Recollections by Mrs. Katharine D. Moses. 1913 - 1983

It was late spring of 1935 and I was a year out of Vassar College. My husband of not quite a year was approaching the end of a long stay at Harvard, which was to end before long with the completion of his Ph.D. thesis. We had had quite a year, two months in Montana while my husband did field work for the U. S. Geological Survey on a tiny expense allowance, no salary, and then what seemed for that period of depression times a prosperous winter with an income of seventy dollars a month for his work as an Assistant Instructor at Harvard while finishing his own studies. However with the approach of the end of the school year job-hunting outside academia began to have top priority. A trip to New York City ended up with two offers and we felt as if we owned the world. One offer was for oil geology in Texas with Texaco, the other for a copper mining company in South America. Youth, a spirit of adventure, and a love for travel swung the scales to the Andes. To be perfectly honest about it, one of the most important factors in that decision was that my husband had been told that it was useless to apply to that particular mining company, they were not taking on any new employees, but "go in and speak to them if you are near their offices, it can't hurt to get acquainted with them". At that time Cerro de Pasco Copper Corporation managed some 800,000 acres of land, three great mines, at Morococha, Casapalca and Cerro de Pasco, the relatively new metallurgical smelter at La Oroya and a hydroelectric plant at Malpaso. The haciendas grazed some 60,000 sheep and some 20,000 cattle to help feed the thousands of workers.

So we found ourselves celebrating our first wedding anniversary on board a ship in the Pacific Ocean, waiting anxiously for the land that was to be our home for the next sixteen years. We were looking forward to the experience but we were also feeling a little hesitant, at least I was. We had of course heard wild tales about the effects of living in high altitudes but even more I was worried because I had been told that I would find the few American women there would be resentful of the fact that I had been to college. I was advised to keep quiet about "my past".

Our first realization that we were now in a strange land where we could not even speak the language came on our first sight seeing trip. We had brought with us a Scottie dog, "Erpie" who was a member of the family and of course he was with us when we started out in an open car with a hired driver to see the city of Lima. Very soon the dog in his excitement over all the wonderful smells, fell out of the car and dangled just off the road at the end of his leash. Knowing no Spanish word for stop, we kept shouting in English until the driver concluded that the noise was more than should be expected even from noisy loud American tourists and stopped to investigate. From that moment on the dog proved one of our biggest attractions and attracted fascinated attention all over the country, particularly in the mountains where a thoroughbred dog was at that time virtually unknown.


P.S. from John Moses Jr.:

I imagine it might amuse some people. My parents called the dog that they still had when I was a little boy Erpie. They had it before they went to Peru. I do not think they realized that "urpi" in Quechua meant friend! I rather like that coincidence.

Our first trip "up the hill" was made on the fabulous Ferrocarril Central, the highest standard gauge railroad in the world. It was built by Henry L. Meiggs, an American engineer, and snaked it's way from sea level to 15,806 feet in a distance of about one hundred and thirty kilometers, using bridges over bridges, tunnels and switchbacks. It hung on mountainsides, seemed at times on switchbacks about to run off into the canyon below. It came from the dry coast, up through the mountains into a rainy belt and vegetation, on above the vegetation into the land of rock slopes, llamas, alpacas, vicuñas and glaciers, past small farms, past mines, past innumerable natives on foot from nowhere to nowhere, stone houses with tin roofs, mud houses with thatched roofs, desolation and grandeur. From Ticlio the train continued another 40 kilometers to La Oroya where in 1922 Cerro opened a metallurgical complex. We went on to Cerro de Pasco; some 60 miles north of La Oroya where our assigned home overlooked a glacier lake.

It was a country such as I had never seen before. I had done some traveling in France and Italy. I had driven through the northern United States from Maine to Washington. I'd seen Glacier National Park, Mt. Rushmore, and the Rocky Mountains of the North American west, but nothing had prepared me for the gaunt majesty of the Peruvian Andes. They looked bleak and forbidding and something about the thin clear air and the light headed feeling which came with my first experience of really high altitudes gave an emotional impact to my first encounter with "La Cima". At that moment I would not have believed that for sixteen years I would be intimate with those mountains and that every rock would become a close friend: that my husband would walk over a great many of those steep slopes and tell us of the rocks he found. Every small bit of road, rail or highway, took on a special significance through the years. Here was the curve where we had picnicked with our firstborn when he was ten months old; here the turns where our daughter always became carsick; and a straight stretch near the summit where we found a car full of people waiting for a native, who while preserving Quechua language and customs of his forefathers, was crossing the hills on foot, we thought to help them change a tire, a physical exertion not easy when you are first at sixteen thousand feet, and the sinking feeling when the native arrived in response to our shouts and we found that he had only one arm. Here was the sharp curve where we had almost collided with a truck whose driver, we suddenly realized as it came weaving at us, had dozed off either from weariness or "soroche" and who sat up with a start at our shouts and pulled off the road to thank us for waking him. On over the Summit was our mountain friend, "Yanasinga", a contrast of black rock and glacier, and always a look to see how much the glacier had receded; and on further would we get a glimpse of "Puy-Puy" or would its peak be lost that day in the clouds?

