Irresponsible Traveller : Tales of Scrapes and Narrow Escapes (9781784771010) by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784771010
Publisher: Vearsa
Published: 2014-09-25T05:00:00+00:00

Nicky Gardner is a Berlin-based travel writer. She is co-editor of hidden europe magazine (www.hiddeneurope.co.uk). Nicky is also the author of A Manifesto for Slow Travel, published by hidden europe in 2009.

The Casualty and the Priest

Ben Fogle

Let’s be honest: we Western travellers can be a little bit arrogant. The simple fact we can afford to travel to wild, remote places, where poverty can be rife, is arguably a form of arrogance. The fact that we are from a developed country, and by and large ‘wealthier’, often gives us advantages not afforded to the native population. We all try to be good, responsible travellers but just occasionally the assumption that we can do what we want can get us in all sorts of trouble.

I was four weeks into an eight-week film shoot in South America. I had begun with an attempted ascent of Chimborazo in Ecuador followed by a two-week journey into the hot, steamy bowels of the deepest canyon on earth, the 3,354 metre deep Cotahausi Canyon in Peru. I was already weary from weeks of trekking and I had the prospect of two further expeditions in succession. I had been struck with an unidentified lurgy for several days and wasn’t feeling my best. I had just a day to get out of the canyon and back to Cusco before heading on to meet my next film crew and volunteers in Santiago, Chile before heading to the Atacama Desert. Timing was crucial.

The team and crew were elated: we had reached the lost city of Marpa and they were all heading home. We boarded the bus and set off on the long twelve-hour journey to Cusco. We had been driving for several hours when the bus stopped behind a queue of cars. Dozens of people milled around the roadside and the tail of traffic disappeared into the horizon.

‘Huelga, huelga,’ shouted someone. ‘Strike, strike.’

We stepped from the bus and wandered alongside the stationary traffic to try to see what was happening. Ten, twenty, thirty minutes later and we were still walking past buses, cars, trucks, motorbikes. It was the biggest traffic jam I have ever seen in my life, the vehicles all spilling their human contents on to the side of the road. Tents had been erected and stalls set up to sell food. To be honest, it didn’t look good. It was like a refugee camp. Babies screamed in the arms of their exasperated mothers. Occasionally a driver honked a horn fruitlessly. There were hundreds – perhaps thousands – of vehicles snaking along the mountain road. And at the very back was our little bus.

Eventually we reached a bridge crossing a river. It had been partly disassembled and huge boulders had been rolled into the middle to make a strong barricade. On the other side of the river were similar scenes of traffic wretchedness. Two noisy groups of Peruvians held banners on both sides of the bridge and chanted in unison. They were the protesters. They had been there for nearly a week and they weren’t going anywhere.

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