The perfumed bed

Tello and his explorers were hardened travelers. The expeditions took them all over Peru´s remote deserts, mountains and jungles where, come nightfall, they were more often than not dependent on the generosity of locals for lodgings.  And as you may suspect, beggars can’t be choosers. In this story Hernan tells us about one particular bed that the archaeologist never forgot.

Guaman Poma de Ayala - The Author Travels

The perfumed bed

In which it is confirmed that some resting places are definitely more desirable than others

Travelling through the small towns and villages of Peru is something of an adventure. One day we could be staying in a comfortable hotel, but the next we would be in a second rate hostel, the next in a hovel or even in a cave.  And let me tell you a cave was preferable to some of the hotels we have seen. Tello was always meticulous in his personal hygiene, but you can imagine the myriad variety of beds in which he had slept, and the countless bugs and odours to which he had been exposed.

Once, for example, when he arrived at a small coastal town, an excellent room was made available for him complete with a bed made up with impeccable white linen. Unfortunately he was forced to vacate it only a short while after he had slipped between the beautiful snowy sheets, because a whole legion of insects had begun a stealthy advance up his body. Happily he had with him his riding kit, and he was able to stretch out his saddle blanket on the floor and lay down to sleep there, having first surrounded himself with lit candles to keep the bugs at bay. Of all these experiences, there was one that Tello never forgot. His night in the perfumed bed.  

Let them eat cake

Panetón (panettone) is a family favourite in Peru. In fact Peru is the second largest consumer of panetón in the world, beaten only by Italy.

The domed shaped yeast bread, traditionally flavoured with candied fruit peel and raisins, is said to hail from fifteenth century Milan. Nowadays all sorts of delicious chocolate versions are available, but in Lima the old school panetón reigns supreme.

Indeed there is a kind of hierarchy of brands and in our family, when wishing to impress, it´s not unknown for lesser (no less delicious) brands to find their way into the boxes of their more upmarket relatives.

Panetón crowds the supermarket aisles in late December, and is eaten at midnight on Christmas Eve accompanied by industrial strength sweet steaming hot chocolate. But you don´t have to wait for Christmas to enjoy it.

In this story Hernan tells how, on the long arduous Marañon expedition, Tello´s deputy and head bean counter Toribio Mejía Xesspe is sent one from his wife. 

Let them eat cake 
In which the odyssey of a panetón is rather rudely cut short

On the eve of his birthday, whilst we were in Casma, Mejía Xesspe received a panetón that his wife had sent to him. The gracious lady, mindful no doubt of her husband’s companions, had sent a large cake that was plenty big enough for all of us. But we only got one tiny slice each, the excuse being that we would do well to save enough to share out again once we got to the other side of the Marañón basin

Señora Mejía Xesspe had probably not imagined when she sent the gift, that her cake would be so zealously preserved, but it’s worth mentioning here that Mejía Xesspe’s meticulous thrift always delighted Tello, because he was able to miraculously balance the books with his stringent economies and strict rationing.

Months passed and we soon forgot all about the precious panetón. Nevertheless, it unexpectedly came to light again one day in Pacasmayo. 

The unforgettable millenium bean feast

The Paracas peninsula in the region of Ica is one of my favourite places on earth. 

Situated on the coastal plain just a few hours south of Lima,  it´s a haunting place of rare beauty, where the light plays off desert cliffs reaching down to beaches whose only inhabitants are seals and sea birds. 

The peninsula sands are also littered with archaeological sites, witness to the ancient peoples who depended on the area´s rich marine resources.

Tello began explorations there in 1925 and was eventually to unearth hundreds of tombs containing funeral bundles fardos yielding up a wealth of artefacts and the exquisite, finely woven textiles for which the area is now famous. 

Ica is also the birth place of  Peru´s beloved national beverage, the infamous Pisco; a drink that my friends have christened the happy drink and which indeed has brought me many a happy moment. 

Hernan's story from Ica  tells of a time when the team were treated to a very memorable meal. 

The unforgettable millennium bean feast

In which a lazy cook unexpectedly tickles our boys’ taste buds – and in doing so proves an interesting theory

During one of our excavations in Ica, the work schedule and the budget was so tight that there was no allowance for a cook, all the cooking was left up to us, the expedition members. We took it in turns to prepare the food, but our meals were truly horrible. Conscious that his team was wasting precious time in the kitchen and eager to improve our awful diet, Tello halted work one day and asked around amongst the peons we had hired if there was anyone who knew how to cook. 

Public enemy number one

Lima 1992.  A winter´s evening, just a couple of weeks after our arrival. I hear fireworks popping outside in the street. The sound intensifies. Suddenly Mama Mery is running through the house screaming "abre la boca, abre la boca".  I have no idea what this means. My sister in law scoops my two year old from his grandma´s bed in the front bedroom where he is watching cartoons. I am bemused and befuddled on the stairs. And then an almighty bang rocks the windows.

detail from a Paracas textile held in the MNAA Lima
taken from : La cultura Paracas - treinta siglos de arte textil

This was the night Sendero terrorists killed the local university´s night watchman. He used to sit in a plastic chair, two doors down from our home on Las Nazarenas. We, along with the neighbours, took it in turn to offer him the occasional sandwich or hot drink to keep the cold at bay.

Turns out it wasn´t fireworks after all, it was automatic gunfire.

Then they threw a grenade at him.

Later I find out abre la boca means open your mouth; the local civil defence advice to avoid ear drums splitting in an explosion.