Housekeeping was an adventure and always complicated by the difference in culture and the lack of communication. Our Spanish was non-existent at the start of our years in Peru and very many of the natives with whom we dealt had very little knowledge of Spanish. We never learned more than an occasional word of their ancient Quechua language, our children probably picked up more of it than we did.

Buying eggs was a long and complicated procedure near Cerro. A native would arrive at the door with a large basket of eggs and the first step was bargaining on the price, next the dishpan, full of water was brought to the back porch and eggs were carefully placed in the water with the hope of finding enough that stayed on the bottom or perhaps turned up slightly on end. Then it was almost a slight of hand trick to see whether I could fish out enough fresh eggs from the bottom of the pan before the seller whisked out for me too many of those that were accessibly floating on top; then a final count and payment for agreed upon eggs. Apparently no one had more than a few laying hens and so sellers would hoard eggs until enough were in hand to justify a trip from "chacra" to the town. One of my most faithful suppliers for years was a round-cheeked Mongolian-looking young woman who would arrive on horseback with a small number of eggs in each saddlebag! Her eggs were usually quite fresh, but the payment was always difficult, since I never succeeded in changing her system of pricing - ten centavos a piece or two for twenty-five centavos. It was hard to find enough "realitos" to pay for them one by one. In the seasons when the hens became less energetic about laying, and no one came to the house, I would often take a basket and go on foot through the neighboring village, knocking at any doors where I suspected the existence of a hen. Usually by that system I could round up a few eggs and although under such circumstances I could not make the water test, they were generally fresh when picked up in the one-at-a-time fashion. In due course we had a hen house and our children helped feed the chickens.

One of the side-effects of living at over fourteen thousand feet elevation, near a mining camp without full hospital facilities, was for me the fairly necessary experience of spending, as then advised, a certain number of months at a Pension at sea level. Aside from the fact that this meant months of separation from my husband at a period when women would rather not be alone, it was complicated in my case by the fact that I now had one small boy who was due to reach his first birthday on what turned out to be the day after his sister's birth. Since I went down the hill two and a half months before the arrival of my daughter, any one who can do a little fast arithmetic can imagine the state of my figure at that period.

I must sidetrack briefly right here to give one background touch. We were living in what was then officially a Catholic country, where large families were looked upon with approval. In fact, all the wives on their first appearances at local Cerro dances had been put thought the same opening conversational gambit by their Spanish speaking dancing partners:

"How long have you been married, señora?"
"X years!"
"How many children, señora?"
"None".
"Why not?"

Leaving us in turn with no possible answer in English and certainly not in a foreign language. In fact, my early attempt to answer in Spanish would probably have resulted in the oft-misused but easy transposition from English

"Estoy embarrasada" which would of course unintentionally end that gambit then and there.

Back to sea level and the problem of finding a place to live for perhaps five months, with one child almost ten months old and a Quechua speaking nursemaid. I drove around for several weeks and rang innumerable doorbells in Lima. An explanation of the accommodations I would need always brought forth the same quick hidden glance and the exclamation 'Qué barbaridad, señora!" However, I did finally find a pension in "Miraflores" which was not afraid of me and allowed us to move in. I had a fairly comfortable room opening off the patio, access to the living room and dining room, which also opened off the garden. It was lovely summer weather and we soaked up a lot of sunshine, and if life was frequently dull and monotonous, it was also frequently enlivened by adventures learning about Lima (as well as by the changing population of the pension.) I don't want this to be a "clinical" report, but there was the week when in addition to sun all the pensionistas also acquired a familiar Latin bug. So followed the delightful morning, when by pre arrangement four taxis were waiting at the door. We all arose bright and early, took our doses of salts, and climbed into the taxis and headed off for our appointment at the British American hospital. Of course we all recovered, but we had plenty of time to sympathize with each other. While I recall such events, it was customary for hospitals in Peru years ago, perhaps still today, to provide an extra bed in each private room for an "acompaniante" of the patient, perhaps to relieve the nursing load. So it was, that when my daughter was born in the clinic at Callao, I found myself next door to a man and wife who were old friends of ours. The man recovering from pneumonia, and his wife who was a trained nurse occupying the extra bed. One morning as I was sleepily taking care of my new daughter's six o'clock in the morning appetite, I became aware of a commotion next door, the two rooms occupied a corner space and it was almost possible to see from one to the other and very easy to hear. Being concerned as to whether the raised voices meant that my friend was not as well as expected, I began to listen, and was soon aware that there was quite an argument in progress between the nurse on duty and the wife of the patient. I heard in Spanish:

"No, no -you have made a mistake",
"Please, señora, you must wake up."
"I am awake, nurse, but please be quiet or you will disturb my husband."
"But señora, you must. I am sorry but do not go to sleep."
"Look, nurse, just go on away and leave us alone."
A little more noise and then a few sleepy male grunts followed, I heard: "What is the matter nurse?"
"Señor, I am sorry to disturb you but please tell your wife that she simply must wake up and nurse her baby."

It took all of us some time to convince the nurse that no matter how awake the señora was, nor how fond of children, she could do nothing to help someone else's hungry baby though she was trying very hard to do a good job of nursing her husband through an attack of pneumonia.

One of my clearest memories is of a pack trip I made with my husband into a section of Peru not easily accessible to the average traveler and actually quite cut off from civilization - even from the degree of civilization known in the smaller mountain towns that were at least on a road passable to sturdy vehicles. We had started from La Oroya, then a town of about ten thousand or more people, the meeting point of two railroads and two highways (if you can dignify with the name of highway the two-lane unpaved roads that then wound through the mountain section (the sierra or the "hill") as we comfortably referred to the twelve thousand feet high La Oroya location and a company metallurgical center, (possibly processing more different ores than anywhere else on earth.)

From this relatively civilized spot, we took off by train and rode about fifty miles to the north end of the pampa of Junin. This fourteen thousand foot high plain, full of grazing sheep and a large lake that is a Mecca for duck hunters, was the scene of the final battle in Peru's fight for independence and sprouts a startling modern pillar in commemoration thereof. From its northern edge, the valleys twist down fast and steeply into the Amazon drainage, with magnificent glacier-covered peaks standing guard over little native villages luxuriating in the fertility of the valley bottoms. From the town of Carhuamayo we took a truck in a northeasterly direction for another forty miles or so, to a point where a stream valley parted company with the road and here we set up our first camp. We, my husband and myself, Leon, our cook and Davila, the instrument man who helped my husband on his surveying. Both Leon and Davila were remarkably capable natives. We had one large sleeping tent and a small cooking tent and of course we were carrying our own food and equipment as well as surveying and sampling equipment. Leon served us a good hot meal. Since it was very cold, except in direct sun as it is never very warm at high elevation, we all were ready for bed early. We did have light from a gasoline lamp, but it was much too cold to think of anything except crawling into our sleeping bags. The idea of a woman going on one of these trips was a somewhat unusual one. There had been no experience in running these purely business field trips for mixed company, no safari. All four of us were sleeping in the same tent, which was quite large enough to contain four cots around the sides, and a table in the middle which served as desk and as a dining room table and held our one lamp. We all four managed to get ready for bed and into our blankets with a relative regard for the decencies, not just of mixed company but with two natives who really had never expected to find themselves living so intimately with a "gringa". Then suddenly the first problem arose. All four of us were modestly tucked into bed and stripped down to at least our inner layers of long underwear when we all suddenly realized that our lamp was still burning brightly in the middle of the room. I suppose the logical thing would have been for my husband to get up and put it out, but his two "ayudantes" did not feel that befitted his dignity to do so, and obviously I was not the one to do it. So after a brief mental drawing of lots one embarrassed native made a quick dash to douse the light.

Daylight came at the usual in the tropics at its six o'clock hour. Leon's hot coffee smelled wonderful and I happily braved the early morning icy air to make ready for the next stage of our trip. As I stepped out of the tent, I could see the sunlight catching the very tops of the mountains surrounding us but the stream in front of me still lay in shadow with its morning coating of ice as yet untouched by the sun. I think I dripped a bit of water on to the tip of my nose but certainly my ablutions went no further than that. For the first time I realized from my own experience just how easy it would be to live in as unwashed a state as seemed prevalent. It took me only a moment to conclude that were was obviously no necessity for me to be any cleaner than I already was. As I huddled over our cooking stove gulping hot coffee, I was ready to convert to the old Inca worship of the sun. I eagerly watched the bright light work its way down the mountainsides, counting the minutes until the sun would be high enough for its rays to hit the valley bottom where the tent was.

