Travel made difficult by protesters

Earlier today I returned to Lima from Cusco...two days later than planned. We were originally scheduled to fly out of Cusco on Friday morning, however our plans quickly changed due to labor strikes going on in the area. Because news of these strikes, and the status of our group, made it's way back to the states already, I figure I should give my description of the events that we experienced due to the strike (for another perspective, click on the link to the left to Rachel's blog).

On Friday morning, we knew that some labor stikes were ocurring in the Cusco area, and our tour guide decided we should leave Ollantaytambo (our base camp of sorts for the sight-seeing we did at various ancient Incan sights) early...real early, at about 3 am, in case we might encounter any roadblocks on the way back to the Cusco airport. Sure enough, after about an hour or so of driving, our bus came to a stop due to a large tree that protesters had placed across the road. A few of the guys in our group helped some others on the road with removing it, and we were on our way pretty quickly. However, about five minutes later, our bus came to a stop again at another roadblock. It was unclear what exactly would be happening next, so our group just kind of hung out on the bus and to wait it out.

Various students on the bus were doing their best to stay warm, pass the time, or in my case sleep...but all of our activities were interrupted by some commotion that we heard outside. We started to hear some voices in spanish shouting and getting louder and louder. Then all of the sudden, there were 20 or so drunk Peruvian guys (who had apparently stayed up all night drinking and preparing for the strike) who surrounded our bus. There was quite a bit of shouting and at one point there was a loud thud as one guy hit the side of the bus with a large stone. It also appeared like some of the guys outside were attempting to let the air out of our tires. Needless to say, we were all pretty stunned by this, and unfortunately we couldn't understand all of the rapid shouting by the protesters or our guides who were at the front of the bus talking to them at the door. One of the few things I did catch was our tour guide shouting in Spanish, "They're just tourists! They're students, they support you!" As I heard that, I naturally felt a bit of panic, and there were definitely others on the bus who expressed outright fear. However, after a minute or two of shouting, the protesters moved on down the road, apparently no longer interested in the bus full of tourist/students.

Once they moved on and everyone calmed down a bit, our tour guide informed us that it wouldn't be safe for us to travel by bus any longer (though after that experience, we wondered how safe it would be to be getting out of the bus). Instead, we were going to leave the bus, grab the things we felt like carrying with us, and walk the remaining nine miles back to Cusco. No one was particularly excited about walking that distance, especially as it was cold out, the sun still hadn't risen fully, and there was a light drizzle of rain coming down to top things off. But, we went on our way...and saw some very interesting sights along the way.

As we walked we saw many more trees and large rocks set up as roadblocks, which prevented travel into Cusco by autos. As we passed through small towns, there were also very few stores open, as everyone was participating (or being forced to participate) in the strike. I guess I should probably say what exactly this strike was all about: in a nutshell, the government of Perú, in Lima, has begun the process of allowing private investment near historical sights such as Machu Picchu. The only step left in passing the law is for it to be signed by the President, Alan Garcia. As many people oppose private investment in these locations, a 48-hour labor strike was held in Cusco, with transportation in the city suspended as well, to express concern towards Garcia over the law.

When we finally got to Cusco, the city had a very strange feeling. There were no cars driving around, only people walking around in the streets. At one point, in the main square, our group rounded a corner and saw a large group of people marching towards us chanting, on their way to protest in front of city hall. There were also tires in various intersections that had been set on fire to prevent traffic from using the streets. However, from what we saw, the protesting was very peaceful, as there were police in the streets monitoring things, but I did read online that there was some violence and eve a couple of deaths in the Cusco area. The only somewhat violent thing that we saw were a couple of glass storefronts that had been smashed (one of which was an office of LAN Airlines, which is Chilean, and Peruvians have historically had conflicts with Chile and their companies). Finally after an hour and a half or so, we made it to our hostel where we could rest and nap after our long, drawn-out return.

As it turned out, there were no flights on Friday, so we had to reschedule our return to Lima. And with a group of students as big as ours, we weren't able to get space until today, Sunday. So, today we returned to Lima, and are now safely back with our host families. Tomorrow we will meet as a group to discuss our final plans for going to other parts of Perú for service, and on Tuesday I'll head to Huancayo where I will stay for six weeks. For now, I won't saw more about our trip to Cusco, now that I've got the most important story out of the way. Some more stories and pictures of the real reason for our trip, Machu Picchu and other ancient Andean sights that we visited, will have to wait for tomorrow.