1/27/2019 0 Comments carife, land of my forefathersAt Ellis Island in New York, you can find the names of people who entered the country during the world's largest ever mass migration, in the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. The records include Pietro Melchonne, whose real surname was Melchionne and who was known as Pietro Malchione in the United States. In 1909 Pietro, 13, arrived on the ship Berlin, to a world totally different from where his journey began in the village of Carife in Campagna, Italy.
Pietro's story is not romantic. His mother had passed away several years before and his father's new wife had children of her own, and she decided Pietro was not to obtain the family business or any inheritance. So Pietro left behind his two brothers, who would live the rest of their lives in Carife, and moved to the New World. From New York he ended up in Pennsylvania, where his four sons became mushroom farmers in Kennett, the self-proclaimed Mushroom Capital of the World. One of those sons is my grandfather. Carife was not on our itinerary when we visited Italy, not because it didn't interest us, but because it seemed impossible to get there. The train did not arrive anywhere close, and the only bus was a 3.5-hour ride that started in Naples at 7am and returned from Carife at 3pm two days a week. But on our last night in Naples, our AirBnB hostess told us her friend would drive us to Carife for half the cost of a taxi. With no planning or investigation into possible long lost relatives still in the area, we traveled to the land of my forefathers the following day. The village was closer to the city than we thought, just a 1.5 hour drive in a tiny car that zipped around tractor trailers and through traffic on a highway that hugged the coastline before traversing into the mountains. From the highway a steep one-lane dirt road, which pushed the tiny car to its limits, led us through an olive grove and to Carife. We got out of the car and looked around. The village was on the edge of a hill, overlooking the rest of Campagna and its olive groves and evergreens. Hilly, cobblestone streets hugged by multicolored homes with red roofs went in every direction. The town seemed desolate as we walked, hoping to find someone who knew of the Melchionne family. After several blocks of admiring the architecture and views, we spotted an older man walking towards us. We practiced the little Italian we knew. Now our mission was to begin. "Conosci i Melchionne?" Do you know the Melchionnes? His brow narrowed and eyes squinting, he asked which Melchionnes. The tiny town had four different families with that name. We had no answer. Realizing our Italian was not up to par, the man walked us to a pizzeria not far from where we met. Inside were two men playing checkers, an older woman at the counter preparing espresso, and a pizza maker who appeared to be in his twenties- and who, we found out, spoke Italian, English and Spanish - a translator who knew everyone in town! Upon realizing we only had a few hours in Carife, our new friend began frantically calling everyone with the last name Melchionne, as I wrote down the name of every relative, starting with Pietro, I could think of. We spent the following few hours speaking with older men and women who entered the pizzeria to figure out if any of them was a relative of mine. One woman even brought in her family tree; she heard me say there was a Helen in my family, and so thought it might be the same Helen in her family. Another man brought us into the municipality to bring up records, of which the town keeps on file for everyone who was ever born, married, or died in Carife. After this great effort we came to a sad conclusion; none of the Melchionnes in modern Carife appears to be relatives of mine. According to the town records, Pietro's family had passed away in Carife and their descendants moved away years ago. Shortly after this realization was made it was almost time to return to Naples to catch our evening train back to Rome. But before that, we had some time to look around town again. There was an old cemetery that was closed after 1980, when an earthquake killed many. A memorial on the side of the municipality commemorated those who were lost. The date of the tragedy was November 23, 1980, or thirty-eight years to the day before our visit. Also on the sides of the building were two lists of names, each of the men who left the village to fight in a world war and never returned. I wondered if those men fought against Americans, then realized it didn't really matter. Like so many small, quaint villages, Carife holds a hidden history, obscured by its curtain of tranquility, smiles, views of rolling hills and olive groves, and a pretty plaza. The appearance of a tiny paradise is betrayed by the old cemetery, which filled up prematurely when the earthquake hit, and the names of men lost in both World Wars written on the sides of the municipality building. But it is betrayed even more by the village septuagenarians, cut off from relatives in chaotic times before the inventions of Facebook, the internet, and even phonebooks helped us stay in touch. These people took time out of their regular days to step inside a restaurant and talk to two foreign strangers, with the hope of connecting with family they've never met but know exist still visible in their eyes. Carife is a beauty undercut by uncertainty, perhaps a perfect symbol for much of Italy, or Earth for that matter, at this moment in time.
