A Midway Peru Trip Update

Friday 13 Jan 2023

After our 46 hour flight including a lovely catch up with our good friend Rob Morton during our Sydney stopover at the International Airport, then another stopover in Houston, Texas, and then another in Lima – we were pretty tired when Isaac and I finally touched down in Cusco as sleep sitting almost vertical was hard to realise.  

But it didn’t stop there as we then found a political blockade between Cusco and Curahuasi.  Normally a 2.5 hour journey in a colectivo (shared passenger taxi) but in our case it took us some 12 hours.  By that time Isaac and I were REALLY tired! J

The extended journey to Curahuasi included a 5 hour delay getting our initial colectivo (due to road blockade) and then a 3 hour walk with our bags for 10km over and under about 20 blockages consisting of felled trees, earthen walls, rocks/boulders, hundreds of broken bottles, barbed wire and even in one place, a steel pole fence welded across the Panamericana highway from one bridge railing to another!  See photos below. Keep in mind in this part of Peru there usually no roads to bypass the Panamericana due to the mountainous terrain and economics.

One of numerous rock and boulder blockades.

A welded steel fence blockade midway across a bridge, from railing to railing.

 

One of many earthen blockades.

One of many about 5 or 6 felled tree blockades.

During our 10km “hike” past the blockades, one of our bags broke and a colectivo companion, René, carried this bag on his shoulders almost all the distance. What an angel provision he was for us in the thirst quenching heat. René was an ambulance driver of nearby township of Limatambo.

 

Here Isaac and I finally arrive at Diospi Suyana after some 58 hours of negligible travel sleep.

On the other side of all this mess, we caught another colectivo (at elevated price taking advantage of the situation), to finally arrive and be warmly greeted by Diospi Suyana including many familiar faces, not the least being Dr Martina John.  Dr Klaus is in Germany and would be back the following Saturday (i.e. tomorrow at the time of writing).

These blockades were placed by disgruntled Quechua rural communities due to extreme long term political corruption in Peru and worsening living standards.  The catalyst being the appointment of vice president, Dina Boluarte serving as the President of Peru on 7 December 2022 when the president elect, Pedro Castillo, was impeached and removed from office by the Congress of Peru after attempting a self-coup.  Without going into this situation any further, except to say Peru’s 5 former presidents are in gaol due to corruption, government in Peru is a mess and the poverty stricken Quechuas have had enough.

On our first travel recovery day in the afternoon, young and enthusiastic Centro de Medios (Broadcast centre) employee responsible for transmission operations, Mr David Hanco Conchacalla, knocks on our hospital apartment door unannounced (as it happens I was fast asleep).  He asked to take us through the many issues they were hoping I was going to address whilst here.  We obliged and after a few hours we find it was quite a list, and this did not include the remote FM site installations.  Albeit based on the current level of political protest becoming more violent as each day progressed, the likelihood of such travel now seems unlikely.  A full agenda in Curahuasi was a good thing.

A new relatively local Peruvian technician, Mr Victor Moreno, was to adjoin me for the duration of our visit.  He brings some 30 years of experience in the sector working for a number of Peru businesses.  He arrived at our hospital unit on the Sunday to go through the work for the next few hours before we had to leave for dinner.  We got on quite well despite my struggling Spanish.  Isaac was able to fill in some gaps for me more than once.  

We visited the two nearby Diospi transmission sites of Curahuasi and Abancay to assess the work required in those places from incomplete or faulty installations.  We found about half of the 30km Panamericana route from Curahuasi to the 4000m high Abancay pass where our FM transmitter site is located, was blocked down to one lane by rocks and trees. It was totally blocked earlier but now one lane was cleared to necessitate getting critical resources though to southern Peru.  

We also learned in some areas of Peru the protests are turning increasingly violent.  On just one night this week some 17 people were shot dead in the region of Puno (I was intending on going there to maintain our Puno FM site, but not now).  And as of this writing, some 50 people have been killed in these protests across all of Peru.  We will be exercising extreme caution and will amend our Diospi remote FM site visit plans accordingly.

Taken at the 4000m elevation Abancay Diospi FM transmitter site. L to R: me, Snr David Hanco, Isaac, Snr Sabino Cutipa & Snr Victor Moreno.

Snr Victor Moreno and me fitting a new cross-guide coupler on our satellite uplink antenna to enable testing of our telemetry problems.

 

Me in front of “my” Diospi hospital Satellite Uplink facility (photo by Isaac ☺).

Isaac and me fitting 4 new pieces of equipment to the Centro de Medios equipment rack, including an Orban "Optimod 6300" FM digital audio processor to greatly improve sound quality of the entire Diospi radio network.

As it happens, today is my 27^th wedding anniversary with my amazing and most beautiful bride, Sandi. We find ourselves some 14,825 km apart on this day, and looking forward to being reunited again in 2 weeks.  As anyone who knows her, she has an incredible heart, attitude and faithfulness toward God, family, people and life.  Without her support this trip to Peru would not have gotten past the idea stage.  And without her I would not be half the person I am today.

Feeling the heat on our wedding day in Timbertown, NSW 13 Jan 1996 ☺

 

Thank you for your support in what we are doing here in Peru to improve the lives of millions of impoverished and marginalised people.

Chris