My brother in law had been tinkering with his old VW outside the house at the time of the attack, a bullet hole in the bodywork testament to a lucky escape. The family was anxious  for days afterwards, fearful that the killers would think he had seen their faces as they ran past. This was the Peru I first knew. A people stunted by fear and suspicion.

I was strung out and frustrated. The initial delight at living in a house with humming birds in the garden was wearing thin, but getting to know this beautiful country seemed next to impossible. Travel to the more remote regions was blighted by those twin goons terrorism and crime, and violence and murder was commonplace. So I took refuge in armchair travel and read Tio Hernan´s stories. They transported me to a gentler time.

But even back then bandits were a thorn in the side of our intrepid travelers. As this story shows. 


Public enemy number one (and two)
In which our explorers have a narrow escape and find that a pistol comes in handy  

A battalion of army engineers was working on the extension of a landing strip in one of the northern coastal towns where Tello was studying some tombs. He had gotten to know some of the commanders and one day,seeing one of them with several pistols stuck into his belt, the archaeologist smiled and said to him: "You're certainly well armed there Commander. Can you believe it, I've travelled all over Peru, many times alone, and I've never carried so much as a small penknife". 

It was true. I never knew him carry any weapons with him on his travels. He did, however, once tell me of a rather swashbuckling incident that had happened many years before.

Mummies or daddies

Photograph Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty images

Arguably one of Tello´s greatest contributions to archaeology was his work at Chavin de Huantar, and his travels frequently took him through the beautiful Callejón de Huaylas in the mountains of Ancash. The stunning landscape is home to some equally picturesque inhabitants that Hernan delights in describing in the Anecdotes. 

Hernan loved to poke fun at small town manners and conventions. When I arrived in Peru´s capital city many years later things had changed. But when I stepped off the plane and found myself thrust into the heart of what was still, in some ways, a very conservative Andean family, there was still plenty of room for disaster.

Hernan´s hankering for a freer kind of life had launched him on the adventures I was reading about more than half a century later, and his sense of humour, which shone through in stories like this one, was a breath of fresh air.

It felt like I had found a kindred spirit.


Mummies or daddies
In which things get a little saucy at the home of the sisters

On one of his regular visits to the beautiful Huaylas canyon valley, Tello arrived at one of Ancash's many charming country towns. As always, the first thing he did was to set about finding any local archaeology aficionados.

All roads lead to Casma

The river Marañon, a tributary of the Amazon, rises to the north of Lima and flows along the eastern flank of the Andes before turning inland, carving through the mountains and continuing on through the rainforest on the other side.

In 1937 Tello got funding from the Rockefeller Foundation to explore the upper Marañon river basin and in June of that year the team set off north from the capital out onto the coastal desert plain, where they were to begin by exploring the river valleys

Some unexpected discoveries  led  to an unscheduled and highly successful three months stay excavating in the Casma valley, and the expedition was to eventually last an extraordinary six months and take them as far north as Cochabamba and Chachapoyas.

This little adventure occurs early on in their travels. Money, as always, is tight, and Hernan is just beginning to get used to life on the road and Tello´s robust temper.


All roads lead to Casma
In which our young adventurer's heroic undertakings take a wrong turn

When we left to explore the Marañón river basin, there were so many of us that we set out in two cars. Doctor Tello led the group. Then there was Mejía Xesspe, our assistant director at the National Anthropology Museum, and the one who was in charge of logistics and budget, the illustrator Pedro Rojas Ponce, the North American anthropologist Donald Collier and his two fellow students Honour McCreary and Barbara Loomis. As usual I went along as illustrator and Tello’s campaign secretary. 

We started off at Huaral and continued on beyond Sayán, stopping off and excavating wherever we found cemeteries and pre-Columbian ruins. we stayed for several days studying tombs in Lachay and then went on through Vilcahuara, San Nicholas and the port of Supe

At that time what served as a highway was little more than a collection of tracks that changed according to the whim of the dunes and the winds that erased them.  It meant that the drivers had to be very skillful. Ours were good on the tarmac streets of Lima, but they were hard pressed to negotiate such an uneven expanse of shifting desert dunes.

We were making our way toward Casma, descending the long incline just past Las Zorras, when we started sliding all over the place in the sand, struggling to keep the cars on the track. The engines began to rattle worryingly and we decided to get down and push. 

The photographer

Marcahuamachuco - David Almeida, Lima Peru

As I read through the Anecdotes I was struck by the dveloping picture of this band of brothers; their unique individual characters and the bonds that formed as they travelled the length and breadth of the country, working, eating and sleeping together.

In June 1937 Tello took off to explore Peru's northern coastal river valleys and the upper Marañon river basin. The expedition was to become one of the team's most important scientific endeavours, taking a total of six months and yielding a wealth of discoveries, all logged and illustrated by Hernan.

On the way back they stopped off at a hacienda just outside Chilia in the morthwestern highlands. By this time the expedition was reduced to a small core group and it's not entirely clear who the bumbling protagonist of this tale of manners is. But Hernan has some wickedly ironic fun describing ...


The photographer
In which it becomes apparent that archaeologists are not always good diplomats

We arrived in Yanasara, by car from Huamachuco, after having crossed the river Marañón in a basket sling bridge. Three days on horseback out of Yanasara, and we arrived at La Deliciana hacienda. 

Tello (right) and his assistant Mejia Xesspe crossing the Marañón.

 Hernan is seated behind, wearing his distinctive hat.

We were relieved to get to the property which was situated high up in the hills. We had no desire to spend the night further down in the muggy, hot air of the valley. It wasn’t the heat that worried us so much, as the fact that the valley lay in a zone well known for the virulent and debilitating ‘verruga’ disease.