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While in Chachapoyas, we took a couple of day trips with a budget group tour agency. Chachapoyas, at least in May 2018, was perfect for visiting because the tourism industry was strong enough to provide us with an exciting litany of options but the hordes of tourists that make planning a trip to Cuzco and Machu Picchu difficult weren't around. One could literally come up with his itinerary the night before a trek, whether with a tour agency or via public transportation. The iPeru office in the central plaza was particularly helpful in helping us decide what to do. And so on our third day, we made a day trip to the waterfall of Gocta, one of the tallest waterfalls in the world. In fact, depending on who you ask, Gocta is anywhere from the third to the fifteenth-tallest waterfall in the world. The official height of a cataract depends on which measurement technique is used; someone can count each different section as an individual waterfall or use their collective heights together. Gocta is composed of two cataracts, one directly below the other, which explains the variance in superlatives for the site. This was the one place I did not want to miss while in Chachapoyas. There are some experiences that can't be replicated by anything else. One is the thrill of hiking and sweating towards the ever-growing sound of falling water, the moisture in the air steadily increasing, then finally being able to soak yourself in the glory of the falls and your own sense of accomplishment, taking in the energy of the stream and relaxing in the knowledge that you made it. Another is getting buzzed, totally unplanned, with great company and while making new friends. Our Gocta trip was special, somehow coming through on both counts. The one hour ride to the town of Cocachimba, one of two towns from which to hike to Gocta, took us downhill on thin, curving two-laned roads hugging the hills. My headache from the altitude had gotten worse since visiting Kuelap the day before, but was melting away as I peered out the window and the vegetation steadily became more lush and tropical. The department of Amazonas in Peru, like many others, can take you though multiple ecosystems in a mind-numbingly short amount of time. This also meant we were heading into prime mosquito territory. Looking around the bus, we recognized some tourists who had accompanied our tour to Kuelap, including an older Peruvian-Canadian couple who wore easy-to-spot, wide-brimmed hats. The husband was particularly identifiable, if not by his appearance than by the fact that he brought up to the group, on at least four separate occasions, that he had visited Machu Picchu and Cuzco eight times, during our time in Kuelap. Cocachimba is idyllic. A small town taking advantage of its location with a view of the falls from 5 kilometers out, it has an efficient system for tourism and warm, inviting weather and people. The climate reminded me of Janina's hometown of Oxapampa. There is only one path to Gocta from Cocachimba, and the tourism office is near its entrance, allowing the the town to essentially funnel in tourists and their cash, although only 100 people are allowed on the trail per day. At the office we paid our entry fee and some of us put on insect repellent. I had brought some but didn't end up needing it. Standing next to me was Mrs. Machu-Picchu-eight-times, already covered head-to-toe in green pants and long sleeves along with her giant hat, who fervently fired a bottle's worth of repellent onto herself and into the air, enough to cover herself, me, and at least an entire firetruck. She and Mr. Eight-Times then climbed on their horses and started the trail. We elected to walk. Although we started the tour with a guide and a busload of people, the trail did not seem crowded, as different groups went at their own paces and the "guide" simply stayed behind, making sure not to lose anybody. The dirt trail to the falls was mostly downhill, and the dark path was soft from the humidity and covered in tropical shade. Immediately we came across the several rustic wooden bodegas to buy snacks and shared a pitcher of freshly squeezed orange juice from a local woman whose home was located on the trail. There were also spots to buy ice cream and papa rellena, a typical dish composed of mashed and fried potatoes with beef and spices as filling. Despite being only roughly ten minutes into the trek, a pattern in our group was already developing. As I walked, Janina and Yariri steadily fell behind. At one point I thought the girls were struggling since they were wearing basic sneakers, until I remembered they successfully passed by the hikers that wore hundreds of dollars' worth of gear on Machu Picchu Mountain, all while sporting regular t-shirts and tennis shoes. Janina and Yariri would be a nightmare for the marketing departments at REI, Patagonia, and the like. They were busy enjoying each other's company, stopping every few minutes for