Journey to the North

As leaving Lima is always chaotic, both to the South and to the North, we left at six in the morning, heading for Ancón and Pasamayo.

There is a dense fog and that invisible rain that the people of Lima call garúa: water falls from the sky that wets but cannot be seen.

So much so that the author of

Herman Melville, when he was here, working on a whaling ship, believed that Lima was "a city of ghosts" and stated so in a letter.

It happens that the Spaniards arrived in these lands at the beginning of the summer, and, according to tradition, the Indians explained to the conquerors that this place was good to found the capital of Peru, and they obediently did so.

To the South and North, just 50 kilometers away, the weather was a thousand times better, with sun all year round and dream beaches.

But Lima is in this winter box, which lives under thick clouds and secret rains at least eight months a year, like now, and only enjoys three months of summer, when tourists can enjoy its beaches and, above all, its its suffocating heat.

The rest of the year, they die of cold and colds wreak havoc on the fragile lungs of its inhabitants, prone to colds and sometimes pneumonia.

Ancón is no longer seen.

That spa for people with money has been left, enveloped in mist, and the road climbs the dangerous curves of Pasamayo, although, oh surprise, they are no longer dangerous, because now the road runs through the peaks, and there are two rows in them, one going and one coming.

This is great news for me, as I return to these lands after 20 or 25 years, at least the last time I traveled through here, heading for Piura at the time, so hit by the El Niño floods that they seemed to be baiting against that beloved land where I finished school, and, while I was studying, I worked at

as a journalist.

There, at the Variety Theater, I premiered my first play,

and I also directed it, without knowing anything about theater (and that's how I think it came out).

The landscape between Lima, Chancay and Huacho is uniform, with foamy waves that seem to swallow the thin buttresses of the Andes mountain range that come to die here, without biting those agonizing pieces of stone in which they disappear devoured by the sea.

The noise is that of then: fierce and useless, because the foamy waves bite only the void.

Between Huacho, Chancay and Huaral there are small farms and old towns, but thriving, that insist on growing, even if the hills that sometimes want to sink them into the sea stop them.

Here, in Puerto Supe, Blanca Varela wrote her first poems, whose title,

Octavio Paz gave it to him.

In Lima at that time, the custom was in New Years, after dancing all night, to come and have breakfast in one of these towns, a custom that the armed commandos of Sendero Luminoso abruptly interrupted, until the custom ceased.

These little towns have grown and are full of cafes, which offer drinks and all kinds of colorful objects.

The trade seems intense and very varied.

The sandbanks that hide the stone hills follow one another, monotonously.

They will end up in the city of Chan Chan, on the outskirts of Trujillo, whose mysterious walls and adobe houses were part of the Great Chimú, the first pre-Hispanic civilization that we encountered on our way.

Around us, the Lady of Cao continues indomitable, explored by archaeologists, and her hair continues to grow, after hundreds of years,

200 or 240 kilometers from Lima, the landscape changes abruptly.

The dunes are bigger and so, it seems, are the noisy waves that crash against the beaches as if they wanted to destroy the cars that are advancing towards Huarmey and Casma along its shores.

These are the terms of a warrior civilization, the Great Chimú, whose capital was in the mountains, and whose virtues miraculously extended to Arequipa, Bolivia and even Brazil.

I was up there and I saw the labyrinths of those mountains, where people had themselves whipped, to obtain certain graces from heaven, which allowed them to live a few more years.

The Great Chimú flourished many years before the empire of the Incas, and was very influential from the religious point of view, since his miracles —let's call them that—, which were spoken of throughout America,

They attracted those columns of visitors who came to be flogged in the labyrinths of the Great Chimú, in addition to immunizing themselves against the devils.

And it seems that the medicine was effective, because, even during the conquest, the pilgrims kept coming and climbing the mountain range to be bled.

We stop in Casma, about 350 kilometers from Lima.

At La Balsa restaurant we are told that the octopus has disappeared from Peruvian waters, due to the pertinacity of the fishermen in catching it, without respecting the closed season.

From now on, and until these are respected, Peruvians will stop eating octopus, which cooks prepared deliciously with chili, potatoes and rice.

We must content ourselves with a boiled and blackened fish, very spicy, with lentils and rice.

We passed Trujillo at full speed, because this city, formerly stately and proud of its ancestry families, is now under a rain that, clearly, messes it up and chaotizes it.

With its huge gaps in the corners, we can see the cathedral and two more churches, all very modern and with rather execrable paintings on their walls, just painted.

There we slept, and the next morning we left first thing in the morning, heading for the huacas of the Lord of Sipán.

All this wonder would still be hidden under the sands, or rather looted by thieves, if it were not for the Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva, an old friend, who now for personal reasons could not join us.

But Emma Eyzaguirre, his wife, who is also an archaeologist, is there to welcome us, at the Museum of the Royal Tombs of Sipán, where a tourist feels in New York or in the museums of old Europe.

It is difficult to describe the elegance and neatness of this museum, where the ancient Mochica culture flourished, more or less to an extent that started at the borders with Ecuador, about 600 kilometers from here, and died in Casma.

The design of this museum, which, guided by Mrs. Eyzaguirre, makes tourists feel that they are in one of the old cities, due to the efficiency and quality of its samples,

in a semi-shade that enriches its existence and simulates tombs.

They give us a very complete vision of their pieces, which seem to cover all the manifestations of this ancient culture.

Mrs. Eyzaguirre is also an expert, and she helped her husband, Walter, scare away the thieves who looted these huacas over the years.

But it is a pity that my friend Walter Alva is not here.

I would like to congratulate him once again, because, sleeping in this place, working just like his employees, he saved the culture of the Lord of Sipán.

And he built this wonderful museum, which alone would be worth the trip to Peru, with its shadowy passageways, its showcases that reconstruct the life and death of this historic people, with precision and delicacy, and now they resurrect their past, thanks to these monuments surrounding.

Another miracle is the city of Chiclayo.

She had a reputation for being poor and messy.

It has changed a lot, for the better.

Now, with its houses painted white and its shops open until ten at night, it looks like a very modern city.

The thick crowd that circulates through its streets is the image of a determined city, which is ready to conquer the future.

Although many things are going wrong in Peru - its Government and its Parliament seem to be sinking - it has a past that is waiting for this country to rise up, and the present resembles it, in youth and in significance, although now it is tiny compared to the that it was, and poor instead of very rich, and has some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world, although many Peruvians do not know it yet.

© Mario Vargas Llosa, 2022. Spanish-language press rights in Spain and Latin America reserved for Ediciones EL PAÍS, SL, 2022. Spanish-language press rights for other territories and for other languages, reserved for Mario Vargas Llosa c/ o Carmen Balcells Literary Agency, SA.

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