Day 19: Miners and daytripping middle agers
The Salinas, one of the most interesting places in the Sacred Valley. Getting there is a hot and sweaty 30 minute walk from the valley into the hillside, through territory that looks rather like Arizona, red walled canyons and the like. The Incas built the salinas, or salt pools, hundreds of years ago, like everything else in this area it seems. Essentially a salt water spring pops out of the mountain on the south side of the valley, and it is directed into a myriad of pools, where the trapped water evaporates and leaves behind its salt treasure. They are still in operation today, run by a collective of families in nearby towns. And today, Sunday, was no exception - there were at least 40 or 50 people at work, many fathers and children mounding salt into giant piles.
As I was walking down from the salt pools and back to town, I was overtaken on the trail by one of these father-son teams. They immediately launched into conversation with me, and I was overtaken with surprise at how cheerful these two people could be after working on a Sunday afternoon. It's funny how Western notions of success and happiness pervade one's thinking. If one is working on a Sunday, they must be poor and unhappy with their situation, right? And while this father-son duo probably was poor, they certainly were enjoying their day. And they happily added me to it. Everytime a situation like this occurs, where a local begins to chat me up for the hell of it (and not, like in Cusco, simply to get money out of my pocket), it really makes my day and answers the question, "why travel alone?". The answer is simple: conversations and experiences that you would not experience otherwise.
We had a very enjoyable 20 minute conversation, walking the trail as it snaked down the hillside, crossing over the Urubamba River via footbridge, and landing back in the valley in the tiny town of Tarabamba. There we waited on the main road for a bus or a taxi to come by so we could hop in for the ride back to Urubamba. As a taxi stopped to pick us up, two tour buses came from the opposite direction, slowing and turning down the dirt path we had just walked up, apparently going to the salt pools on a tour. I looked at these buses in great surprise as they turned past me, first thinking "what the heck are they doing here?" since I was the only tourist there all day, and second thinking "all these lazy tourists are going to be panting on the way up to the pools". I guess I mentally associate tour-group tourists with laziness and being out of shape. I guess we all stereotype.
But doing the reverse, placing myself in the shoes, or eyes, of one of the bus passengers, I would see a sweaty, worn-looking American kid chatting with two Peruvians, a father and son covered in salt stains and holding pick-axes on the shoulders. I would then see them chat and laugh and then flag down a taxi as my bus turned down the dirt road. I would keep staring at the strange American kid who was now in a taxi with three more Peruvians, as a mother and two kids ran up to the taxi and jumped in (making seven in the cab, including driver). I would see them take off and maybe stereotype to myself about the craziness of young travelling kids, or perhaps of the independent spirit of the traveller.
Placing myself back into my eyes, it was a moment of hilarity as the two buses turned past me, all the passengers on the window turning and looking at me as if I were an alien, or insane, as I jumped into the taxi with the miners and their axes, and the mother and her little children. Of course I am not an alien, nor crazy, I'm a product of white middle class, suburban America just like them. Yet in this situation I was clearly different, defined by these passerbys as something strange or to be envied. This is why I travel the way I do: by going independently and alone, I get to experience Peru with Peruvias.
And I got back to Urubamba, and took a nap.