selfies, and most importantly, catching up on family gossip. After all, when you have nearly fifty cousins, the gossip takes a while to get through. I didn't feel patient enough to listen to gossip about people I didn't know (or barely knew), and stayed a bit ahead of the girls while making our way towards the cataract. Throughout the walk there were several spots to view Gocta, which was slowly increasing in size and in sound. The moisture in the air was increasing noticeably as we approached the falls, and there was a constant smell reminiscent of wet leaves after a refreshing rain. At about two and a half hours into the hike this changed and the trail became parching when it stopped cutting through the forest. Now it hugged a hillside, the trail became dry and dusty, and the shade lifted. To our left was a rare wooden guardrail, protecting us from the precipice leading about three hundred feet down to the river. But after we walked around the bend, we could spot the mist spraying from the pool of water at the bottom of the falls, about half a kilometer further down the path. Upon laying eyes on this sight, our pace picked up in anticipation. Janina and I had visited waterfalls countless times in Matucana, where we first met and started dating. But this was a different beast. Unlike the waterfalls in Matucana, we could barely approach, let alone get under, this one. Thundering Gocta generated a wind that could make someone lose his balance, and the noise level made it impossible to communicate unless we resorted to yelling. The three of us dried off our glasses, in vain, as the water and mist seemed to come from all directions. Although we weren't under the waterfall, we were certainly in Gocta. Soon enough we were dripping wet from head to toe by the mere splash from the falls. Regardless, I carefully stepped over the slick rocks down to the pool under Gocta to try to take a dip in the water. Within fifty feet, my boots were slipping, I could barely see through the mist, and was questioning the safety of this excursion. More importantly, the water at Gocta comes from the frigid Andes. Each step forward made me think it wasn't worth taking this risk if the end result would be to freeze alone in the water. A small group of young men did end up taking a dip, but hadn't planned ahead and took off everything but their underwear. It wouldn't matter, since their clothes would get just as wet next to the falls as inside the pool. I remained fine observing from my spot. Realizing this was as close as I would get, I stopped and took a moment to appreciate Gocta. The unending roar, combined with what I could still see of the continuous stream of water through my lenses, was hypnotizing, but also energizing. A smile came across my face almost immediately. I felt the weariness from the morning wash away, replaced by a feeling of excitement. A wave of energy seemed to emanate from the falls and permeate the surroundings. Soon enough Janina and Yariri worked up the courage and joined. There was a feeling that nowhere else on the planet would beat where we were at that moment. We took photos, none of which came out becuase of the mist. The way back to Cocachimba was more difficult, not only because it was uphilll but since the sun had started to shine more brightly on the trail. In a short matter of time all of our clothes were dry from the sun. Our water bottles were running low too. We were going up, step by step, with Janina and Yariri continuing the latest gossip in their circles of family and friends, when one of us spotted a sign for a store about halfway between the falls and Cocachimba. We took the detour, stepping into a narrower dirt path and brushing aside the large green leaves leaning in, and ending up in the middle of a small complex of several wooden shacks. A señora stepped out of one of them and we asked to buy water and to use the bathroom. Bathrooms she had, she explained, but no water. Only huarapo, a sugar cane liquor. Obviously not the same, but we bought and split a pitcher of the cool sugary drink as we rested and listened to the señora. She invited us inside a wooden building with thatched roof and dirt floor, where we took advantage of the cooler temperature. Roosters waddled in an out of the room as we talked for about half an hour, the señora telling us of her family and Cocachimba before Gocta became a destination. Apparently her home was always located in the side of the trail towards Gocta, but only recently have they been able to take in extra funds by catering to visitors. Initially she only addressed Janina and Yariri, with me awkwardly at the table but outside of the conversation, but she started talking to me after Janina explained that I spoke Spanish too. This is a phenomena that happens often in rural Peru; I will say something in Spanish, then the person will answer in Spanish but continue to assume I don't speak the language. In fact, they will even assume this as I vainly attempt to explain