Puerta Pulache - A Little Slice of Paradise

As of today I have been out of Pulache for a few days, but I thought I would write about the village itself because its a really lovely place. I also had a piece written already which has vanished (thanks google) so I am rewriting it in a state of bloody-mindedness. But here we go!

Moonrise over the lake bed
This is a special little place. To begin with, it's very isolated. The village is in the far north of Peru, about 2 hours from the nearest city, Piura, 45 minutes from the nearest town of any size, and 1 hour from the Ecuadorian border. You won't find it on Google Maps, you have to do some sleuthing on satellite mode to even find the dirt road that leads there. It is a sleepy hamlet on the edge of the Peruvian map, a long way from the bustle of city life.

The village itself is a windy dirt road with a couple of other dirt roads branching off it, lined with brightly painted adobe houses. Most of the men work in farms producing rice, papaya, potatoes and some chickens, pigs and cows, while the women tend to work around the home. With only 1700 residents, our arrival is probably the biggest thing to ever happen in the 80 odd years the town has existed. Apparently the town is named after a bloke called Diego Pulache, who used to have a farm and inn of sorts in the area with big gates (puertas in Spanish), which grew into a village as people migrated inland in the 1930s.

Rush Hour
It is stunningly beautiful. A far cry from the desolate coastal deserts around the last project in Huarmey, Puerta Pulache is surrounded by lush forests and mountains that rise in picturesque rows in every direction. Just down the road one way is a huge lake teeming with tasty fish that are caught by the easy-laughing local fishermen; down the other way is a small river that's a great spot for post-work dip in the heat of the afternoon. On a day off, we climbed one of the nearby mountains to with a local friend to get a look from higher up, and the views were spectacular in every direction: 

Not visible: 6 very sweaty gringos, one very amused Pulacheno

The smallness of the town makes like interesting in unexpected ways. For example, there are no markets or supermarkets of any kind beyond the odd corner shop, and they only stock snacks and fizzy drinks. To get fresh fruit and vegetables, you have to get to catch the vegie merchants who roll around in a pickup truck at sunset with whatever they've picked up that day. If you want milk, you need to find the guy whose brother in the next hamlet has cows, and arrange to pick it up when it comes in. Fancy some meat? Ask around the village and find out who is slaughtering a pig today, or ask someone for one of their chickens. That said, if you have an Inca Kola craving, that liquid yellow crack is never hard to find.
Some of the tastier locals. Often found roaming the tent area on base and dipping into the scraps bin.
In the end, while I was having a fantastic time in this charming place, my time with All Hands has come to an end. My body is falling apart a bit with a string of minor injuries, but more importantly, the travel bug is biting again. The work has been hard but so emotionally rewarding, and it has been wonderful getting to know so many great people, and actually having them stick around for more than a couple of days has been nice!

Most of all, these past two months have been so incredibly cathartic for me after my experiences in the Christchurch earthquakes. One of the most enduring emotions I had from that time in my life was an intense feeling of helplessness. Unable to do anything about a catastrophe that was a daily threat to my life, frustrated by the sisyphean task of trying to rebuild what we had before the disaster, and powerless to do anything about the damage except try to exist around it. Through All Hands, I was able to lend my hands in the service of others, and in doing so, provide a tangible difference in the recovery of a community from a disaster of their own. The feeling that one person could make a difference and knowing that there were many other people who wanted to do the same has helped heal some deep spiritual scars, and for that I will always be thankful to the organisation and to everyone I met on the project.
Goodbye Bouganvilia! I will never forget your luscious purple



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