In
late January of 2010, while on an escorted tour in Peru, my wife and
I and twenty-six other members of our tour group became
marooned
near Machu Picchu due to flooding from the Urubamba
River. More
than three thousand other tourists became marooned with us. It is, of
course, no secret that summer is the rainy season in the highlands
of Peru; but the rains that summer were heavier than any of
the
locals could remember, reportedly the heaviest in at least forty
years. When we reached our first destination in the Urubamba
River Valley (the “Sacred Valley” of the Peruvian
highlands) on January 22, the river was already beginning to overflow
its banks. Tellingly, a raft trip on the river the next day,
which ordinarily would require two hours to complete, was completed
in less than twenty minutes; the current was so swift that we seldom
needed to dip our paddles into the water.
On
January 24 we boarded a train in Ollantaytambo for the twenty-six
mile ride to the town of Aguas Calientes, the gateway to Machu
Picchu, where almost all tourists book overnight
accommodations. Train service had been interrupted during the
previous day, owing to mudslides on the tracks, but the tracks had
been cleared by the morning of January 24 and several trainloads of
tourists arrived that day in Aguas Calientes. The route of the
rail line is in the valley, never more than a few yards from
the
river bank, and we passed a number of gorges where the river was
tumbling ferociously over boulders and fallen
trees. We
also passed a hydroelectric dam, about four miles upstream from Aguas
Calientes, which seemed to be nearly bursting its concrete
seams. After arriving in the town, we deposited our overnight
bags in the lobby of our hotel (which was situated, ominously,
only about a hundred feet from the river bank), and we boarded
a
bus for the four-mile trip up the switchback road to Machu
Picchu.
I won't dwell on
the natural and
archeological wonders of Machu Picchu, which are familiar to
the millions of people (more than a half-million
yearly) who have visited the site; suffice it to say
that a
visit is worth considerable inconvenience and discomfort, if that
should happen to be the tourist’s lot -- and perhaps worth even
a natural disaster such as the flood that we encountered the
night after our arrival in Aguas Calientes. As it so happens,
my
wife became ill soon after retiring to bed, suffering a fever, nausea
and vomiting (probably because of some contaminated
lettuce
that she had eaten), but she did manage to fall asleep soon after
midnight. At about 4 a.m. we heard a strange rumbling
noise
that echoed through the hotel: many guests suspected an
earthquake, but in fact the noise was caused by flood waters that had
buckled the road in front of the hotel and were
now undermining
the foundation of the building. We soon discovered that
electrical power and the water and sewage lines to the hotel
had
been interrupted, and at 6:30 a.m. we were instructed to
evacuate the hotel immediately.
Our group of
twenty-eight American tourists, ranging in age from late
fifties to
mid-eighties, was escorted by our tour manager and local guides from
the hotel to the town square of Aguas Calientes. There we were joined
by approximately three thousand other tourists --- mostly young
people, lugging enormous backpacks -- who had visited Machu
Picchu the previous day or who were hoping (vainly) to visit later
that day. We all knew that the rail line had been washed out,
and the Inca Trail -- the only other route into or out of Machu
Picchu -- was also deemed to be impassable. Many of the hotels
in Aguas Calientes were no longer inhabitable, and stocks of water
and food in the town would inevitably become depleted. It was
necessary that everyone depart the town as soon as possible, and
there could be only one option for departure: helicopter transport.
After
a couple of hours of sitting idly in the town square, all the
tourists were instructed to move to the train station, which was on
higher ground; and from there a limited number would be directed to
the soccer stadium where, later in the day, they would board a
police helicopter for evacuation to Ollantaytambo.
Who
would be the select few designated for the helicopter
transport? Priority would be given, we were told by the local
authorities, to persons who were ill, persons who were elderly, and
persons who were accompanied by young children. We were not told --
although it was widely assumed -- that the highest priority would be
given to persons who were able and willing to bribe the
authorities.
Our tour manager quietly informed us that he had
already
contacted company headquarters in the U.S. and that the “necessary
steps” had been taken to assure our evacuation. We were not to
disclose this information to anyone else. (At no time did the
manager make explicit mention of payment of a “bribe.”)
There were to be three helicopter flights that afternoon, and each
helicopter would evacuate twenty one or twenty two passengers,
together with each passenger’s minimal personal property
(which had to fit into a small plastic bag.)
The
original plan, to move one select group at a time from the train
station to the soccer stadium, where they would board a helicopter,
was soon aborted because rising flood waters -- which accelerated
after collapse of the hydroelectric dam upriver from Aguas Calientes
-- had begun to swamp the train station. An announcement was
made that everyone
was
to move to the higher ground of the stadium. So, there was an
immediate surge of more than three thousand people out of the train
station and up the path to the stadium. The dirt-and-mud soccer field
was soon filled with people -- old people, young people,
children and even a few infants -- all seeking relief from the sun
that was now directly overhead on a cloudless day. Shade was
practically non-existent within the confines of the stadium.