that I speak the language, until Janina plays the role of authority on the matter and literally tells them the same thing. Why this happens is a mystery to me, but it's a good bet that this woman had talked to plenty of gringos who knew "donde esta el bano" (where is the bathroom) or "cuanto esta cerveza?" (how much is beer?) and nothing else. To be fair, that was pretty much my whole interaction with her until we all sat down in her home. The señora must have liked us, because before we left she gave us free shots of macerados, or fruit macerated with pisco. It was just what three dehydrated hikers alone on a trail needed. After that, the rest of the hike went by a lot faster. With the mix of exercise and liquor, I soon found myself getting hungry, and so started walking a bit with purpose and more hurriedly to town. Janina and Yariri stayed at their pace. I figured they were fine, safe together, and if anything happened to me, they'd find me on the path anyway. Despite the faster pace, I arrived around 3 PM to Cocachimba. I snagged a papa rellena from a stand for 1 sol and walked inside the restaurant that was included in the tour. Every set lunch had soup and a main dish, plus fresh juice and dessert. As I was finishing my soup, Janina and Yariri entered, smiling and talking still. They sat next to me, oogling what remained in my bowl before I played defense and explained theirs were coming out soon. There were menus to order extra food as well, but nobody wanted to pay more. Still, curiosity got the best of me, and I looked through the menus to see what the local dishes were. Each menu had a photo of Gocta on the front, and underneath was a statement proclaiming Cocachimba as home to the tallest cataract in the world. Case solved? Lunch was the last time we'd see the Eight Times Machu Picchu couple, who decided to stay at a hotel in Cocachimba that had a pool and view of Gocta. Of the two, I preferred the husband over the wife, despite his humble bragging. Mrs. Eight Times seemed nice, but instead of communicating verbally, chose to awkwardly stare at you with widened, unblinking eyes. It gave the aura of an owl peering through your soul. I swear I saw her lick her lips while staring at the children during lunch once. Perhaps, being from Canada, she was a native French speaker not comfortable with her English or Spanish skills and was searching for a way to communicate... any way... or maybe she was just really socially awkward. Either way, I would not miss the staring. "Chuchuhuasi" ("choo-choo wah-see"). In three years of living in Peru and several trips back, I had never heard of this drink. Yet after finishing my meal, here I was still slightly buzzed from our water search excursion, with a much older Peruvian-Japanese gentlemen holding a shot glass, filled to the brim and against my forehead, repeating the name of the drink to me. "Chuchuhuasi!" This time was more enthusiastic and he showed a toothy smile, excited to share this drink with a foreigner. A few drops of liquid fell from the glass as he moved his hand for emphasis. In Peru, it's considered rude to turn someone down if they invite you a drink. You can turn down the following drinks, but the first one is pretty impossible to deny, especially among men. The culture is also much more respective of elders than American society. So I took the shot glass, gave a hearty "salud!" with the gentleman, and drank chuchuhuasi for the first (and so far, only) time. I will never forget the taste, a strangely familiar herbal flavor preceding a torrent of pure bitterness, which was immediately followed by the realization that this is practically moonshine. After this realization, I looked up and thanked the old man who offered me the drink. I'm not sure what face I was making but the man laughed and made a point to tell Janina that chuchuhuasi is also an aphrodisiac, which he must have known was news to us, and which he apparently found hilarious. After the chuchuhuasi, we were herded up like sheep back into the van for Chachapoyas. Group tours are always a weird dynamic; you're free for a bit to explore, but in the end can feel like a walking ATM to be moved from one spot to the next, each one a new place to hand out your money. You also never know who you'll be paired with, and tourism in exotic places attracts the most exclusive personalities. As I peered out the window of the van, the small paradise of Cocachimba faded away, chuchuhuasi spun in my head, and I fell asleep to the sounds of tires rumbling over the dirt road towards the highway. Our trip to Gocta had exceeded all our expectations. Finally, after getting me through grad school and saving up vacation time and money, we went abroad again. The wait of nearly two years (658 days!) was longer than we'd like- and we don't plan on waiting so long again! This next trip was to start off in a very familiar place- the central Sierra of Peru, specifically Huancayo and of course, my old Peace Corps site of Vitis. Afterwards