I have just returned from a 10-day trip to Peru and have several posts planned about the excursion, one of the great experiences of my life. Today I am writing about an incident recounted by our guide Ronaldo Quispe that reminded me of a scene in Heart of Darkness. I wonder if the scene could function as a revenge fantasy for all guides who find themselves tormented by their charges.
As I tell Ronaldo’s story, see if those of you familiar with Conrad’s novella can identify the scene I have in mind.
Ronaldo, who is from the ancient Incan capital of Cuzco, said that in his youth he would take visitors along the Incan trail on a four-day three-night excursion to the lost city of Machu Picchu, one of the “New7Wonders of the World.” The second day of that trip is the hardest, involving a steep descent followed by an even steeper ascent. Ronaldo said that he had one member of the group so intent on “being first” that she would run on ahead every time.
Her hurry cost her, however, as she sprained her ankle. Ronaldo wanted her to return to Cuzco rather than attempt the daunting journey ahead. She said that she paid her money, however, and so insisted that she see Machu Picchu. Always the problem solver (as I discovered), Ronaldo persuaded the porters to carry her, which they did. Ronaldo said that the lady rode into Machu Picchu like a queen while the porters were absolutely shot.
Here’s the corresponding story in Heart of Darkness. The narrator is relating his journey into the Belgian Congo:
I had a white companion, too, not a bad chap, but rather too fleshy and with the exasperating habit of fainting on the hot hillsides, miles away from the least bit of shade and water. Annoying, you know, to hold your own coat like a parasol over a man’s head while he is coming to. I couldn’t help asking him once what he meant by coming there at all. ‘To make money, of course. What do you think?’ he said, scornfully. Then he got fever, and had to be carried in a hammock slung under a pole. As he weighed sixteen stone I had no end of rows with the carriers. They jibbed, ran away, sneaked off with their loads in the night—quite a mutiny. So, one evening, I made a speech in English with gestures, not one of which was lost to the sixty pairs of eyes before me, and the next morning I started the hammock off in front all right. An hour afterwards I came upon the whole concern wrecked in a bush—man, hammock, groans, blankets, horrors. The heavy pole had skinned his poor nose. He was very anxious for me to kill somebody, but there wasn’t the shadow of a carrier near.
While our group did not cause problems of this magnitude, nevertheless there were times when we must have tried the patience of our guides. I myself raised anxieties when I got separated from the group during Cuzco’s raucous Corpus Christi celebration, where the towering statues of 14 saints are paraded through town and then presented to the statue of Christ in the Cathedral. The festival also involves a lot of corn beer and grilled guinea pig. I had stepped into the street to photograph St. Christopher, struck that he has not been stripped of his saint status here as he has been elsewhere, and I couldn’t find my group’s sign when I looked back. I finally bumbled my way back to the hotel—no small feat as I didn’t know its name, didn’t know the city, and don’t speak Spanish—and learned that our assistant guide Alexandra had been frantic with worry.
(For the record, St. Christopher, patron saint of travelers, got me out of trouble after first getting me into it: he reminded me that my hotel key card had the hotel’s name and address on it, and I showed that to a taxi driver.)
I wasn’t the only one who caused problems. Others got sick, left coats and backpacks behind, retained keys that needed to be returned, etc. etc.
Our guides were unfailingly polite, no doubt operating under the principle that the tips we gave would be larger if they never appeared to judge us. I wondered, however, whether,they secretly fantasized about dumping the whole lot of us into the Andean wilderness and running off.