In the meantime, we had acquired a pack train of about twenty animals and a couple of "arrieros" who were responsible for their care. It took some time to break camp and divide our equipment so that it would be distributed amongst these animals, but finally all was done and we were ready to mount our own, not prancing steeds, but the little "chuzco" mountain horses, with their narrow high saddles and box stirrups, and we were off. The two "arrieros" did not ride but wanted to accompany us for the next four days on foot, at a slow but steady trot that showed their descent from the old Inca runners, the "chasqui", who used to get the fresh fish from Lima up to Cuzco, the mountain capitol of the Inca Empire. Our progress was not fast, the trails wound up and down mountainsides and the horses had to pick their way with care. I will never understand why a horse on a narrow trail on the side of a mountain always negotiates it in such a fashion that his off rear foot always swings out over empty space. It did always come down on the trail but many a time I was in doubt. Since I have never, even in years of living in mountain country, been able to overcome completely a strong tendency towards vertigo, I had many uncomfortable moments on these trails. Many a time, though it was easier to ride the horse as he tugged his way uphill, I got off the horse and walked because I found the extra height from the horse's back put me in a more vulnerable position for vertigo than when I was on my own two feet on the ground.

That night when we stopped I got off my horse in the most ungraceful fashion imaginable. In spite of having led my horse over some of those hanging trails, I was stiffer than I could ever remember being. And so with difficulty I got one leg up over the saddle and then just fell to the ground. I was certainly ready for dinner and bed that night. The next day we continued to ride over a few more ridges and in and out of a few more valleys, and finally arrived at the town of Chaucala. Chaucala was not at a low enough elevation to have any vegetation. In fact, it was hard to figure out how the small population kept alive. There were not more than fifty houses in the town, all the typical small round stone "chosas" with thatched roofs. These chosas were about twelve feet in diameter. The floor, of dirt, was a little below ground level, requiring a step down to enter through the low open doorway which was the only source of light and air.

The next day my husband and his helpers had to climb up the mountain in order to examine the prospect, which was the reason for this trip and it was decided that it was more sensible for me to stay in the town. We had made our camp in what was apparently the town square or common, a small open flat place surrounded by houses. During the day, I walked to the edge of town, all of a couple of hundred yards away, and settled down in the corner of a field against a stone wall to be lazy and bask in the sunshine and read a book I'd brought for awhile. I soon found that I was quite an object of curiosity, all the women came out and looked at me and smiled in a very friendly fashion. However it soon became obvious that communication was going to be difficult since none of them spoke any Spanish. Of course they did not speak English, but it was unusual to find a town in Peru so out of the main stream that the people still spoke only the old Inca Quechua language, which I had only a few words of and have not ever learned. (Probably not unusual that there was such a town, but unusual that one like myself would get to visit Chaucala.) Finally a ten-year-old boy wandered out and joined us. It turned out the boy was the only one in the town who could speak some Spanish, so he became my shadow for the rest of that day and acted as interpreter. The women were full of questions, they had never been out of their own little valley and automobiles and planes and electricity and all the things we take for granted in the world today were as foreign to their understanding as some of Jules Verne's ideas must have first seemed. The women were kind and friendly and made a conscious effort to see that I was never left alone. They took turns keeping me company, some going off to attend to their chores, but never until there was a new arrival to take over the duties of hostess. At three or so, a real honor was given me. Still through the ten-year-old interpreter I was invited to the home of one of the ladies for coffee. I accepted with pleasure and shortly made my way to the designated "chosa".

As I stopped and stepped down to enter the low opening in the round stone house that served as the only source of air and light, I had to stoop and wait until my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the interior. When I was able to safely move a little farther inside, I saw that an orange crate stood on end at the right of the door and it was covered with a white cloth. By it were a couple of crates on their sides and I was graciously ushered to one of these. As I seated myself by the tea table, I could look across the circular room to the small fire burning in a sort of fireplace and see that there were several more women sitting on their heels. With many smiles, I was given a cup of thick black coffee with sugar in it and canned milk to be added and some good hard buns were on the "table". I drank the coffee with pleasure, as usual it was cold as soon as I got out of the sun, but there was one small problem, it really was small - guinea pigs were busily trotting back and forth across my feet as I was sipping coffee and I was not at all sure - whether social etiquette in Chaucala required me to admire them as beloved pets or to ignore them as the basis of the next dinner.

