World of Wonders - In Search of the Puyas de Winchus

Bus touts yell at us, each emphasing that their transport is far faster and quicker. We settle on a collectivo combi to take us high up into the Cordillera Negra, near Caraz.

We know that whatever happens our decision will involve waiting. The collectivo combi won’t leave until full, and the 9am bus is being loaded with pigs and chickens... and custom is that it will leave more or less 30 minutes late to accomodate latecomers.

Its is market day in Caraz, and flurorescent pink, yellow and orange skirts are in vogue with the local women. Mothers lug bags in one hand and trotting three year olds in the other. The child, already bestowed with responsibility, fiercly grips a string with a sheep in tow. Another rosy cheeked child peers with curious black eyes from where it rides on the mothers back, enconsed comfortably in a colourful manta.

Suprisingly, we only wait for half an hour before we head off, but our enjoyment of the picturesque farmland is somewhat subdued by the conversation around us. The driver of the combi and several other Peruvian men have taken affront to we three women travelling together, and what is more, bargaining for our fares in the combi.

However, the conversation becomes secondary as we begin to struggle to breath. No, its not the altitude, but an unfortunate combination of the fine, red, dry dust and the open windows of the other passengers. As we pass another vehicle the pulverised dust comes billowing in, coating our faces and choking us momentarily.

We pass through small villages of mud brick adobe houses, where donkeys wander the streets, and small girls, replicas of their mothers in fluroescent pink skirts and bowler hats, tend herds of sheep.

As we climb into the Cordillera Negra (Black Mountains), the views of the Cordillera Blanca (White Mountains) become increasingly breathtaking. So do the prepices and drops on either side of the road as we wind back and forth around precarious corners at a speed we consider “too fast.” This, like so many other Andean byways, is both spectacular and terrifying.

We are dropped at the highest point for miles around and stand with 360 degree views of both Cordilleras – the Negra and the Blanca, and have an uninterrupted view of Huascaran, Perús highest mountain at 6768 metres

Isolated and alone we stand eye to eye with these dramatic snow encased peaks. But we didn´t come to admire the view, we came with a task: to find a fascinating plant, the Puya Raimondii.

The Puya Raimondii is a spiky, cactus-like plant that looks like something that might grow in your garden – except much much bigger. With good reason, the Puyas (as we came to call them) are the largest member of the pineapple (bromeliad) family. The plant takes about 100 years to grow to full size, after which it flowers, producing a huge spike – these we easily spot, up to 10 metres tall, jutting out at right angles from the decevingly steep mountainside.

We blithely begin to descend the valley in our search of the Puyas de Winchus (named for Winchus, a nearby village) and discover these slopes to be petrifyingly steep. With no path, we find ourselves on our backsides edging down the mountain.... and then clambering up the other side to “discover” our first Puya.

There it is, with over 20,000 flowers on its magnificent spike, towering over us like a prehistoric giant. No wonder, the Puya Raimondii is believed to be one of the most ancient plant species in the world!

Taking a small goat track we edge around the mountain knowing that the slightest slip on the gravelly path would mean a dramatic and dangerous tumble 200 hundred metres or more down the vertical mountain side.

Three puyas loom up in front of us, all in spiky flower, each a little bigger than the next, and silouhetted against the brilliant white craggy peaks of the Cordillera Blanca. Even in nature, such perfection and symetry are rare, and at such altitude it is as if we stop breathing in wonder.

We clamber to a rock, and sit with our feet wedged in the soil to stop falling headlong down the mountain Opposite to our high perch on the mountain is a patchwork quilt of farmland, dotted with small adobe huts, and the figures of people at work.

During our visit to the Puyas de Winchus we scramble and act as if we are participating in death defying adventure. Well, it is for us. But this is the land that people farm for their survival. We recall a conversation with a British volunteer from Ecuador - one of the most common complaints at rural clinics was, “Well I fell out of my fields.”

Hearts in our mouths, and the rear of our jeans soiled and dusty from sliding we continue awed by the sights of the Puyas in flower, attended by tiny hummingbirds. Finally we make it to the road at the time pre-agreed with the combi driver. Cynical and used to “hora peruana” we settle in for a long wait.

There is a slight roar of an engine and then a combi comes hurling around the corner braking fiercely, and cloaking us in red dust. We clamber in, pleased we have waited for only five minutes.

We descend, taking the corners like a racing car. Suddenly, our friend yells, ¨my passport and wallet!¨ Pleadingly, she explains to the driver that she must have dropped her wallet on the road when we leapt into the combi.

The other fifteen or so occupants are unquestioning as they are told to climb out of the mini bus - the driver and our friend will take the van back up the hill without the passengers, thus using less fuel. We sit on the road, another prepicice-like ledge, gazing out at the Cordillera Blanca and wondering at the stoical acceptance by the Peruvians of such inconviences.

After an eternity, the combi appears in a cloud of dust, with a driver who is beaming from ear to ear because he found the wallet hidden beside a stone.

We descend rapidly, swallowing dust, and dodging leading questions from the driver as to wether we would consider a Peruvian husband. Just another day on holiday in Peru.

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