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| Denny and I enjoying post-trek pizza in Lima (non-poultry) |
You are what you eat, they say, and at 16,000 feet neither Denny, my 19-year-old nephew, nor I wanted to be called chicken. And so it was that one night's dinner turned out instead to be "Lucky."
Dawn breaks over Lima's airport. Nine sleepy trekkers cautiously look each other over. Sergio, our bearded guide from Mexico, has guided one of our group to the summit of Aconcagua. The rest of us are impressed, a little nervous -- we suspect Aconcagua isn't in our own future.
Northbound by bus to Huaraz, a small Peruvian valley town in the shadow of 22,000 foot Huascaran. Two nights in Huaraz at a small, attractive hotel whose trim alpine lines betray its Swiss ownership. A day hike to 15,000 feet. A good climb, fun. Growing, pleased awareness that we all share an intense curiosity about the world around us -- joined with that ability to laugh at ourselves and our problems that makes for excellent traveling companions.
After this short acclimatization, to the altitude and to each other, we're off for the mountains where we are to begin our nine day trek through the Cordillera Blanca. Our bus climbs to the continental divide, a thousand feet higher than the summit of Mt. Rainier. We're made giddy, both by the rarified atmosphere and by the panorama of some of the most spectacular peaks of snow and ice to be seen on earth.
Our first camp, over 12,000 feet. An army of attendants appears, its members introduced to us. Cook staff. Burro tenders. A man on a horse which would serve as our ambulance, should the need arise. (It doesn't.) Sixty-year-old Cerilo, whose shrill "Buenos dias! wakes us each morning as he brings hot tea to our tents -- and who out-hikes us all with amazing nonchalance, as we struggle over each day's high-altitude pass.
We speak no Quechua. We speak, at best, only high school Spanish. But we develop real fondness for these friendly, smiling helpers as the days pass. And we feel affection also for our non-human camp followers. A herd of friendly, patient, hard-working burros. A horse or two. A flock of chickens.
Chickens?
You bet, a flock of plump white hens. They are a tight knit group, clucking and fussing in a matronly manner among themselves. They seem pleased to be included on the outing. We trekkers admire their insouciance -- but we are, well, concerned about their future. We're not sons and daughters of the soil, you understand. "Chicken" to us, in the sense of "food," comes from Safeway in a shrink-wrapped package.
Each day we cross a pass of 15 or 16 thousand feet. Each night we make camp at 12 or 13 thousand feet. The hiking is, as Mountain Travel promised, strenuous. But our exertions bear sweet fruit! -- the Andean peaks, the crystalline lakes, the waterfalls, the occasional lush green meadow, the sense of achievement and exhilaration that flow from awareness of our growing physical endurance.
We work hard. We burn a lot of calories. We look forward to every meal. And we are not disappointed. Each night, the workers set up the dining tent. We drift toward it from our own tents, one by one, as dinner's prepared. The boxes which the burros so faithfully lug each day up the trail obviously contain many culinary treasures. The meals are impressive and the food is plentiful. The meals include meat. Even ... chicken.
The chickens continue to huddle together each night, usually on the leeward side of the cooking tent where it presumably is warmer. They meet and, it seems, they discuss the trip. Their soft background clucking becomes white noise, soothing and familiar. But it is not a noise that increases in volume as the days pass by.
Like Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians, in fact, the flock seems to dwindle daily, hen by hen. Nothing unseemly ever happens in our presence, you understand. There is no obvious smoking gun -- or, for that matter, bloody hatchet. But "pollo" keeps appearing on our table, and the hens' conversations seem to us -- anthropomorphic city folks that we are -- to take on a tone increasingly edgy and concerned.
In the final days of any doomed civilization, there will be a few alert individuals who, sensing which way the wind is blowing, act decisively to shield themselves from the coming storm. In 1789, I suspect that the nobility of France had certain astute members who found it prudent to speak up for the Rights of Man. And so with us -- one perceptive chicken is seen to be wasting less and less time in gossip with her old companions. This hen strikes out on her own, seeking human friends and allies -- networking, if you will. Spying two or three of us trekkers standing at the fringe of camp, admiring the views and exaggerating our prior adventures, she strolls over as though to join the conversation. She follow trekkers around in a flattering manner. She stands at our feet, looking philosophical and unconcerned. She laughs, I sometimes feel, at our most feeble attempts at humor.
In short, she's got our number. We soon notice her, of course. We start watching her. We begin to look for her, to discuss her, to enjoy her company. In time, we become concerned about her apparently limited future.
This hen's a survivor. After her sisters disappear one by one -- providing us our daily bread, as it were -- only she remains. And at this point, a philosophical cleavage appears among us trekkers, we who until now have seemed monolithic in our unity. Three or four days before we're to emerge from the wild mountains at Hualcayan, where the road back to civilization begins, a debate flares up in the dining tent. We are divided, it appears, into those the Brits would call "wets," who plead for the survivor's life, and those who view the world from a more Hobbesian perspective, as a place bloody red in claw and fang, and in this case redolent of fried chicken grease. The debate begins at breakfast, and continues at dinner. Emotions are intense, the issue touches on life and death, but decorum prevails. A vote. We decide, by a cliffhanger margin of one, to spare the fowl and eat veggies for dinner.
She's a lucky hen, and, indeed, we name her Lucky. Lucky no longer rides -- now alone -- in a black box on the back of a burro. She now is carried personally by one of the burro tenders. She is, and she feels herself to be, royalty.
You may laugh, you may scorn, but this is no dumb cluck -- this chicken knows she has played for major stakes and won. She is suitably grateful. Some of us sit cross legged on the ground before dinner each evening and play hearts. Lucky now sits with us and studies the game. She cocks her head back and forth, following the play of cards. I think she dreams of being a cat, she so obviously tries to purr. She allows us -- almost implores us -- to pet her, to pat her head, to stroke her back feathers.
The last night, camped at Hualcayan, Lucky makes the final leap from potential "pollo arrosto" to human companion. For one final time, we gather after dinner to gaze at the Southern Cross, Alpha Centauri, and the Clouds of Magellan -- starry wonders certainly not viewable in Seattle skies. When Denny and I return to our tent, I find Lucky nesting coquettishly on my sleeping bag. Here I regretfully draw the line, and evict her. Later, however, I awake, puzzled for a moment, in the middle of the night. She is sleeping contentedly, snuggled (again, like a cat) against my side for warmth. She has squeezed her way back into the tent through a gap in the zipper.
But the best of friends must part. A final group photo, with Chris, my chief ally in the battle for Lucky's life, holding her under his arm. A promise from the chief cook -- surely sincere? -- that Lucky will retire to his farm, where her duties for the rest of her natural life will involve only the laying of eggs. A final farewell to our friendly fowl, and we clamber into the bus which soon makes its way gradually back down a twisting road to the valley, passing through beautifully tended fields and picturesque villages.
Peru will never be forgotten. The purity of the Andes touches the soul, and the blinding white image of the Alpamayo pyramid could serve as a mystical, ethereal logo for the entire trip. Denny and I stay in touch with most of our fellow trekkers through e-mail, companions for two weeks who became friends. But for many of us the trek in the Cordillera Blanca will, years from now, be recalled most vividly as "the time we saved that crazy chicken's life."
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