an outside fire.

She told me she is very sick and can´t afford the doctors bills, so has to live with her illness. Then she tells me I am welcome to sleep in her bed. Worried about the illness I decline and tell a fib saying I am more comfortable on the floor. Being a former barn it´s a rough kinda potholed floor, it was to be an uncomfortable night, that night. Several times I looked over and was almost tempted to get into it but I resisted.

VIOLETS BED, MINE ON THE ROUGH FLOOR AND POTATOES EVERYWHERE

Violet and her husband had obviously gone to sleep in another building. There are so many abandoned derelict buildings that this didn’t surprise me. Luis told me that people can´t just move in and take up occupancy.

BEFORE LEAVING THE STRANGE GRINGO STOPPED TO TALK TO SOME VILLAGE FOLK

Before Violet left me for the night she showed me a small piss pot I could use as they had no toilet. She told me they sometimes use an old abandoned house for a toilet. If I needed to go out in the middle of the night there was a big stick to beat away the ´Bad Dogs ´as she called them. I could hear the bad dogs barking all night, and had no reason to go outside.

In the morning Violets son and daughter came over to see me, we chatted and had coffee and bread before I left.

Violet then told me her illness was a sore back, so I guess that I could have slept in her comfortable bed!

THE OLD LADY IN THE MOUNTAINS

I was told not to be surprised if ´townfolk ´from the villages ahead wanted to see my passport. They are harmless and are just likely to need to be reassured I am not up to anything bad. Not really sure what they could tell by my passport I was glad of this tipoff as perhaps I would have been a bit apprehensive and resisted, if such a situation seems calm enough I will just show it, but may try showing my photocopy first.

Violets son walked me to the edge of the village. I talked to a few more people among them a woman who was holding something that was smouldering in her right hand, then I realised it was dried cow dung to start a fire for presumably her breakfast.

ADIOS HUACHINGS, YET ANOTHER INDELLIBLE MEMORY

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