3. Humberto, the protector

Upon arriving at the Guaycán ruins Capac Ñam of the Maranga culture (1140-1400 AD), a rather tired looking man appeared out of a small guard hut to greet me. He introduced himself as Humberto, my guide for this tour through the heavily devastated arqueological site that is now under governmental control in an effort to reconstruct what has been discovered to be another piece of pre-Incan history that lay just in the foothills east of the capital city.

What has devastated this site to its current state? When standing amidst the ruins and looking around at the huge, steep, rocky surfaces surrounding the site, one becomes intensely aware of how easily a landslide caused by either torrential rains or earthquakes could dislodge immense boulders that would, with momentum, easily crush any stone structure in its path.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature is not the only force to negatively impact this arena. Up until very recently, these ruins have been an open ground for drunken parties and pillagers who pilfer the only unbroken remains--skulls, ceramics (at which the Maranga were most developed as their harsh living conditions in a very desert-like and rocky/mountainous state did not permit much in the way of agricultural development) and any other goods discovered in the many tombs throughout the area.

This was all explained extremely matter-of-factly, with a tone not of indifference but rather of "the past is the past; we now are working to ensure that this does not repeat itself and salvage what there is to salvage."

Humberto would bend down to pick up a stone, toss it and his pointsmanship was such that this stone would hit on what he wanted me to look at. If he slightly missed, he picked up another stone and hit it on the second try.

It was funny; the day before I had played a game at the river trying to hit a large stone in the middle of the Río Lurin and, after what must have been hundreds of river rocks thrown, I only managed to hit the large stone in the river once.

A brief moment of humble pie.

As our feet crunched over rock mixed with pieces of broken ceramics and shards of bone, Humberto and I walked silently for a few moments. Then he said, in a low voice, "Then there are the spirits."

The spirits?

Do, please go on, I urged silently, always a sucker for a good ghost story.

"The spirits here are not happy. They walk here, you can here them. Just last night, at about 11:00 while I was on guard down at the entrance, the only way anyone can get in to this site, I heard what sounds exactly like the steps we are making now. The crunch-crunch-crunch."

He fell silent, as if to further illustrate his point by the crunch of our footsteps over the rugged terrain.

"Yeah, I heard that and jumped out of the guardbox, thinking that somebody must be right here in front of me. There are always two of us at a time on guard; the other guard came out with me and we both shone our flashlights all the way around..."

Humberto acted as though he had a light and, squinting, turned 360º in a slow circle to show what he had done.

"...and there was nothing there. Only the footsteps continued. We were both stopped; nobody was moving. And they were heavy footsteps, not like any animal would make. The spirits are intranquil and, although I don't think they want to hurt us I do think that they are not happy with what has been done to their burial ground."

I can respect that.

As our conversation continued, I did find out that he is paid 100 soles a week--which is about USD$30.

30 bucks a week for working 48 hour shifts and having to deal with the spirits.

I think he should ask for a raise, is what I told him as I gave him a hefty tip for his tour.

He gratefully thanked me and then ducked back into his guardbox hut.

As an insurance policy against not having to claim "one restless and unhappy pre-Incan spirit" on my customs form upon my return to the States, I quickly and thoroughly made sure I had not a single speck of any ancient relic, bone, wood or stone on me before I left.

*-----*

By the way...pictures will soon follow to illustrate some of these places visited. I am working on a 35mm SLR.