we'd be off to spend a few days in Lima before heading to Costa Rica for a week. This included the 8-hour overnight bus ride from Lima to Huancayo, something I became very familiar with while in Peace Corps. The bus leaves the flat desert megapolis of Lima late at night. In the evening hours there are congestion and traffic to pass through, until finally the quieter suburbs of Chaclacayo and Chosica are visible from your window. Immediately after leaving Chosica behind, the bus starts making it up the Andes on the Central Highway that zigzags and cuts through the Andean foothills, which at the beginning have almost no vegetation and look like giant sand dunes against the light of a full moon. Cold starts to creep in after passing our old home of Matucana and then San Mateo. The bus heaters and blankets provided are normally enough to keep warm, but outside the air has a chill to it; you’re in the Sierra now. At 15,681 feet, icy Ticlio is home to the highest point of the central highway, and from there the road descends to more tolerable Sierran altitudes, and, eventually, to the jungle. Once you leave Lima behind, this trip is undeniably beautiful, at least when you get a window seat and it’s not too dark to look outside. The common unpredictabilities of all land travel in Peru are still present; is the bathroom working? Will this trip take 8 hours or be delayed with no warning to passengers?, WHEN IS REFRIGERIO (SNACK TIME)?!, etc. Often you’ll wonder if the movie being shown is appropriate for family audiences. Violent martial arts movies and the movie Taken starring Liam Neeson were popular bus movies in Peru from 2008-10. Thanks to Peruvian buses, my appreciation for both Bruce Lee and Liam Neeson as actors were developed at the same time. That is a sentence no one has ever written before. You know you’re in the Sierra when you get into an argument over mal viento (“bad air”). This is the phantom wind that makes one sick by the mere act of hitting you when you're warm and the air is cold. My poor mother was once berated by a woman after opening a window when we were still in the suburbs of Lima (with the bus’s heater already on!). It was stuffy and the heat bordering on sultry. “We’ll all get sick since this bus is going to Ticlio!,” the woman explained to my mom, in a tone that was a mix of fear and annoyance over my mom's ignorance on dangerous window air. Another woman chimed in and tried to guilt trip my mother by saying there was a baby in the back, who would surely get sick if the window was open. My mother was unprepared for the argument, since strangers wholeheartedly objecting to the free flow of fresh air isn’t a normal part of travel in the USA. In Peru it comes with the package. In this case most passengers silently nodded as the other women spoke. So my mother obliged and closed the window. Then we promptly sat in our seats, positioned our pillows and electronic devices for the trip, and enjoyed the same comfort that potatoes must have while in a microwave. Of course, with the window closed none of us were hit by the mal viento, so these potatoes got to Huancayo safe. Especially the baby potatoes.
For this trip Huancayo was just used as a stepping-stone to Vitis, so we only stayed there for a day before heading to Vitis early next morning. We were still able to visit my favorite place in Huancayo, the Park of Huanca Identity (Parque de la Identidad Huanca). My favorite chicha lady who I regularly frequented from 2008 to 2010 was still there- as was her famous peanut chicha. I still have not found this drink anywhere else! If you like peanut butter, you would love peanut chicha. If you don’t like peanut butter, well, I don’t believe you. What I’m trying to say is, you would love this chicha. Despite the short time, I think the others got a good feeling of the essence of Huancayo. The best way to describe this city is to imagine a small village in the middle of the Andes, who all of a sudden experienced a migration of 300,000 new neighbors in a week. Huancayo is full of narrow sidewalks that are chock full of uniformed school children, men in jackets and women in bowler hats, with numerous combis whizzing by that shoot soot into the air. You never feel alone in Huancayo; on the contrary, I always find myself double-checking my belongings to make sure I don't get pickpocketed since one is always surrounded by people. All day Huancainos are bustling back and forth from home, work, school, market, or one of the thousands of menus and pollerias, and every sidewalk is just one size too small to fit the number of people without some incidental shoulder-bumping. Although it's a city, it's very true to its roots- the food, artesian works, and people are undeniably Andean and uninfluenced by the changes brought on by huge influxes of tourism in other parts of Peru. Huancayo, the Central Andes, it was good to be back. |
AuthorBrad Goodman Archives
January 2019
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