34 hours of protest in Peru.
Normally a 6 hour trip, Cuzco to Puno turned out to be a 34 hour sitting around and waiting experience. Anti TLC/FTAA protests blocked the road with tens of thousands of rocks and boulders stretching for what looked like 30 miles. Every time we would make it through one village and its protest, 5 minutes away was another village with an even larger and longer protest. As we passed through some of the blockades, seemingly with their permission, the bus would be pelted with rocks.
After an entire night, from about 5:00pm to around 2:00am we passed through all of the little protests and hit the big one, the final protest. The small farmer town was called Canchis, and they had blocked the road with thousands of boulders, and a giant tree with about 75 farmers and their families sitting on it.
There were hundreds of cars and busses backed up for miles, and even more people all just milling around, waiting for this thing to end. The protesters were not very interested in photographers, and made it known by throwing rocks, and making comments about stealing cameras. I asked one lady involved in the protest if she would share her thoughts with me about the protest, and the reason for it. She clucked her tongue, called me a stupid gringo who thinks he can buy the world, and then she and her many friends laughed at me riotously. I thanked her and moved on. I later found a very nice guy, also involved in the protest who spoke with me at length, and attracting a crowd of about 40 people which then became a very heated discussion of which I lost track of when the spanish became rapid fire.
At 5:00pm, hour 27, the busses all started and Megan and I had to run for it in order to not be left behind. We found our bus, which had moved up about 100 yards and was not going to wait for anyone once the traffic moved. We finally made it to Puno at 10:00pm.
After an entire night, from about 5:00pm to around 2:00am we passed through all of the little protests and hit the big one, the final protest. The small farmer town was called Canchis, and they had blocked the road with thousands of boulders, and a giant tree with about 75 farmers and their families sitting on it.
There were hundreds of cars and busses backed up for miles, and even more people all just milling around, waiting for this thing to end. The protesters were not very interested in photographers, and made it known by throwing rocks, and making comments about stealing cameras. I asked one lady involved in the protest if she would share her thoughts with me about the protest, and the reason for it. She clucked her tongue, called me a stupid gringo who thinks he can buy the world, and then she and her many friends laughed at me riotously. I thanked her and moved on. I later found a very nice guy, also involved in the protest who spoke with me at length, and attracting a crowd of about 40 people which then became a very heated discussion of which I lost track of when the spanish became rapid fire.
At 5:00pm, hour 27, the busses all started and Megan and I had to run for it in order to not be left behind. We found our bus, which had moved up about 100 yards and was not going to wait for anyone once the traffic moved. We finally made it to Puno at 10:00pm.
7 Comments:
Very Interesting! Did you find out any other details about the motivation of the protests? I was curious to see if I could find a distilled explanation of the reasoning, and saw this:
“The International treaties of free commerce (TLC, FTAA, NAFTA, …) and their associated plans and mega-projects (such as Plan Puebla Panama, Plan Colombia or Polo Siderurgico de Maranhao) compromise the sovereignty and the self determination of our people while threatening to transfer our legal systems into the private interests of international and national investors.”
(taken from the Statement of Fortaleza)
Does this sound similar to what you experienced, or was clucked in your general direction?
Looks and sounds more serious than you initially let on....
Ryan,
TLC/FTAA is extremely complicated, and I have not been able to get my head around the whole thing. Copyrights on plants, seeds and other forms of nature, technology, downward pressure on agricultural prices...From the discussion i had in peru, they feel it is more oppression from the rich fat cats in Norte America. They are also pissed about how much business interest Chile has on some culturally sensitive regions in Peru. In fact, most of the discussion was about Chile. Peru has already singed the TLC, the campesinos felt like they had been left out of the discussion altogether. They complained about how the politicians roll through town during elections, and then ignore them the rest of the time. We have been seeing anti TLC graffiti since Ecuador.
Hi,
My name is Vinny Espinosa (from NYC) and I just came across your blog. I actually plan on doing the trip from Alaska down on a route similar to yours, but not for another few years.
For now I am doing a smaller trip from Santiago, Chile to Quito, Ecuador via Bolivia and Peru. I am actually in Santiago Chile and think I will collide with you soon, as I am headed to La Serena, San Pedro, Uyuni starting next week.
Anyway, I look forward to seeing your great pictures as you keep heading south, and if we do cross paths in norther Chile, I'd love to grab a beer and hear first hand from your trip so far.
Regards,
Vinny
vinicio.espinosa@gmail.com
hey Vinny,
We are now in Potosi, Bolivia. We did not do the Uyuni to Chile trip as we want to go to Paraguay(already got the visa!)...
Is there a chance we will cross paths? After Potosi we head to Sucre,,
Wow! You guys are having an amazing adventure....and it's always a pleasure reading your blog entries and looking at your pics.
I was in Puno on oct 11th 2006, I saw tons of grafitti saying TLC, on the way to the airport I asked the taxi driver to explain what this was, basically he explained that USA was starving the people by attracting all of its produce out of the country. Ten minutes later we had to stop our journey to culiaco airport as there were hundreds of boulders on the road. The driver told me that if I paid him enough, he would take me across the mountains, >I agreed and we set out, the road was treatcherous, the car could barely make it, I notice that spread out along the way there were small groups of people sitting at the side of the dirt road, a couple of the groups had radios, I started to get a bit suspicious, thinking that the people who put the rocks in the road probably knew that this was the only route to culiaca, we left Puno at 5am, so I didnt see any other cars on the road, a little further along the road 2 guys were blocking the road, one of them had a beat up old rifle, the taxi driver spoke to one of the guys, (I think in cetchua, or some other native tounge) then the guy with the rifle banged it on my window and motioned me to wind down the window, I did as he asked and he said in rough english "where are you from" I said in spanish " im sorry but I dont speak english, could you please speak in spanish" he repeated the question in spanish and I told him that I was Swedish, he motioned the taxi driver to pass. I had a US passport in my bag, but because of the TLC graffiti in Puno, I thought it would be better to be singing "Hey lan gor" rather than the star spangled banner. My advice to any would be travelers to poverty stricken, politically unstable countries is to do your home work first, know who´s who and what´s what. I don´t know who the guys were with the rifle, they didn´t rob me, so that rules out bandidos.
entonces cuidado gringos
Lee Tonks
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