Calling it trekking probably sounds grander and more challenging than it is but we are walking through the mountains near the town of Celendin in N Peru. Here is how part of the trail looks.
We are sitting
on a hillside above Celendin looking over very dry alpine mountainsides. The land is overgrazed and over cultivated
with thin rocky soil. Cattle and sheep
graze but no llamas. Two men plow the
hillside with two oxen yoked to an antique iron-tipped wooden plow. The oxen, Deb and I wait for the farmers to
return from lunch. A calf roams free,
describing a wide orbit around the oxen.
Two cattle egrets orbit the calf.
Dogs bark in the distance, clouds gather – an empty promise of
rain. The oxen are in yoke with no food
or water. Most of the mountainside is
not cultivated, but we see a few plots of corn. Some trees including eucalyptus, and something
like Cyprus decorate the hills. Smaller
brush, including two kinds of aloe abound, but the overwhelming majority of the
flora is short dry grass marked by braided trails of grazing animals.
When the
men resume their plowing, they graciously invite Deb to take photos, even posing. The older
man shows a badly injured foot, bandaged and bleeding that still does not keep
him from his work.
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