Our
guides did manage to supply us with bottled water and with plastic
sheets that we could spread on the muddy field, and we all covered
our heads with hats or other garments and shared whatever sunscreen
we had, but the sun was relentless. It was obvious that no
helicopter could land within the stadium since the field was packed
with people. The young tourists became increasingly
restless and vocal as rumors spread that some of the more affluent
tourists had bribed the authorities to obtain places on the
helicopters. Small children and infants were crying in their parents'
arms. Did the parents even have sufficient formula and diapers
for the babies? Bathroom facilities were scarce (and hardly
sanitary) in the cafes and restaurants that were in the
vicinity
of the soccer stadium. Everyone was frustrated and
miserable.
It was about 4 p.m. when our tour
manager directed us to follow him to a nearby restaurant where he had
secured some space for us to rest, and where he would provide us with
some "breaking news." There was little food to be had
and not a sufficient number of chairs for all of us to be seated in
the simple restaurant. The "breaking news" was that
ten places on the helicopters would be available for our group
(of twenty-eight) that day. We ourselves were to decide which ten
persons of the group should be selected for evacuation; and the
remaining eighteen persons would be lodged in a half-star hotel where
the manager had reserved a bloc of rooms. The group quickly
decided that the eldest members of the group should be
given priority -- along with my wife, who was still
experiencing
the effects of her illness, and myself as the caretaker for my
wife. I don't recall having been ever before so
grateful
for an illness in my family.
We were directed to
walk along a path through some dense semitropical vegetation to a
location near the river, about a mile upstream from the town, where
we were to board the helicopter. Alongside the path were
collections of tourists who were shouting and jeering at those who
had been selected for evacuation. Several tourists and natives
attempted to join the procession of evacuees but were turned
back. Soon a helicopter appeared high above us, descending
into
the valley between two mountain peaks and landing on a grassy field
next to the river. My wife and I did not "make the cut"
for the first helicopter flight but, a half hour later, we did get on
board the next flight; and twenty minutes later we landed on a
soccer field in Ollantaytambo, where we boarded a bus for the two
and-a-half hour drive to Cuzco.
Grateful though we were
for our evacuation, we did experience a measure of "survivor
guilt" during the following days, especially with regard to the
eighteen members of our group whom we had left
behind. They
were evacuated during the course of the next two days, and when we
were reunited, they told us fairly harrowing stories about their
experiences: Many of the young tourists who were stranded had
become bellicose, as their supplies of food and other
necessities became depleted, and as the ATM machines no longer
dispensed cash, and as their own prospects for evacuation appeared
remote. Most of the young people camped in tents that were
pitched in the town square, and torrential rains flooded their
tents every night. There was hardly any police
presence in
Aguas Calientes during the first two days, as the crowds became
increasingly unruly, but on the third day the Peruvian army
took control of the town and restored order. A week
passed
before the last of the tourists and natives could be evacuated. Of
our experience in Peru it could be said, "It was the best of
trips, it was the worst of trips." Being marooned in Aguas
Calientes was a very unpleasant experience, even though we were
fortunate enough to have been evacuated during the first day after
the inundation of the town; but our visit to Machu Picchu and
our visits to other sites in the Peruvian highlands were very
rewarding. Learning the remarkable history of the Inca
civilization and becoming acquainted with the stoic and
gracious Andean people (who are the Incas' cultural
descendants), deepened our understanding of the world. But we
knew that it would be impossible -- for the next several months at
least – for other tourists to experience what we had
experienced. It would be a challenging job to rebuild the
rail
line to Machu Picchu and the tourist facilities in the town of
Aguas Calientes. It might be necessary to build levees on the
riverbanks to prevent future flooding in the valley; and it might be
necessary to build an alternative route to Machu Picchu, whether a
rail line or a highway, in order to assure transport should the river
flood its banks again. And a major investment would obviously
be
required to restore the devastated houses and farmlands in the
Urubamba River Valley.
Another
lesson was learned from our experience at Aguas Calientes: We were,
almost certainly, complicit in an act of malfeasance, namely the
payment of bribes to the civil authorities in the town who expedited
our evacuation by helicopter. Nothing about bribes was ever
explicitly related to us by our tour manager, at the time of our
evacuation or at any later time during our stay in Peru, and we were
content to live with the pretense of ignorance and innocence; but we
knew. True, the members of our group were collectively among the
oldest tourists who were stranded in Aguas Calientes that day, and
true, my wife was still suffering a fever, but those rationalizations
didn’t work so well when we recalled the young children and
babies whose evacuation was deferred for another day. We assuaged our
guilty feelings to some extent by taking up a collection for the
relief of Peruvians in the Valley whose homes and fields lay in
ruins. But the lesson learned has stayed with me: Under duress,
people will be complicit in doing things that they could not imagine
themselves doing.
