Monday, August 27, 2012

Cusco's New Airport: A Threat and a Promise

Getting to Machu Picchu is relatively easy these days. I've been there three times, each time with my children. The youngest was around a year old and not yet walking, the first time we went. We took a train as far as Cusco, and then another train. In fact, there is no road to Machu Picchu; one must either hike in along the Inca Trail, or take the train. I suppose one could attempt to boat as far as the base town of Aguas Calientes (aka Machu Picchu Village), but I don't know whether that's a truly feasible option.

Still, lack of roads aside, it's not hard to get to Machu Picchu. Visits to the site form part of whirlwind tours that are enjoyed by young and old, hale and frail alike, who barrel through the place on the heels of their tour guides. The site swarms with tourists. According to this article, the site receives some 2200 visitors per day.

The city of Cusco similarly does not suffer a lack of tourism. It is estimated that some 1.5 million tourists visit Cusco, with its population of less than 500,000, per year. The city is awash with restaurants, hotels, shops, travel agents and tour operators to fit the budget of any traveller. And yet one of Cusco's great charms is that it has a sort of rustic, ramshackle feel to it. Treading the cobbled streets, past low stone archways strung with brightly coloured fabrics, the breathy lament of pan flutes mingling with the smells of cooking - and sometimes of livestock - in the sharp thin air, one can forget the hubbub of tourism and feel apart and at peace. There's a glimpsing of something more, in some parts of Peru, that affects even the most jaded of travellers.

While snatches of this feeling may be caught in Cusco, they are much more common in the village of Chinchero. Chinchero - the "birthplace of the rainbow" in Quechua - is some 28 kilometres to the northeast of Cusco, and over 300 metres higher in elevation. It is a stop along the tourist trail, but most visitors arrive in tour buses passing between Cusco and the Sacred Valley and stay only a short time before carrying on. I doubt the inhabitants of Chinchero much mind - they seem largely unconcerned with the tourists passing through. The people of Chinchero have largely maintained their traditional life from pre-European days. They are an indigenous population who speak Quechua, and who sustain traditions that have been heavily watered down and repackaged for cultural consumption in other parts of the country. The women of Chinchero are gifted spinners and weavers, and the people continue to use traditional farming techniques to grow potatoes and lima beans, and to raise llamas and alpacas.

So I was deeply saddened to learn on Thursday that the Peruvian government has passed a law to expropriate land in Chinchero to build a new airport there. The airport is being billed as an economic boon to the area, promising desperately needed new jobs in an admittedly impoverished region, and expanded/improved service to Cusco and Machu Picchu. The BBC reported on the concern that the new airport would only create more taxing tourism at the Machu Picchu site, while threatening the natural and cultural heritage of Chinchero.

Of course, there is also the claim that a new airport will be safer. In 1970, a plane crashed at the Cusco airport, killing 99 people, and the airport often shuts down or runs at lowered capacity due to weather concerns and its mountainous location. However, so far no one has produced any evidence to suggest that it is an unsafe airport, or that the new airport will be safer. Rather, the official line is oriented toward the economic benefits and opportunities for increased tourism that a new airport will bring. On that front, I fear, the plan will do more harm than good.

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