Apparently I did not offend any local customs, because when we broke camp the following morning, one after another, the women appeared with a gift for me, each poured out on the ground for me a generous heap of potatoes, a noble gift, for that was surely a big portion of their yearly harvest. I am sure that there must be some connection between this Chaucala hospitality and the custom of "potlatch" among the northwestern tribes of North American Indians. With Leon's assistance, we were able to raid our own supplies sufficiently to give in return a couple of cans of fruit or soup or some such item to each of many hostesses and we parted company with many mutual smiles of goodwill. It is really not surprising that, though I have forgotten names of many other cities or towns where I have spent a night or two, I always have the name of Chaucala clearly in my mind.

Since all geological observations had been taken on our slow trip in to Chaucala, we were able to come out in much faster time. After a long and hard ride, we finally arrived back at the road where we had first parted company with our truck.

We still had with us, and still running on foot, the two "arrieros" who had met us here several days before. They had not been very interested in our food supplies, seeming to prefer the parched corn, which they carried in small sacks and of which they ate handfuls whenever they appeared to need sustenance. They seemed not at all weary from their days of accompanying us.

It was already dark, but suddenly finding myself closer to civilization, I became anxious to hurry on home to the two small children whom I had left behind. A large truck came slowly up the road. We flagged it down and found that the driver, though he already had several passengers, was very willing to take my husband and myself on with them to the town where we had left the railroad, and where we knew there was a hotel in which we could spend the night and catch the early morning train back home. For a small fee, I think it was the equivalent of about two cents, we were allowed to climb into the back of the truck and find ourselves sitting room on the sacks of potatoes which were already fairly well occupied by the other passengers. We made a bumpy but satisfactory trip to town.

The hotel was at least warm. We sat in the kitchen while the cook heated up some soup for us and fired us a steak, while we warmed our feet on the coal stove on which our meal was cooking. Unfortunately there were no rooms but since there was nothing else in the town and the manager really did not want us to spend the night in the kitchen, he finally decided that it would be safe to let us use the room of a guest who seemed to be spending the night elsewhere. We were ushered to a small musty single room and assured that we would be called in time for the morning train. The single bed had sheets that had not been changed for at least a month. The towels looked as if no one had ever thought of washing with soap. The room was just as cold as our tent had been. That night I did not even pretend to undress. All I did was to remove my boots, though considering how long it had been since I had washed, I am not sure whether I was protecting myself or the hotel linens.

When I finally arrived home the following morning, anxious to get off my clothes which I felt sure had grown to me by then, I was happy to find my then two small children playing very happily in the living room. I rather expected a rousing welcome from them after my adventurous absence, but in the usual fashion of small children, they certainly put me in my place by stopping their play just long enough to look up at me casually and in English shaped by Spanish say, "Why you come home, mommy?"

Leon was lean and very dark. I never saw his bright black eyes without a gay and lively twinkle in them. True enough, when he was acting as cook for my husband on field trips in the Andes, he often took advantage of the hours when my husband was climbing far from the base camp and got himself quite drunk. And often, in the intervals between trips, when his main job was to check supplies and get equipment in order for the next trip, he would be absent from work for several days at a time. In fact, sometimes he had to be rescued from a local jail. But he was always cheerful and never complained about spending weeks at a time living in a tent miles from the nearest town and always managed to produce good food from the combination of the canned goods carried with then and what little could be acquired from the land. It was quite a blow to the whole staff when he failed to return from a short vacation to his native village and inquiries finally revealed that his body had been found in the bottom of an old well, where it had obviously arrived with the aid and assistance of some agency other than his own. (Possibly APRA?)

I have a photograph of Leon with half a dozen of my little Cub Scouts, when during one of his sober and idle periods in town, he had been loaned to me to instruct the scouts in the construction of a "chosa". With his aid and direction, we built in our yard a small round stone house and put a thatched roof on it and the boys had a wonderful place for sleeping out and a good lesson in how a dwelling could be constructed with no mechanical aids. Our stonework did not rival the famous stonework of Cuzco done by the Incas but I am sure each of those boys had a greater respect for the skill of the Incas. Even in this old black and white photo, his happy face and bright eyes are very clear. Leon always seemed to have such a zest for living that I have never been able to sense that his bright eyes no longer enjoy the mountains of Peru.

Mrs. Katharine D. Moses