The Beauty of Jihuay by Alyssa Maunders

Alyssa Maunders

A little patch of greenery among so many rocks and sand. Breakfast is at 7:30 and is always oatmeal with maca root, cinnamon and sugar. It is accompanied with hot instant coffee and bread, if we are lucky to have it. There is a sense of routine at this place that is comforting.
There is an order to the way the rabbits and chickens are fed and a sense of accomplishment when you successfully walk the goat to and from his pen. Lunch and dinner are huge portions of steamy white rice and vegetables, many grown on the farm. The company is a mishmash of volunteers from around the world, the US , France, Italy, England yet we all have something in common in the way that we have found ourselves here, in a post dinner trance, hot tea in hand playing a card game called Jihuay. 

Smooth Hiking

My arrival here wasn’t so smooth though. I encountered my first real moment of self doubt and a bit of fear since beginning my trip 2 weeks ago. And it was all of my own design, my own mistake. I got out of the small van that was driving me to Jihuay from Nazca at the wrong stop.  After a cramped 2.5 hour ride in a van filled with all manner of items and me speaking broken spanish to my driver who really wanted to know about Alaska, I got out at the wrong place!

Immediacy

I thought I was supposed to exit at mile marker 601, just before the Santa Rosa stop. So I did. I got out and walked in the direction I knew the beach would be. But, after about a half a mile of scrambling over boulders while dodging a questionable smelling stream of black goo all with my big backpack on, it occurred to me that this might be wrong. I feel like an idiot now that I even walked that far knowing somewhere, in the back of mind, that there should be a dirt road or something. There was no way the volunteers were making this walk multiple times a week. Turns out, no one was making this walk, ever. I was nowhere. I confess, when I realized I was truly far from my real destination,there were tears, but only a few panicked ones that barely left my eyes.

Alone in the Valley

I was alone, really alone. I knew had to book it back up the valley I had walked down and make it back to the road before the sun went down completely. So I adjusted the straps of my bag and with a very I’m-an-adult-now-and-no-one-is-coming-for-me-out-here-maybe-I-should-have-watched-more-bear-grylls-before-I-left-the-states look of decided determination on my face, I walked back the way I had come.

I made it back to the road just as the sun dropped behind some misty, green slopes near the pavement and I stuck out my thumb. It was nearly night and I was not at jihuay. In fact, I had not even begun the 30 minute walk to the farm yet. I had only had a very real detour. I was picked up by a nice couple who looked at me with a mixture of concern and fear as they asked where I was going and where I was from. I could barely answer there questions I was so relieved to be in a car for a moment. They dropped me at the Santa Rosa stop about 3 hundred yards up the road. I could have walked. I was so close and yet had gotten so very much off track. So close and yet, still at the top of a hill at night with the fact that my destination was down somewhere at the bottom. So I took out my light and walked. My feet were killing me and it was chilly. At this point I had already thanked my friend who gave me the bright orange, down coat I had been wearing that evening a dozen times. But it was still cold, probably from the thin veil of sweat that had appeared all over my body when I had to hustle back to the road and hitchhike, for the first time mind you.

Fundo Jihuay

I walked and walked, not knowing if this road was even 100 percent correct, there had been no signs. I could hear strange noises in the distance and the far off rumble of civilization from the highway behind me, but nothing in the direction I was walking. The idea of getting to the bottom of the hill and finding nothing but beach was a very frightening thought that, at the time, I was not allowing my brain to fully formulate.
I just kept walking down the hill and after about 35 min the road leveled off at the bottom and rounded a bend to find a large wooden gate off to the right. I had made it. “Fundo Jihuay” was written on the white plaster wall so I reached up and pulled the rope for the bell. I was quickly greeted by 2 huge ride guan ridgeback dogs and a smaller, silver mastiff puppy. These dogs would eventually be my friends but right now I was a stranger in the dark. At that point though, nothing could scare me, I was so numb with relief at arriving.

Unknown Friends

Alvaro approached me in the dark with his head lamp and swinging dreadlocks and introduced me to the group at the table. They were all smoking the cheap Inca brand cigarettes of the farm as they looked at me through the haze. They had just served up dinner. I realized I was starving. I hadn’t eaten since 10 and it was 7 in the evening. Needless to say, sometimes a steaming pile of spaghetti can make you forget a very stressful day. I laughed as I recounted the reason for my haggard appearance to those at the table and dug into the best spaghetti of my life. In a matter of seconds I knew Jihuay and I were going to get along very well, even if our introduction had gotten off to a rocky start.
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